Mistakes prepared Ed Orgeron, the people's coach at LSU, for his dream job
Cajun to the core, Orgeron is back at home with LSU ... but will the Tigers pull his interim tag?
By
Jon Solomon
•
19 min read
LAROSE, La. -- The night before LSU played Alabama, some of Ed Orgeron's friends gathered with locals from his hometown to do what many Cajuns do Friday nights: eat, drink and laugh.
Over duck, boiled shrimp and beer, the men enjoyed a cookout on the gorgeous, 900-acre ranch owned by Bryan Arceneaux, Orgeron's good friend and fellow hell-raiser a lifetime ago when they played football at Northwestern State.
In this part of southern Louisiana, Orgeron is not Coach O, he's Bebe (pronounced Ba-Bay), the name passed down by his father, who was supposed to be the baby of his family.
Zebras, camels, deer, horses and cows roam the scenic ranch that's quietly tucked off Louisiana Highway 308. This isn't the norm for Larose. Arceneaux is a successful businessman in Larose, where Bayou LaFourche connects with the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
Because Larose relies heavily on the oil industry, this town of about 7,400 has been heavily impacted through the years by hurricanes, the BP oil spill and the sinking price of oil. On this day, a barrel of oil was at $45 after once costing about $120.
"The economy is pitiful down here," said Josh Jambon, who played with Orgeron at nearby South Lafourche High School. "Bebe is about the most positive thing we've got going for us right now."
After failing miserably at Ole Miss with a 10-25 record from 2005-07, Orgeron is driven to be a head coach again. He owns the interim tag for another head coaching job -- first at USC in 2013 and now at LSU where this opportunity is deeply personal for Orgeron since this is his state, his people and his missed opportunity at LSU from 1979.
"You fail at something when you get an opportunity, you want to do it," Orgeron said in his office the day after LSU was tied 0-0 with Alabama entering the fourth quarter before losing 10-0. "I feel like I can -- 9-3 [record] since I left Ole Miss. Not bad."
It's entirely possible Orgeron will not become LSU's permanent coach. Interim coaches rarely get hired at a major job like LSU. Orgeron said, due to disappointment over not getting the USC job in 2013 after a 6-2 finish, he's focusing this time entirely on his players and not the audition.
LSU fans are embracing Orgeron, whose booming, Cajun drawl may be the most recognizable voice in college football. He is the first Louisiana native to be LSU's head coach since 1983. The last three -- Gerry DiNardo, Nick Saban and Les Miles -- came from the north. One Cajun LSU fan told Orgeron on his radio show how proud he is to finally have an LSU coach without an accent.
To understand how Orgeron got here -- how he overcame past mistakes, how he battled alcohol, how he became the people's coach at LSU, even if only on a temporary basis -- you have to visit Larose.
Larose built Bebe. Larose mocked Bebe. Larose motivated Bebe.
Larose is Bebe.
Quitting on LSU the first time
Orgeron was supposed to play football at LSU. He lasted through two-a-days in the summer of 1979 before quitting. There are somewhat different accounts as to why he left.
Not playing defense "had something do with it, but it was home sickness," Orgeron said. "I had no coping mechanism of being away from home and those people that took such good care of me. ... I remember there was a tractor outside [my dorm room at LSU]. Sounded like home. I'm like, 'Man, I miss it.'"
Close friend Bobby Hebert, a former NFL quarterback, said Orgeron quit more because he didn't want to run scout team since he was so used to playing. Arceneaux said the home sick talk was "overrated" and Orgeron left because he wanted to play defense instead of LSU putting him on offense.
Whatever the reason, Orgeron said by the time he reached the Sunshine Bridge over the Mississippi River while coming home, he regretted leaving LSU. The next day his father, Ed Orgeron Sr., put Ed Jr. to work digging ditches for the phone company where the dad worked.
Suddenly, Orgeron went from local boy goes to LSU to becoming a former all-state high school football player digging ditches in South Louisiana. Motorists passed by and shouted derogatory words at Orgeron that he wasn't tough enough to stay at LSU.
