JOURNAL STAFF

For 48 minutes on Friday nights each fall, they are fierce competitors, but throughout the year local high school football coaches and administrators are always colleagues sharing the same motivations and challenges.

Thursday evening, Origin Bank hosted an appreciation supper at its downtown Shreveport location on Market Street for Bossier Parish high school football coaches and related personnel, coordinated by the Shreveport-Bossier Journal, which is preparing for its first fall of prep football coverage.

The coaches, administrators and others shared plenty of fellowship, laughs and eager anticipation for the fast-approaching season. The affinity among the “coaching fraternity” was evident – especially with brothers Jason and Coy Brotherton as veteran head coaches at Haughton and Parkway, respectively, along with the former coach-player bond between Parkway’s Brotherton and Bossier High head coach De’Aumante Johnson, who played when Brotherton was on staff at Plain Dealing.

Principals, assistant coaches and staff members thoroughly enjoyed the outstanding food and hospitality provided by Larry Little and his Origin Bank staff, and mingled with Journal writers Teddy Allen, Jerry Byrd Jr., Lee Hiller, Doug Ireland, Harriet Prothro Penrod and Tony Taglavore, along with photographer John Penrod and Online Journals general manager Bill Vance. Veteran SBJ scribes Roy Lang III and John James Marshall were traveling but helped organize the appreciation supper.

Caddo Parish high school head football coaches, administrators and related personnel will be the guests of honor at Origin Bank for another appreciation supper with the Journal team next Thursday, as the excitement climbs with the 2022 preseason just around the corner.

Photos by JOHN PENROD