LAPLACE, La. (WGNO) — In the worst of times, it was the best at St. Charles Catholic.
The school pulled a rare double, state championships in baseball and football in the same school year.
The formula for doing so, includes good performers, but that is only a part.
For head baseball and football coach Wayne Stein, the pace can be dizzying.
One would think that this time of the year, would be easier. Not so.
“June is by far the worst month of the year,” Coach Stein told WGNO Sports.
The club won the Division III baseball championship on a Monday, and was starting spring football practice the next day. Seven-on-seven starts soon, and so does summer baseball.
“I tend to get sick at this time,” admitted Stein. “My body is telling me you better lay down and get rest.”
Several football players double up in baseball. In both sports, practice is intense.
Quarterback Ayden Authement, the fifth of five brothers to play here, says the motto of both sports is to go.
“If you don’t know the play, just run and hit someone,” said the senior-to-be, Authement. “Just play hard.”
At a lot of schools, one for all and all for one is talked about, but at St. Charles Catholic it truly is, true.
Stein said leaders don’t have to be starters.
“Our dugout was kinda the glue to our success,” he said. “You had seniors that weren’t starting but still worked their butt off like they were.”
That sense of team is felt throughout the school.
“You got kids that play for each, coaches that work for each other. The administration,” said Stein. “What is the secret, the secret is everyone is pulling in the same direction.”
When the question of repeating in both sports is brought up, Stein laughed.
“We are going to have raise our game to match what we did here the last couple of years,” he professed.
The opponents of St. Charles Catholic, in more than one sport, are saying the same thing.
St. Charles Catholic also reached the finals in Division III softball.
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