"I went from the penthouse to an outhouse in a day," Orgeron said. "I felt like I had let everybody down. I mean, they'd pull out right there in front of me and they were pissed."
But in a theme throughout his life, Orgeron refused to stay down for long. He knew his family didn't have much money and he wanted to get an education. Orgeron joined Hebert at Northwestern State in Natchitoches, Louisiana, even though Orgeron didn't know where the city was located.
At Northwestern State, Orgeron didn't just push himself, he pushed teammates, especially Arceneaux, a nose guard who played with him on the defensive line. During one game against Southeastern, Orgeron motivated Arceneaux by agitating the offensive lineman blocking him.
"This guy's girlfriend, she was at cheerleading camp all summer long, and while she was there, I was messing with her," Arceneaux said. "So during the game, [Orgeron] was telling the guy, 'Hey, 62. You see that guy 67? All summer long he was with your girlfriend.' He wanted to kick my ass. He would do that s--- every damn play. By the end of the game, the guy was punching me, kicking me. Bebe did it to motivate me because now he knew I had to step up my A game against this guy. That was his way."
In the summers, Orgeron, Arceneaux and another teammate worked on a shrimp boat in Larose to make money. Orgeron later told friends he became motivated to coach in part to not end up with a life of shoveling shrimp.
"I remember the first day we all walk in there, we have shrimp shoes on and it's the most God-awful smell in your life," Orgeron said. "If one of us had said, 'Let's turn around and go, we all would have left."
For $5 an hour, Orgeron and his friends worked all hours of the day, depending on when boats arrived with thousands of pounds of shrimp. They slept in a 12-by-12 cabin with no electricity or running water. On Fridays, they stuffed jumbo shrimp in their boots to avoid buying it and invited women over for boiled shrimp and beer.
When the summer ended, Orgeron and friends brought shrimp back to Northwestern State to sell at a higher price. They needed it for beer money to live it up in college.
"Our coach said one time, 'Bobby Hebert, I'm disappointed in you being out all night as the leader. 'We can't have no dissipaters on the team,'" Hebert said. "Bebe hits me and says, 'What's a dissipater?' I go, 'He don't want no players out there honky-tonking,' and he caught up. Back then, we kind of prided ourselves that we could burn the candle on both ends and we weren't gonna quit."
The long road to sobriety
It's well documented in articles that Orgeron has been sober for 17 years. That only tells part of his battle with alcohol. He needed seven visits to treatment centers over 10 years to finally give up drinking.
"These kids nowadays that come sit on this sofa [in the LSU head coach's office] that have problems, I tell them I'll really listen unlike somebody who doesn't," Orgeron said. "I've been there. I do believe everything happens for a reason."
In some ways, Orgeron's lifestyle was a byproduct of where he grew up. Cajuns drink -- a lot. Orgeron was 6-feet-2, 220 pounds by the age of 14. Holding his alcohol wasn't a problem as a full-grown man at such a young age.
"One of our mottos is you work hard, party harder," said Lane Fillinich, a friend of Orgeron who played high school football with him.
It's common for Cajuns to throw weekend parties at different people's homes. Arceneaux said the tradition stems from the heritage he and Orgeron grew up experiencing of Cajuns killing a large pig without refrigeration to store it. To not waste the pig, someone would hold a party each week to cook the pig fat.
"What's the Cajun saying? Laiszzez les bon temps roulez! Let the good times roll!" Arceneaux said. "That's how we were raised. When we went to North Louisiana [at Northwestern State], it was completely opposite. I used to say when I was growing up when you leave South Louisiana to North Louisiana, it was like the whole town was on valium up there. It was slow motion and we wanted to speed it up -- and we did."
The stories about Orgeron are legendary. When friends are asked to share some, the most common response is something along the lines of, "I can't tell that one."
