In north Louisiana, you know the story or you don’t, the book on Joe Aillet, the one that reads like legend.
In a hint of foreshadowing, a young orphan is born during football season, 1904, and later rides the Orphan Train (yes, there once was such a thing) from New York City to Louisiana, where he was raised by the housekeeper of the priest of a small Catholic church in Cajun country.
In schools operated by the Congregation of Holy Cross, the boy Joe Aillet developed into a young scholar, and a student-athlete, and finally into a gentleman unmatched, a master of English, an educator for all seasons and in all sorts of classrooms, and an iconic coach.
Who could have known how the trip would end when some kind soul placed him on the train in New York City, now more than a century ago…?
His induction in the Louisiana Tech Athletics Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame are just a few of the honors that testify to the impact of the orphan who became a father figure to so many, especially to the young men he coached to a dozen football and golf championships.
There’s another way he was honored. That was in 1972, the year after he died. Today, Joe Aillet Stadium is where Tech has played football for the past half century, and where a little kid named Chris Kennedy ran around and watched games and rolled down the hills that used to be in the south end zone.
“I can never remember not knowing the name ‘Joe Aillet,’” Kennedy, now 25 and a Tech graduate, said. “But I didn’t really know anything about him.”
He does now. The son of Tech faculty, a boy who grew up in the shadow of the stadium, a library guy who loves words and reading, Kennedy began chasing the “legendary mystique,” a journey that’s ended with the recent publishing of Louisiana Tech’s Joe Aillet, a sort of love letter, both to Kennedy’s hometown and to one of its legends.
Kennedy (Class of 2018, 20), currently studying for a second graduate degree and working at the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge, used his personal history, plus information from nearly 1,000 articles and 50 interviews to illustrate the full picture of what he calls “an uncommon coach and reserved scholar” whose “off-field biography rivals his sideline career.”
“He was — is — the most brilliant man in my lifetime in the sports world,” Nico Van Thyn, former executive sports editor of the Shreveport Journal and a student at Tech at the end of Aillet’s career, said. “He was … a teacher who chose athletics as his field, but he would have been super in any endeavor. Those of us who were at Tech during his three decades of leadership were so blessed. He was ‘The Smooth Man.’”
The book is released Monday, but Kennedy will take part in a special pre-release book signing Saturday as the Tech football, soccer, and volleyball teams host Fall Fan Fest from 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Thomas Assembly Center. Admission is free, all ages are welcome, and everyone from Kennedy to student-athletes to Champ to the spirit squads will be available for photos and autographs.
The 176-page paperback, $26.50, is published by The History Press and available from most online and in-store booksellers.
Quick note in closing: While Aillet’s legend bloomed at Tech, it was born at Haynesville and Northwestern State where he got his start, where he was as likely at football practice to be overheard quoting Shakespeare as he was to be teaching the finer points of the power sweep. As Kennedy’s book illustrates, Aillet was a passenger no rails could hold, a runaway train, well-groomed and well-mannered, Fate’s good gift that stopped at our station.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
