Brother Andre returned as president of St. Aloysius to start the 1958-9 school year.

• He was also elected president of the New Orleans Catholic Prep League which was one member short from '57 with Holy Name of Mary drop­ping back to class B.
• His tenure would be brief because he was appointed provincial of the New Orleans Province in November, swapping places with Brother Mar­tin, who would return to the position as head of Aloysius that he filled until he became leader of the province in 1949.
• The only other noteworthy change at 1137 Esplanade was the publica­tion of the School News, which replaced The Aloysian.

The shocking news for the New Orleans prep community was the unexpected death in July of Jesuit coach Eddie Toribio, who had piloted the Crusader program from 1949-52.

• The Jesuit administration acted quickly to replace him with Ken Tarzetti, a product of the Mississippi Gulf Coast who had been head football coach at Holy Cross and the Blue Jays' head track coach.
• The media cut Tarzetti no slack, tagging his Jays as favorites to win the Catholic league. They had good reason to do so since the Blue and White returned 18 of their 25 lettermen.
• Their stiffest competition was expected to come from Holy Cross where new coach John Kalbacher had 11 lettermen and a strong line.
• Charlie Gaudin of the States-Item picked Aloysius to finish last in the league with a 1-3 record. He put senior Lenny Daigle in his preseason All-Cath­olic backfield.

Andy Douglass's entire coaching staff from 1957 returned for '58.

• Bobby Nuss ('48)
• Henry Perret
• Ernie Smith
• Jack Schommer

• He could, however, field an all-letterman backfield consisting of junior QB Paul Reinhardt, RHB Daigle, LHB Lawrence Hagstette, and FB Nick Bonura.
• Also returning was sophomore Arthur Balser, one of the few kicking specialists in the area in '57.

Andy tried a novel approach to preparing his team for the season.

• He enlisted the help of 27-year-old Jacques Legrand, a Frenchman living in New Orleans, who won the U.S. judo championship.
• Douglass explained in an article in the Dixie Sunday supplement to the Times-Picayune: I've known for some time the potential of judo and what it could do, but I never did link it with football until I saw Jacques demon­strate how he used judo maneuvers and parries, within football rules, to fend off, clear and throw a man. I think that judo could be a great help to all football players and the judo idea of using the other man's power to execute a throw or defense can be applied to football. We are certainly going to try and use it to an advantage.
• Legrand: Protection and defense are important in judo. If it can be applied to football it could be real good. Down at the NOAC my guys are never hurt or injured. I teach them how to fall and defend themselves before they learn how to fight on the mat.

• The new white jerseys followed the college and pro numbering system:
  Backs 10-49, Centers 50-59, Guards 60-69, Tackles 70-79, Ends 80-89.
• The red jerseys were still a hodge-podge with no rhyme or reason to the numbering.

For the first time, Aloysius played in a preseason jamboree.

• They traveled to Houma for the Terrebonne Jamboree August 29.
• Thibodaux High upset the New Orleans visitors 20-0, scoring on a 43y run, a 63y tally by future LSU star Don Schwab, and a 77y double re­verse on the game's last play.

• Q1: Easton scored the first time they got their hands on the ball, driving 58y to score on QB Bobby Terrell's 3y option run in his third start against Aloysius. Bobby's PAT kick hit the crossbar but went over. John­ny Marshall set up the second 6-pointer when he inter­cepted Rein­hardt's pass and returned it to the SA 48 as the period ended.
• Q2: On the second play, Easton pulled a dipsy-do with Charley Gaconi, on his first snap of the season, passing to Terrell for a 33y tally.

Terrell scores Easton's first TD

• Hit hard by graduation like Aloysius, Brookhaven would be opening its season.
• Only nine lettermen returned from the team that downed SA 19-6 in Brookhaven and won the Mississippi South Division.

• Like the Crusaders, the Lumberjacks suffered a smackdown at the hands of Easton, 39-7. They battled East Jefferson to a 7-7 tie in their opener.
• Punter Nick Bonura, who suffered an ankle injury against Brookhaven, would not play.

• Q1: The teams battled to a scoreless deadlock.
• Q2: The Lumberjacks made one serious threat when they got a first down on a roughing the kicker penalty at midfield. That set up an ex­change of punts, the second of which Howard Bynum took on the SA 42 and returned 11y. Three plays moved the ball to the 25. Then Hagstette snagged the fourth down pass on the 3 and brought it out to the 12. Shortly afterward, Markey ended the scoreless deadlock when he bolt­ed 71y up the middle. Balser booted the first of his three PATs.
• Q3: After the teams swapped the ball on two of the eight fumbles on the evening, Spano recovered a bobble by Butch Gatlin at the SA 38. The Crusaders proceeded to march 72y to score on a pass from Rein­hardt to Hagstette from 11y out.
• Q4: The Saints took over following Bynum's punt to their 45. On the first play, Reinhardt heaved a long pass to Hagstette who got behind the secondary and went in for the score. The visitors were threatening again as time ran out. A fourth down pass fell incomplete in the EZ as the horn sounded.

• The big man offensively for the Buccaneers was Carroll LeBlanc. Russ­ell Galliano also contributed from the QB slot.
• The WJ defense boasted Warren Richoux, who recovered four fumbles in the De La Salle game.

• The Saints had faced the Trojans twice, winning both times, 25-6 in 1953 and 40-6 in '54.
• McDonogh had failed to win in four games. Furthermore, a number of coach Joe Salsiccia's lads would be absent or hampered by injuries, including first string E George Best, two starting tackles, and two backs.
• C Karl Sanders and T Leon McKeough joined Markey on Douglass's unable to perform list.