There was the time Arceneaux broke his foot during a game at Northwestern State. The trainer wanted him to go to the hospital, but Arceneaux refused because he planned to hit the bars with Orgeron that night in Shreveport. So Orgeron carried Arceneaux on his back all night.
"When I'd go to the bar, he'd sit me down on the bar. He'd buy me my beer," Arceneaux said. "I'd tell him I have to go to the bathroom, he'd put me on his back and bring me to the bathroom. When I was finished, he'd bring me back and put me at the bar all night long."
There was the time John Thompson, Orgeron's defensive coordinator at Northwestern State, noticed a Ronald McDonald statue at the top of the stadium press box.
"He laughs about that to this day, and I don't have any proof, but I know Bebe put Ronald McDonald up there," Thompson said.
There was the time Orgeron and Arceneaux trashed their dorm room. Sam Goodwin, the incoming Northwestern State coach at the time, said windows were broken and furniture demolished. The residence hall director kept the room exactly as it was so Goodwin would see the mess once he was hired.
"It probably happened on a weekly basis more than he knows," Orgeron said.
Goodwin initially told Orgeron and Arceneaux they would be moved out of the dorm, something they wanted because the dorm was old and lacked air conditioning. Goodwin changed his mind and kept them in the dorm.
"That all started because we're just being boys," Arceneaux said. "Like Bebe says all the time, he couldn't play for himself."
Orgeron's drinking continued at Miami, where he first landed a graduate assistant job out of the blue as an assistant strength coach at Arkansas. Miami had just won the national championship in 1987 and Orgeron called to congratulate Miami graduate assistant Bill Johnson, who used to coach him at Northwestern State. But since Johnson had already left for another job, the secretary sent Orgeron to Tommy Tuberville, then a Miami assistant.
"I said, 'Tommy, this is Ed. Is Bill there?'" Orgeron recalled. "He said, 'No, Bill just left to go to Louisiana Tech.' I said, 'Hey, man, you've got a GA job?' He goes, 'Yeah. In fact, we're meeting on it in 20 minutes. You want it?' I said, 'Yeah.' He calls me back in 30 minutes and says, 'You've got the job.' I said, 'Thank you.' Vroom -- on to Miami."
Orgeron lived with Tuberville for four years while they both were single. They traveled together, ran coaching clinics together and entertained others together late at night as football coaches from across the country visited The U. Tuberville and Orgeron had their favorite late-night joint, a place called Bill and Ted's with burgers, beer and pool tables.
"Ed drank like the rest of us," Tuberville said. "I never really noticed anything different about Ed because he'd come from a culture down in Larose and that was part of it -- drinking beer and having a good time. I lived with him and he could hide it as good as anybody. I guess you got to go through something like that to understand how far you can go."
There were dark moments for Orgeron. In 1991, a woman in Dade County, Florida, was granted a restraining order against Orgeron after accusing him of repeated violence. The woman received a permanent injunction prohibiting Orgeron from going to her home or workplace, and the injunction ended in July 1992, according to the AP in 2004.
Orgeron also was arrested in a 1992 incident in which he reportedly head-butted the manager of a nightclub in Baton Rouge, according to news accounts at the time. The charges were eventually dropped when he reached a settlement with the victim, but the arrest damaged his career.
Miami placed Orgeron on probation. He took a leave of absence and never coached there again. He came home to Larose and volunteered to coach linebackers at Nicholls, but there was no path to realistically think he could one day be the head coach at Ole Miss, USC and LSU.
"I think at that time it was a question of, 'Am I done?'" Arceneaux said. "In his mind, it was him making a right out of a wrong. 'I ain't done. I ain't gonna give up.' As far as the drinking part, that moment he made up his mind he couldn't do it no more. He went through such turmoil with the decisions he made around drinking."
Orgeron said he never questioned whether his career was over. "I had a lot of people tell me it's over. That motivated me more. I knew what I had to eliminate," he said.
Syracuse revitalized Orgeron's career by hiring him in 1995 as defensive line coach. Syracuse's bowl trip to Memphis in 1996 resulted in Orgeron meeting his second wife. David Saunders, who had coached with Orgeron at Nicholls, set them up on a blind date in Memphis. Kelly and Ed got married two months later.
