Local legend reflects on prep football at Patterson High

Most people remember him for his days scoring touchdowns with LSU or for the New Orleans Saints.

But for former star halfback Dalton Hilliard, it all started in the Tri-parish area, as an up-and-coming tailback for Patterson High School.

SportsNet reporter Casey Gisclair recently caught up with Hilliard and asked him about the lessons he learned during his prep football experiences.

Here is what the local legend had to share:

SportsNet: Playing on Friday nights under the lights in the Tri-parish area, what did you enjoy the most about your prep football experience?

Dalton Hilliard: Basically, the most joy or excitement for me coming into prep football was my freshman year. I had the pleasure of playing football with my older brother Curtis Hilliard. He was actually the starting running back at that time during my freshman year and I was the slot back. To have an opportunity to play with your closest friend and someone you look up to and who took care of you your whole life, that’s something I’ll always remember. When people ask me about my career, I always have to tell them this: My freshman year in high school is definitely one of my favorite times as an athlete.

SN: Do you have a favorite moment, or a memorable game that you can look back and say was one of your defining moments?

DH: Really, again, it was my freshman year in the freshman jamboree. We played against Berwick. I was in the slot as a freshman playing with Curtis. I remember I came around on a reverse and took it all the way for a touchdown. Imagine how excited I was – a freshman in the jamboree that just scored a touchdown. It’s funny, because even though I was just a freshman and no one really knew of me, we tried that play again against Morgan City and their coaches were already waiting on it. That time, I stumbled and got tripped up. But it’s just the little things like that, that I really look back and I cherish.

SN: Did you have a favorite opponent or team to play against? Was there a team that you enjoyed playing against more than others?

DH: The jamboree against Berwick and Morgan City were always fun, but my favorite opponent became E.D. White. We played E.D. White for four years, and they were definitely the most competitive team I’d played against at that point in my career. They were always a very disciplined team. So that game for me always provided some great moments, because it was always a close game. That was always a very competitive game for us, no matter what our records were. That was probably the toughest, most intense team I’d played throughout my high school career.

SN: Anyone who plays beyond high school usually points back to the prep level and talks about the lessons they learned there. What lessons did you learn at Patterson that stuck with you at LSU and with the Saints and even now as a businessman?

DH: In high school, you’re talking about closeness, you’re talking about making relationships and being able to trust one another as a unit. In high school, it’s important that you develop close relationships with your football teammates, more than the general body in the school, because you spend a lot more time together with your teammates. So with that, you learn the trust factor – believing and knowing that the individual next to you knows what his duties are and each individual has an obligation to perform that duty. When that works, you become a unit, all a part of one team. And that’s when you become a successful team – when everyone is working together on the same page with the same goals.

SN: Obviously, everyone seems to go their own, separate way following high school. How much do you get a chance to keep up with your teammates?

DH: Not as much. As you said, it becomes a different kind of group. People move on, people move out of Patterson and into different states and stuff. Granted, we have great communication when we do bump into each other again, but it’s not a communication that I’ve kept up with. We don’t really see a lot of those guys most of the time.

SN: It looks like there’s another up and coming prospect in the family with your nephew Kenny. What have you told him to help him as he’s progressed through his young career?

DH: Kenny has really been guided very well by my brother and his father Curtis. He’s done more of the guidance than I have, because I live in the Destrehan area, while they are still in Patterson. But Kenny is just one of those guys who has a lot of patience. He has patience to stick with a play or to make adjustments with each carry. He’s a guy that has tremendous hands and great speed. He most certainly has the ability to become the best running back to ever come out of the state of Louisiana.

SN: When he fully blossoms and grows into his body, just how good exactly can he be?

DH: Like I said, without a doubt, he has the natural, God-given ability to be one of, if not the, best to ever come out of Louisiana. His size and speed, as well as his deception are all great things that he has. What he needs to continue to work on is catching the ball out of the backfield. Lately, he’s been able to make remarkable catches. Those are things that not too many people have been able to see. But being in the backfield and going to the outside and catching the ball, as well as bringing the ball in on those 10-yard-outs – that’s very difficult catches to make, so he’ll need to work on that. But I see improvement in all of those areas, and he’s got a chance to be as good as anyone in this state.