By Joseph Halm
VSN Correspondent
As first-year St. Augustine coach Robert Valdez talked about the Purple Knights’ upcoming District 9-5A game against Holy Cross, he couldn’t help but smile.
Why? Because he’s living the dream, of course.
“At the end of the day, I’m just a fat kid out here having fun,” Valdez said with a laugh. “I enjoy what I do. I enjoy working with these young men and my coaches. We always incorporate family into the program. I’m a New Orleans kid, and this is my first time serving as a head coach in the city. Being back in New Orleans and being around a lot of people that I know is special.”
That infectious attitude is paying off for the Purple Knights (4-4, 2-3). St. Augustine opened the season with a 49-7 victory over McDonogh 35.
That momentum continued with a 3-1 start, with the lone loss coming to Cardinal Rittier College Prep of Missouri, 36-20.
St. Augustine opened District 9-5A play with a 42-19 win over Warren Easton before dropping three in a row to Karr (34-13), Jesuit (24-23) and Rummel (26-20, OT). The Purple Knights rebounded with a 28-0 shutout of Brother Martin on Saturday.
“It takes a little time. It takes attrition. It takes failing,” Valdez said about building the program in Year 1. “I tell coaches all the time that you get more from failing than you do from succeeding. In the games we lost, we were able to get a lot of intel on our kids and ourselves, so now, we’ve got a big win. The mojo is good. The atmosphere is good, so can we continue that this week and be able to beat a very good, a very physical Holy Cross team?”
Valdez speaks from experience. He boasts a 125-41 record in his previous 15 seasons as high school head coach. He won a Class 3A state championship in 2019 at St. James and coached West St. John to a state runner-up finish in 2011.
Before St. Augustine, he spent the past two seasons as a college offensive line coach at Grambling.
“Being a head coach at St. Aug is probably a little more demanding or just as demanding as when I was coaching college football,” Valdez said. “Just because you have to assume a lot of responsibilities when you have this job because of the legacy and the foundation of this place. I’m just having a good time.”
The Purple Knights are coming off a 2023 season that saw them go 4-8 that included a 0-6 record in the Catholic League and a second-round playoff loss to John Curtis.
Valdez has already improved on that with two district wins this season, and there are still two regular-season games left. The Purple Knights will finish the regular season with a Thursday night against John Curtis.
Holy Cross (3-5, 2-3) has wins over De La Salle (42-13), Jesuit (21-7) and Warren Easton 23-21).
Valdez said he’s been impressed with his team’s growth thus far.
“St. Aug is a place with a lot of tradition, but I inherited a young team,” he said. “It’s a good group of guys, but this district is one of the toughest in Louisiana bar none. We had some adversity, but we’ve picked up the pieces. Right now, it’s just about winning as many games as possible to improve our playoff standing.”
Valdez describes himself as an old-school coach focused on the little things.
“The biggest thing is that you have to build the culture,” Valdez said. “You have to see what the culture is like in the building, in the hallways, the weight room and the classrooms. I tell my kids all the time that I’m a bit old-school. I’m a bit boring. We don’t know a lot of hype and jumping around and ra ra type of stuff; we just do the functional everyday things. We try to go from A to B to C. We just want to do those things as well as we can.
“Now, it’s can we be consistent? We’re in a decent spot in terms of power points, but there’s room for improvement. We just want to play our best football heading into the playoffs. The attention to detail has to continue to improve.”
The Purple Knights will get a chance to show that improvement against Holy Cross on VSN this Friday.