‘Always been coach O’s boys’: McNeese freshmen Cody and Parker Orgeron relish dad’s dream

Published 6:59 pm Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Parker Orgeron’s got this reply rehearsed.

Kelly, Ed’s wife, is sure these two coaches could be brothers. Guidry jokes he’s more like Ed than anyone in his biological family. Neither shows high regard for the English language, but both form a contagious affinity with players.

They have now recruited each other’s sons. Ed, while at Tennessee, swayed Janzen Jackson — Guidry’s son — to sign with the Vols. Six years later, Guidry entered Ed’s home alongside offensive coordinator Landon Hoefer and receivers coach Kerry Joseph.

Guidry was more nervous about wooing Kelly. Ed barked at Hoefer for not finishing his steak.

“You had to be there,” Hoefer says. “It was unlike any other (visit) I’d ever been in, that’s for sure.”

So many times, Kelly says, Ed brings home one of his homesick players. Her task is to treat the athlete like her son, giving him the love and affection he’s been without.

“Oooh. Wait a minute,” she thought as her own children started the process. “‘Now this is my baby. Now hang on a second.’”

Kelly needed no more than that visit. She says there was no question whatsoever she could entrust Guidry and his staff “to take care of our boys as good as we did.”

“They’ve always been Coach O’s boys,” Guidry says.

***

Parker’s back to return a punt. It is Tuesday and the Cowboys play their first overnight road game in four days against Incarnate Word.

For one second, Parker is distracted. The football falls through his arms to the grass. Guidry places one hand on his head in disbelief.

“We’re starting to become surprised when he doesn’t catch a ball,” Guidry said.

Standing 6-foot-1 and listed generously at 188 lbs, Parker is unassuming. Nothing he does is with flash or flair, but he possesses an unnatural ability to catch anything thrown or kicked in his vicinity.

“Hell of a question, honestly,” Parker says when asked how he got his hands. “Not from my dad, that’s for sure. I got her athletic genes and my dad’s competitiveness.”

Parker’s caught 13 passes this season. Four converted third downs. One other continued a drive on a fourth down.

“He’s making grown-man plays,” Hoefer said.

Hoefer played with Patriots receiver Danny Amendola for three seasons at Texas Tech. The 5-foot-11 slot receiver makes his living professionally doing what Parker’s shown through five games.

Both are quick route runners. Both catch the football when called upon.

“But what overrides all that is that those are two of the toughest guys I’ve ever been around,” Hoefer says. “There’s something wired in their brain that’s fearless.”

Ed’s careful not to be boastful. When he was evaluating Parker, he viewed his son solely from the eyes of a coach.

“He’s one of the best I’ve seen,” Ed says. “I thought he was good enough to play at LSU.”

***

Parker is one minute older, the more reserved and tight-lipped of the twins.

Ed’s father, Ed Sr., gave Cody the nickname “Country Club.” It’s a long story, Cody says.

Cody won two state titles at Mandeville High School in a sport that can grate kids like him. It was a secular game, ostracizing someone who, as his mother says, has “the gift of gab.”

“Always been able to talk to anyone whether it be a total stranger, an older person or younger,” Kelly says. “He’s got to be out, doing everything, always afraid he’s going to miss something and be in the mix.”

Cody now stands 6-foot-1. He was 5-foot-4 as a high school freshman, the victim of a late-arriving growth spurt. By the summer of his junior year, tennis burnt him out. He gathered his parents to inform them he’d switch to football.

“He went wild,” Cody said of his dad. “It was probably one of the best days of his life. His whole life he wanted to see me and Parker play in high school.”

Parker was Mandeville High’s quarterback as a junior, running mostly wildcat formations when the Skippers’ starter was hurt. Cody outplayed all returners that offseason, becoming the team’s starter.

Parker settled back as a receiver. Guidry attended the second game of his senior year against Barbe. He, originally, questioned his speed and pegged him a college safety.

Cody’s arrival changed it.

“You can’t take him from wide receiver,” Guidry finally said. “(Cody) came out and a good athlete, could move his feet, could really throw and extend plays and would always find Parker down field. You could tell they’d been together a long time, that they were brothers.”

Added Mandeville coach Guy LeCompte: “What they say about twins being on the same page, that exists.”

***

When it happened, Parker was ready to move on. He’d dreamt this scenario so many times before. What would it look like? Where would it be? How would he remember the first touchdown of his collegiate career — one ascending at a rate that surprises no one.

Parker lined in the slot. He ran a corner route, cutting from the middle of the field toward the back pylon. No defensive back followed. Quarterback James Tabary lofted a pass, perhaps the easiest of his 27 completions in last Saturday’s 38-13 win against Nicholls State.

Alone in the corner, Parker waited for the pass to fall. It did, into the two most reliable hands on the McNeese receiving corps. An overzealous man on the sideline slapped the freshman on his shoulder pads. Calmly, Parker tossed the football to a waiting official.

“It wasn’t as sweet because I was wide open,” Parker said Tuesday. “Kind of played it cool.”

He retreats to the sideline, where his teammates’ first priority is to provide an update. LSU running back Derrius Guice scored from four yards out. Ed led the first game of his dream job, 14-0, against Missouri.

Ed can’t even remember it was Guice who scored. He recalls only his oldest son, Tyler, an LSU director of player personnel recruiting assistant, fetching him on the sideline with the news. He took a one second respite to celebrate the occasion. He’s 129 miles away beginning his dream while his son realizes one of his own.

“It tears a hole in your belly as a parent,” Ed says. “We have an understanding. He knows I’m a coach and he’s a player. We’ve grown accustomed to it, but I tell you what, I watched it all on film.”

Kelly sits high atop the stadium where her husband was welcomed with adoration and, eventually, doused in Gatorade following the win. Cody, a redshirt who does not dress out for McNeese games, is among the crowd of 102,000 roaring in approval for his dad.

Cody’s cell phone began to buzz. Kelly was alerted to the television set inside the luxury suite. News of Parker’s touchdown spread.

“Knew it was coming. It had to happen sooner or later,” Cody says. “It’s only the first of many.”

Ed listened to his former boss, Pete Carroll, and gave his boys a ball as soon as they showed the competency to grip it. He took them to the Coliseum and ran USC’s route trees.

Sometimes Matt Leinart threw. Carson Palmer often hoisted Cody onto his shoulders after games and took him into the locker room.

Parker had to settle for sitting atop Reggie Bush.

“Looking back on it now,” Parker says, “I’m just like ‘Wow.’”

Soon all will reunite. LSU’s open date, on Oct. 29, coincides with McNeese’s Southland Conference home game against Abilene Christian.

“We’re going to be there the minute they step on the field and just savor every second,” Ed says. “I tell you what, I’m going to be there as soon as I can, I promise you. We’re going to have the whole Orgeron gang there cheering for the Cowboys.”McNeese receiver Parker Orgeron catches his first touchdown of the season in Saturday’s 38-13 win against Nicholls (Rick Hickman / The American Press)

‘Always been coach O’s boys’: McNeese freshmen Cody and Parker Orgeron relish dad’s dream

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