"Recruiter -- fast talker," Orgeron said with a laugh, describing his ability to land a wife so quickly.
Orgeron took his last drink of alcohol on the night before their first wedding anniversary. He had a wife, a stepson and two more children would later arrive.
"If I could have settled down a little bit earlier, I think it would have been great if I met Kelly earlier," Orgeron said. "I have no regrets because it all worked out the way it's supposed to work out."
The mess at Ole Miss
That's not entirely true about Orgeron's career. There are regrets, mainly his time at Ole Miss. There's no way around the fact that Orgeron made countless mistakes as the Rebels' head coach while posting a 3-21 SEC record over three years.
Orgeron enjoyed great success as a recruiter and defensive line coach for Pete Carroll on USC's national championship teams. Then he went to Ole Miss as a first-time head coach and coached every player like they were defensive linemen.
"That was an odd fit at Ole Miss -- his style and the culture there -- from the very beginning," said Thompson, who was Orgeron's defensive coordinator in 2007. "I remember when he got the job -- I was at South Carolina -- and a friend asked what do you think of this? I said either it's going to be a birdie or a double bogey just because of the culture, not him."
Orgeron created his own problems. He paraded around the offices banging on a bass drum while assistants worked. He wanted to fight reporter Steven Godfrey over accurate injury information that got reported. He ripped off his shirt and challenged players to a fight. He held a full-contact scrimmage during a lightning delay against Wake Forest in 2006.
How can anyone keep up with a coach who downs five Red Bulls before 8 a.m.? Orgeron tried to coach everything himself.
"I went in there after Pete Carroll, we're having success, coaching a wild bunch, coaching back-to-back national championships, we're rocking and rolling, highly successful recruiter -- totally bought into what we were doing at USC," Orgeron said. "That's the person that showed up there. Ole Miss wasn't ready for that, number one. I went there as an assistant instead of being a head coach. I never thought I would be a head coach."
Even Tuberville, Orgeron's old friend, saw the damage being done while coaching Auburn. Before an Ole Miss-Auburn game, Tuberville addressed Orgeron's behavior with him after hearing Orgeron threw a computer against the wall.
Tuberville asked if he liked his job. Orgeron said he did. Tuberville told him he's going to get run out of town if he keeps acting like that.
"He went very quickly from a guy that's kind of a bull in a china closet to having to deal with the media and public," Tuberville said, "and that's hard to learn, especially for a young guy that's been in Larose, Louisiana, shoveling shrimp 15 years before. But he's overcome that."
After he was fired by Ole Miss, Orgeron started writing down notes of what he did wrong as a head coach. He kept the notebook by his bed, near his Alcoholics Anonymous book.
Orgeron worked as the New Orleans Saints' defensive line coach and studied how Sean Payton ran shorter practices. He joined Lane Kiffin at Tennessee and USC while strengthening his reputation as one of the country's best recruiters.
Orgeron decided that if he ever became a head coach again, he would treat his players like they're his sons. Just like when he quit LSU as a player and made mistakes throughout his life, Orgeron wanted to make a right out of a wrong.
"When he left Ole Miss, he said, 'I'm gonna be a head coach again, I just need a little time,'" Arceneaux said. "Sometimes I don't know why he wants to be a head coach again. He's been stuck on that: 'I'm gonna be a head coach again one day. I'm gonna make it right.' His whole career has been, 'I want to be on top, this is who I am, and I'm gonna prove to myself, to my family, to everybody I'm gonna do it."
Cajuns embrace Orgeron
To know Bebe, you must also meet his mom. Her name is Cornelia Orgeron, but she goes by "Co Co." She controls the room as guests listen to her hilarious stories with a voice that's as recognizable as that of her son.
"I can't make an obscene phone call!" she joked.
