The last days for George Hopkins as the lacrosse head coach at Catholic High will be at this weekend’s Louisiana High School Lacrosse League Final Four.
We’ve known that since the school announced back in March that this season would be Hopkins’ last.
Last at Catholic, but not his last as a lacrosse coach.
Hopkins will be returning to Baltimore, Maryland where he will be coaching at his alma mater.
Now that the end of his historic tenure at Catholic is near, have the emotions started to kick in?
“I suppose so, yes,” said Hopkins. “Now that we are near the end of the season, it all seems like it went by so fast. There are always so many twists and turns every year, and each team is different. I definitely want to soak it all in and appreciate the atmosphere Championship Weekend brings.”
With a 10-3 record, Catholic enters the Final Four as the No.2 seed and will face No.3 Newman for a fourth straight year in the Division I Semifinals tonight at 7:00pm (broadcast live streaming on VSN). This also marks a sixth consecutive appearance in the LHSLL Final Four. That’s the longest such streak in the league.
Hopkins is the winningest coach in program history, compiling a career record of 109-40 (.732) thus far. During his tenure, the Bears won their first Louisiana High School Lacrosse League State Championship in 2022 and have made four consecutive appearances in the LHSLL title game.
With the 2025 season, the Bears make their sixth consecutive appearance as a state semifinalist and will play for their fifth chance at a state championship. Catholic has advanced to post-season play every year during Hopkins’ tenure, except in 2020 due to COVID-19, making it the most of any LHSLL team in that timeframe. The Hopkins era has seen the Bears win 10 or more games every year except one, again excluding the COVID season.
Throughout his coaching career at Catholic, Hopkins has mentored 23 All-State players, 5 USA Lacrosse All-Academic players, 2 USA Lacrosse Bob Scott Award winners, and 1 USA two-time Lacrosse All-American. He was also honored twice as the USA Lacrosse Coach of the Year for Louisiana (2019, 2022).
“When I arrived, Catholic High lacrosse had been a mid-tier program with a win percentage under .500; the culture of the team also reflected this,” said Hopkins. “Lacrosse at Catholic started off as a club sport back in 2007 and had only become a varsity sport under the direction of the department of athletics the year before I arrived in 2016. That change made a difference, and momentum began to build among the players to take it more seriously. When you’re a club team, you can go to the beach for spring break and come back whenever you want. Varsity sports come back for practices before the end of spring break and sometimes have playoff games during that time, as we did just one week ago in our quarterfinal matchup against The Flyers of Loyola.
That shift –from a club-sport mindset to a more serious, varsity-level commitment among the players– did not happen overnight, and I credit the 10 seniors of the graduating class of 2020 – whose season was ended by COVID– for having the biggest impact on the trajectory of our program. That’s the season when we held our first annual team retreat. The actions and brotherhood of those 10 seniors (Ed Ball, Emory Duggar, Braeden Jacobsen, Kyle Langlois, Josh Miletello, Owen Nassif, Connor Pittenger, Tucker Poret, Reese Williams, and John Wysocki) made a lasting impact. We just held our 6th annual team retreat at the beginning of this season, and it is one of our program’s most valuable activities. We use that time for the players to bond with each other and with the coaching staff. It helps us form a more meaningful brotherhood and a closer-knit team.”
And as for what Hopkins hopes will be his legacy at Catholic?
“In my 9th and final season as head coach for Catholic High lacrosse, it is a fact that the road to the LHSLL state championship now runs through Catholic High School in Baton Rouge, both literally for the last 3 years and figuratively, meaning you have to get past us if you want to be crowned the state champion,” said Hopkins. “I’m certainly proud of that fact, and it would indeed be wonderful for the 16 outstanding seniors and everyone else on this year’s team to win it all. If there’s a legacy I hope to leave, it is this: end each season beautifully — do not measure it only by what the scoreboard says; measure it also by the strength of our brotherhood and our commitment to one another, so that the love that binds our team year after year continues to grow stronger in the days, weeks and years to come.”