Remembering Camelot: Nicholls’ 1984 championship team reunites

Bright smiles and joyful laughs fill the air beneath the shade of a grand oak tree as old friends catch up under the backdrop of a college football tailgate, the game in progress is the least of their worries.

After 40 years, the men chatting beneath the shady tree look nothing like a football team, yet, they once made up one of the six conference championship-winning teams in their football program’s 50+ year history.

Nicholls State University invited the 1984 Gulf South Conference Champion football team for a reunion, four decades after the historic team made its mark,

During a media break in Nicholls’ game against Northwestern State University, 60 team members, including coaches, players and staff, took the field to enthusiastic applause.

The reunion comes just one season after the school won another conference championship, this time in the Southland Conference.

Sonny Jackson’s impact

Members of the team said they are glad to see Nicholls carrying on the success and ideology that head coach Sonny Jackson implemented so long ago.

Sonny Jackson, who served as Head Coach for the Colonels from 1981-1986, brought the team a conference championship in 1984 and took them to the playoffs in 1986, is a big reason for the foundation of success the Colonels enjoy today.

Jackson, the second-winningest coach in Nicholls history, led the Colonels to their second conference championship in 1984.

To the players and coaches on that 1984 team, he was more than a coach but a salesman. The Colonels’ 1984 starting quarterback Keith Menard said the way Jackson made the team and the community buy-in during that season was a feat many players

Jackson was a mentor to Menard (‘81-’84), who saw how Jackson sold fans and players on the team and believed it was the greatest thing he ever did.

“It was what he did at Nicholls that was special. He reinvigorated the fan base and got everybody back in. Sonny was a master of getting the fan base behind us and getting them to the games to promote our team and it showed,” Menard said.

Former offensive line coach Don Rodrigue said Jackson never fit the mold of a stereotypical coach, although his methods seemed odd they paid off in his short time at Nicholls. 

The oddest thing he did as a head football coach at Nicholls was hiring coaches from local high school, Rodrigue said.

In the end, it worked out for Jackson, according to Rodrigue (1981-93), who was hired out of H.L. Bourgeois High School in Houma. Rodrigue said the positive effect of Jackson hiring high school coaches showed most on the recruiting trail.

“Since I was from the Bayou I was asked to recruit Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Marys and St. James. In the roster you could see we recruited locally,” Rodrigue said. “You could take a map and draw a hundred-mile radius and probably 85-90% of our players were from that radius.”

Jackson made sure his coaches were salesmen as well. Making sure his coaches sold themselves on the recruiting trail, something Rodrigue became great at.

“When you go out and recruit schools in this area you gotta convince people that you are the most important thing,” Rodrigue said. “You have to sell yourself to the parents and the kid that’s 17 years old and that’s what we were able to do. We kept the local guys in-house.”

Rodrigue said the way Jackson ran the team was a big part of winning the 1984 conference championship and something the players and staff never forgot.

Photo credit: Shane Kliebert

Fighting back

The Colonels had a rough start to the 1984 season, losing consecutive games to Northeastern Lousiana, now Lousiana-Monroe, Troy State, now Troy, and McNeese. All three losses were marred by missed opportunities, the team falling to Northeastern by seven and McNeese by three and a 26-7 loss to Troy State that Menard says the offensive missed countless opportunities in.

In their fourth game the Colonels “put it together” with a 34-6 win over Austin Peay ahead of their first Gulf South Conference game.

Menard said the close loss to McNeese and the blowout victory against Austin Peay kickstarted the team’s success and gave them the confidence to go into the Sam Houston State game the next week and pull out their first conference win.

“Those were the games that got us going. Playing McNeese as close as we did and coming back against Austin Peay and playing a complete game finally. It carried us over into that Sam Houston game,” Menard said.

It was the coaching style that put players back into shape and they remain thankful for that today.

“It was coaching and everybody going to work. The way we practiced back then was different today, they beat you up a little more, but it just clicked [after that],” offensive guard Lynn Bychurch said. “Once it clicked we got on a winning streak.”

They won the games they needed and that was enough for Rodrigue who acknowledged the bumps the Colonels hit on the way.

 “This team wasn’t undefeated, we had some bumps in the road, but we won the games we had to win. Nicholls hadn’t won the conference since 1975, so it was a big deal,” Rodrigue said.

$10,000 tape delay

The Colonels were set to play a Thursday night game against Sam Houston State University live on College Sports Network, but a snafu prevented the game from airing.