• As was usually the case, the Saints started league play with Jesuit, whom they had defeated four years in a row and five of the last six.
• New coach Tarzetti had no qualms about entrusting his single wing offense to sophomore TB Pat Screen.
• The Blue Jays reigned as the only undefeated, untied AAA team in Lou­isiana. They had already won a league game over Redemptorist 12-0.
• The Crimson and the Blue had faced two common opponents. Both tromped McDonogh (SA 33-0, Jesuit 39-0), but the Jays beat Terrebonne 26-21 in the season opener while the Tigers upended the Saints 12-7.
• Both teams would miss injured players, HB Kenny Adolph and T Red Rizzo being the sidelined Jays.

The season's largest crowd, 11,000, saw the razor sharp Jays put the game away by halftime.

• Q1: Screen's 71y quick kick to the 6 helped the Blue Jays score their first TD. After the first play lost 3 and the second gained 2, Reinhardt booted out to his 42. It took Jesuit 10 plays to move that distance. Screen carried six times and Pat Rooney, four. Screen dove in from the 1, fumbling the ball, but officials ruled he crossed the goal with posses­sion. Ducote's try for point failed. Late in the period, Rooney intercepted a pass on the SA 41 and returned it to the 6 to set up the second TD. Screen brought the ball to the 1 as the horn sounded.
• Q2: On the first play, Rooney scored. Before intermission, Pat added another score on a 37y run, and Screen and Larry Ward teamed up on a 10y TD pass. The frustrated Crusaders finished the half with nary a first down, nary a completed pass, and 6y net rushing.

 

• Q3: The Saints won the second half 13-7 against mostly second-stringers. The first unit stayed around long enough for Screen to hit Ward on a 30y scoring aerial. Later, Hagstette broke behind the sec­ondary and snared Reinhardt's aerial on the 17 and continued into the EZ to complete the 57y play.
• Q4: Reinhardt completed three straight to Nastasi, Hagstette, and Spano to move to the 9. But the drive bogged down on the 5 where Jesuit took over. The Jays moved to the 20 when a bad pass from C was recovered by Billy Krummel at the 5. Daigle gained to the 4, and Reinhardt went over from there. Late in the game, Aloysius intercepted a pass on the Jesuit 32. But on first down, Will Lagarde snagged one right back.

Rooney won the Maison Blanche-Times-Picayune Player of the Week award for the second time.

• Joe Galliano's '58 squad showed his hallmarks of a solid running game and tough defense. They stood 0-2 in league play, having lost to Jesuit 12-0 and De La Salle 12-9. But the week before, the Rams upset Ter­rebonne 12-0.
• Douglass hoped to have Markey back for the first time since the Boga­lusa contest. Andy needed to be at full strength to spoil the Rams' home­coming.

They stayed in 6-3-2 and 7-2-2 defenses most of the afternoon, and their deep backs were close to the line of scrimmage ... sometimes only five yards back. They expected us to run, as we'd done in past games ... but we just had to pass against defenses like that.

The passing game caught Douglass by surprise.

We didn't expect them to throw the ball. We hadn't practiced pass defense all week ... after all, in one past game Redemptorist didn't fire one pass ... in another game they threw just once. But you know something? That Pontiff can throw pretty good ... he's not bad at all.

Fortunately, the Knights' offense excelled. Douglass:

It was by far our best offensive game. That Ram line - with the pos­sible exception of Jesuit - is about the toughest we've run across.

Douglass now faced John Kalbacher for the first time.

• The Tigers hadn't lost but had one tie.
• The game promised a duel between two of the better passers in the city: Reinhardt and Larry King of Holy Cross, who had gained over 500y through the air, much of that to E Billy Truax.
• Both teams expected to welcome a key backfield performer from the injury list: Markey, who didn't enter the Redemptorist game, and Mike Hinderlang, out for some time for HC.
• The teams' performances against their one common foe didn't bode well for the Crimson and White, who lost to Easton 32-7 while the Tigers battled the Eagles to a 7-7 standoff.

• The game would not have the suspense of the previous year when a Cavalier victory would have clinched the Catholic championship. In­stead, the Knight triumph threw the race into an unprecedented four-way tie.
• Johnny Altobello had strongly hinted that this would be his last game as DLS coach. Handling football, basketball, and baseball was proving to be too much.
• The Cavs had fashioned a 3-6 slate. In league games, they bested Re­demptorist 12-9 but lost to Holy Cross 13-0 and the Blue Jays 48-13. In the last game, QB John Morreale passed for 232y.

Aloysius rose to #10 in the AP statewide AAA poll released November 26.

Three Saints made the Times-Picayune All-Prep squad.

• Senior E Joe Spano - second team offense
• Junior HB Danny Markey - second team offense
• Senior T David Bernard - second team defense

• The three defeats included two by 21 or more points: Easton 32-7 and Jesuit 34-13. But those two, in retrospect, don't seem as bad when you consider that both victors won their respective leagues and the Eagles reached the state finals.
• The other loss came on the road at the hands of Terrebonne, another formidable foe.
• So you could say that the Crusaders defeated the teams they should have beaten and tied Holy Cross, arguably a better team than the Knights. Also, they bested Redemptorist for the first time since 1954.
• While losing some key seniors, Douglass would have a number of re­turning lettermen to build his 1959 team around.

1959 Season

1957 Season

Link to any particular season from these pages:

Summary of the 1940s

Summary of the 1930s

Summary of the 1920s

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