Growing up in Larose, Orgeron's friends often came to their small, two-bedroom house. Sometimes they wanted food because something was always getting cooked. Co Co, a rabid football fan, fed Orgeron shrimp po-boys every Friday morning during his high school season and sometimes woke him up by pretending to be a cheerleader while wearing his uniform.
Other times, Orgeron's friends came by just to sit outside on their swing and confide in Ed Sr. about issues they wouldn't tell their own fathers. Ed Sr. died in 2011 at the age of 70.
"It's not like today," Co Co said. "It was like a community raising everybody."
Cajuns are descendants of Acadian exiles and make up a significant portion of South Louisiana's population. Co Co's father was a trapper. As a child, she skinned minks and muskrats to help the family business. When a neighbor died, Ed Sr. cooked food for the widow for a month because, well, that's what Cajuns do.
Increasingly, though, Co Co believes many Cajuns in South Louisiana don't view themselves as Cajuns anymore. She hears from Cajuns who don't go to the cemetery per their custom. She talks to Cajuns who say they don't speak French anymore.
"It sounds like we're moving in another phase, from my point of view," Co Co said. "It's just something we are losing."
Jay Mayet, the head coach at Parkview Baptist High School in Baton Rouge, played at LSU in the 1980 and has followed the Tigers for decades He said he has never witnessed this much support for an LSU coach.
"A lot of places in the world you've got a lot of backstabbing and trying to one-up this person and a lot of jealousy because this person had success," said Mayet, a Cajun who grew up in Cut Off, not far from Larose. "That's just not our culture. Where we grew up, we cheer for people that we know. There are people I know who don't know Ed at all but feel like he's their coach and they know him because of the area he's from."
Whether LSU thinks Orgeron should permanently become the coach remains up in the air. There are more games left. There are higher-profile names to be pursued, such as Florida State's Jimbo Fisher. There's a belief by some that LSU wouldn't fire Les Miles because of his inept offense and then hire a defensive line coach who previously failed in the SEC.
But LSU is playing with more energy. Players are raving about Orgeron holding shorter but more focused practices with themes each day. There's Tell the Truth Monday (film study with honest reviews), Competition Tuesday (the No. 1 offense and defense go head-to-head instead of scout-team matchups), Turnover Wednesday (the offense focuses on protecting the ball and the defense tries to create turnovers), No Repeat Thursday (try not to repeat a play because that means something went wrong), and Focus Friday (ignore outside noise to focus on Saturday).
Orgeron is not "a press conference winner," Tuberville said. "He's a team winner. He's a state winner. He's going to win over the people."
If LSU doesn't hire Orgeron, "I don't know that he's going to stay," Arceneaux said. "There's going to be a big school that makes a push to get him. I'm afraid [LSU is] gonna let the Alabama game be the factor for the job."
While attending a funeral last week, Co Co needed 30 minutes to get into the church because people kept talking to her about her son. A signed football by Orgeron recently was auctioned for $1,800 to help a community center in Larose. Before the economy tanked in Larose, that ball probably would have sold for $10,000, said former LSU defensive lineman Ron Estay, who is from South Louisiana.
Even though Miles succeeded at LSU and was liked for a while, he was still an outsider, said Hebert, who remembers the intense pressure he felt coming home to be the New Orleans Saints quarterback in 1985.
"I'm not saying you can't have success if you're not from Louisiana, but here as much as any area, you feel it," Hebert said. "I felt like I could either be the hero or the goat. If I win here, they embrace me, but if not, they'll hang you from the tree because you're one of them. I think that's what they feel with Coach O."
Orgeron embraces his Cajun roots -- "It's who I am" -- and admits he needs some practice to carry on a Cajun conversation again. Inside his office on the day after the Alabama loss, Orgeron spoke a few words of French. They translated to: "It's pretty outside. I can't wait until the gumbo is cooked at 6 o'clock. And I am damn going to sleep good tonight."
The best interim coach in college football is at peace with his past. Don't misinterpret that for losing his edge.
Bebe isn't digging ditches anymore. He's digging his future.