Financial failures prevented the live broadcasting equipment from arriving at John L. Guidry Stadium in time. However, the footage was not lost. The network taped the conference matchup at its headquarters in Dallas.

The failed broadcast cost the network $10,000 in fines.

It was a game Colonel fans did not want to miss. A crowd of 12,000 watched the Colonels defeat Sam Houston State 24-6 in the Colonels’ conference opener.

Many players view the game as a high point when they look back on the season. They put together a great defensive performance and the offense did its job.

Menard and Offensive Guard Lynn Bychurch point to the screen pass thrown to wide receiver Dwayne Brown, who turned it into a touchdown, as a pivotal moment in the conference opening matchup.

Bychurch threw a block ahead of Brown on the screen pass, something that he vividly remembers and takes pride in.

“[Menard] threw a screen pass and I made the block ahead of Dwayne Brown and watched as he ran 45 yards for a touchdown. That was a highlight for me,” Bychurch said.

The touchdown pass from Menard opened up the scoring, putting the Colonels up 7-0 after a goal-line stand on their first defensive possession.

Jackson and offensive coordinator Joe Clark installed an aggressive game plan for the important early-season competition. The Colonels went for it on fourth down late in the second quarter, opting not to attempt a field goal, taking the ball down to the Sam Houston two-yard line and handing the ball to running back Lionel Vital for a short touchdown rush. 

The score put the Colonels ahead 14-0 with 28 seconds remaining in the first half.

Nicholls held a 17-3 lead heading into the fourth quarter, but Sam Houston drew closer with a field goal seconds into the quarter, cutting the Colonels’ lead to 11. Nicholls closed the game out just six minutes later, giving its other running back, Oscar Smith, the ball for a touchdown run.

Rodrigue said seeing the large crowd showed the team they were important and helped push them on to a conference championship.

“We saw the community buy-in as the players did. That was an important part,” Rodrigue said. “We won that game and kept going forward through that.”

One for the record books

 In their conference championship season, many Colonels players earned school records.

Menard ended the season holding records in 10 categories. He held the records for the most passing yards in a career 4,362, the most touchdown passes in a game 5, the most touchdown passes in a career 33, the highest completion percentage in a season 58.7% and the highest completion percentage in a career 52.6%.

Running backs Vital and Smith ended the season with records of their own. Vital captured the record for the longest play from scrimmage on an 84-yard rush and the highest career yards per rush average of 4.6.  Smith claimed the record for the most touchdowns scored in a career, 19.

Vital and Smith put together a lethal backfield for the Colonels combining for 1,195 rushing yards. Vital finished with three touchdowns and Smith with nine.

The two running backs went on to be drafted in the NFL, Vital to the Washington Redskins and Smith to the Detroit Lions.

“Lionel Vital was a heck of a running back for us. A really good player and a good person,” Menard said. “Those two guys in the backfield were just fabulous.”

Even kicker Scott LeBlanc earned a record. LeBlanc nabbed the record for most field goals in a game with three against Southwest Texas and in a season with 10.

Many players impressed, but it was tight end Dewayne Harrison who became the biggest record-breaker of them all. 

Harrison broke the record for receptions in a season with 51. Menard said the 6-foot 5-inch tight end caught every ball that came close to him. Menard pointed to Harrison as being responsible for many of the big plays that season.

“The big part of our offense was throwing the ball to [Dewayne] ‘Tree’ Harrison,” He was my outlet, a big guy to throw the ball to and we made some big plays,” Menard said.

‘It was Camelot’

For team members, that championship season 40 years ago remains one of the greatest moments of their career.

Many did not achieve the same athletic success the team did at any other time in their life, including Menard.

“It was the first time I got a ring like that. It was great to know that I was part of that as a player and a teammate,” Menard said. “It was four years of hard work for me so I looked at it as a great team win, but personally it was like, ‘yes’. It came to fruition.”

The season’s success came from the bonds and brotherhood players formed. The reunion brought together 60 members, without keeping in contact it would not have been possible. 

Defensive coordinator Denzil Cox said the players truly got along and loved each other. He said the friendships they made playing football lasted for life. Seeing the players still together gave him a sense of pride.

The way the team came together and gelled is something Cox and the late Joe Clark, Nicholls’ offensive coordinator agreed on. The 1984 season is special and a feat of greatness to the two coaches.

“One of our ex-coaches, Joe Clark, and I were talking about it before he passed away, and he said, ‘Denzil it was Camelot.’ That was the way he described it. We had great times, great coaches, great players, it came together and it was fun,” Cox said.