In recent weeks, the Shreveport Bossier Journal has been running a series titled “Whatever Happened To …” that usually features a former athlete or coach.
Earlier this summer, some people might have been asking that phase for a different reason: “Whatever Happened To Jerry Byrd’s Common Sense?”
After 30 years in education, who walks away from an office job at one of Shreveport’s largest high schools — a school he dearly loves — to get back into coaching after almost a dozen years at, of all places, Plain Dealing — a school that has the longest on-the-field losing streak in the state at 33 games?
Some schools win five games in a month; Plain Dealing has won five games this decade.
This is a program that had to forfeit a game last year due to lack of players.
The only one in the parish that still has to mow the grass on the football field, even though the five other schools have enough support to install artificial turf. And guess whose job it is to cut that grass?
Did Byrd lose a bet? Some weird slip-and-fall head injury?
This is a job that three coaches have run from in the last six years. And yet Byrd gets in his car every morning and drives 55 miles to get to that same place, tucked away in northern Bossier Parish in what is literally a one-stoplight town.
So if you really want to know Whatever Happened To Jerry Byrd, here’s your answer.
He listened to his heart.
It is not unusual in the least for high school football coaches to follow the well-beaten sidelines-to-administration path. Over time, the demands of a coaching job get to be too exhausting and, more and more, it seems to be regarded as a young man’s job.
Byrd isn’t a young man. He’s 52 and after many years as Coach Byrd (as an assistant and head coach at four schools), he became Mr. Byrd 11 years ago when he stopped coaching and got into administration at Youree Middle for four years and C.E. Byrd High School for seven.
Seemingly the path of least resistance on the way to sliding into retirement.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
There is a saying that “coaching never leaves you,” which might seem a bit Hallmark-ish if it weren’t so damn true. Ask almost any coach and they’ll tell you they might not miss the grind and the off-the-field details that never seem to end, but they still cherish those times with the whistle. There’s a thrill they get that you can’t quite understand under you’ve lived it.
It’s why they call each other “Coach” by auto-reflex. It’s not a title; it’s a part of their DNA.
There were a lot of reasons to not take the job at Plain Dealing. But he didn’t pay attention to any of them. Instead, Mr. Byrd got in touch with Coach Byrd.
“I wanted to be somewhere where when I wake up, I cannot wait to get to work,” he says. “And that’s where I am right now. I enjoy the challenge.”
Oh, there’s no doubt that it’s a challenge. Plain Dealing’s football “success” last year was measured by not giving up 50 points in the final two games for the first time in two months.
Scoring touchdowns? The Lions scored two in the first game … and never scored again.
But before he could take on one challenge, he had to overcome another: walking away from a place that has been a part of him for almost as long as he can remember.
“I love Byrd High School,” he says. “I met my wife there. I put a diploma in my daughter’s hand there. I graduated from there and played football. Just an incredible experience.
“I love the students and the faculty, but the job of being in charge of discipline at a school with 1,500 students was wearing on me a little bit,” he says. “I wasn’t enjoying the day-to-day grind of it. I didn’t want to be miserable going to work and counting the years to retirement.”
He remembered his first head coaching job in 2003 at North Caddo and the memories of coaching in a town with only one high school. He enjoyed it so much much that he had two different stints in Vivian. When he led the school to a first-ever playoff win, someone held up a sign “Jerry Byrd for Governor.” When the school needed a girls soccer coach, guess who took the job, even though he barely knew the rules.
Coaches coach.
Forget about the lengthy losing streak — Plain Dealing offered a similar situation that he had at North Caddo. It was another school in the “outpost”of the parish. And just as he did in Vivian, Byrd has wasted no time rallying the citizens and businesses of Plain Dealing.
Rare is the day that he doesn’t have a social media post about the Lions’ football team. There’s been a football camp. There’s an off-season Player of the Week. Brought back the football team’s Facebook page. Hit up every insurance agent, eatery, and storefront in town to post a Plain Dealing football schedule in the window.
That’s important, but not as important as what he has already seen on the field.
“I want to get this point across— the kids I’m coaching at Plain Dealing are some of the best kids I’ve ever been around,” he says. “I’m not just saying that. They work hard and they want to be coached. They’ve been with me for a month and a half in the 2025 season and I love coaching them. They show up every day and give it everything they have.”
Whether that is good enough is still to be determined. Last year’s team lost the opening game to Tensas 16-14, and then were outscored 444-0 the rest of the way.
His daughter recently asked him if he thought they might win a game this year. “I just want to score a touchdown,” he told her. “I might get a 15-yard penalty for celebrating when we score.”
It will take a week longer than everyone else to find out if that will happen when the 2025 season starts. Tensas, which only won one game last year and was clearly Plain Dealing’s best chance to break the streak last year, has dropped football. Plain Dealing has no Week 1 opponent.
Byrd’s return to the sideline will happen on Sept. 12 at home against Ringgold. Measure the success of that in whatever terms you’d like, but keep this in mind.
“God has me where He wants me,” Byrd says. “It’s a perfect fit.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com