EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a continuing series of features on Forerunners, Southwest Louisiana people whose lives made significant, beneficial impacts on our area.

Former Sulphur High quarterback David Walker has a seemingly endless supply of anecdotes about his former high school coach, Shannon Suarez.

So many, in fact, that Suarez inspired him to write a book about football, “I’ll Tell You When You’re Good” — the title of which is a line the coach used to inspire his players.

One story, Walker believes, stands above the rest.

In 1972, his senior year, the Tors were headed to New Iberia with both the district championship and a playoff berth on the line.

On his first pass of the game, Walker threw an interception, which he followed up with another in the second half, as Sulphur found itself scoreless at halftime.

“We can’t find Suarez anywhere,” Walker said. “Finally Suarez walks in (to the locker room) teary-eyed and says, ‘It’s my Aunt Rose, they don’t know if she’s going to make it.’

“Right after kickoff we saw him walking through the alley and right then and there we decided we’re going to win this sucker for him.”

It came down to the wire, with Preston Lanier intercepting two passes, one of which he returned for a touchdown, in a 14-12 Sulphur victory.

And how was Aunt Rose?

“Of course, we will never know,” Walker said.

The story doesn’t end there. The following Monday, Walker was warming up for practice when Suarez walked by.

“Walker, something’s been on my mind,” Suarez said in his distinctive Mississippi drawl.

“What’s that, Coach?” Walker replied.

“Do you just get worse as the season goes on?” Suarez asked him, then turned and walked off without another word.

Walker threw for 222 yards and four touchdowns in a 36-14 win over Baker the following Friday.

“I always said he was the master psychologist, and he still is today,” Walker said.

THE COACH TODAY

Even though he is confined to a wheelchair at Resthaven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Suarez still holds court.

“You think I could outrun you when I get this cast off,” the 77-year-old asks an aide who happens to hail from Kenya.

“Not anymore,” Freddy Ojoro replies.

Another worker comes by offering cookies and coffee. No deal; Coach wants hot cocoa.

She obliges, and he offers her thanks for a job well-done.

“I’m first-string, Coach,” she says. “I ain’t no sub.”

Suarez ended up here after breaking his leg when he fell in the shower.

Two hip replacements had already limited his mobility, but that didn’t stop him from making daily rounds to area businesses — Paragon Drugs, Khoury’s Clothing and the bank were a few of the favorites he’d hit, sometimes looking for a meal and always working the crowd.

His mobility may have lessened, but he is no less the Shannon Suarez he was when he was head coach of the Golden Tors from 1966-82. His mind is sharp, his retorts funny and his ball cap (usually of the Alabama or Marines persuasion) rests lightly on his shaved head.

“An aide is the most mistreated occupation in the world,” he observed in his stay at the nursing home. “If you don’t like your job, just come meet me and we’ll take a walk around. You’ll probably run back to your job.”

He spends his time playing bingo, watching movies (he’s quite the film buff) and, of course, watching more than his share of football.

When he first got to the home, he says a fellow patient told him he could win 50 at bingo.

“I said ‘50 dollars?’ He said, ‘No, 50 cents.’

“You know this ain’t L’Auberge.”

A COACH’S LIFE

A native of Mississippi, Suarez arrived at Sulphur High as an assistant under Jack Doland in 1963.

“Jack Doland was a technique coach, which I hadn’t heard a lot about technique coming from Mississippi,” Suarez said. “We just kind of used common sense.”

There were four coaches on the Sulphur High staff when Suarez arrived — a stark difference from the 19 assistants Suarez saw when he visited Bum Phillips at Port Neches-Groves High looking for a job.

The Tors made the state finals in 1964 and won a state title in 1965, beating Terry Bradshaw-quarterbacked Woodlawn 12-9 in the championship.

Suarez took over in 1966 and led Sulphur back to the finals game in 1968 and the semifinals in 1970 and 1975.

After leaving Sulphur High, Suarez coached one more year, at Tate High School in Cantonment, Fla., then returned home and sold sporting goods for a while at Miller’s House of Sports. He was kept from returning to the sidelines by a fourth neck surgery, the remnants of which are still visible — he has a long scar running down the back of his neck and lacks full range of motion in his neck.

Suarez took much of his coaching style from Alabama’s Paul “Bear” Bryant, a man whom he had so much respect for that he named one of his sons Bear and another Cubby.

“It wasn’t what they did, it was how they did it,” Suarez said.

Bryant’s influence crept into Suarez’s sideline manner — like the Alabama head coach, Suarez wore a houndstooth hat — and into his coaching.

“I didn’t know if I was going to make the team or be able to stick it out because it was tough, harsh and physical,” Walker said. “I found this out on the first day of two-a-days.”

Like any head football coach, Suarez had his detractors, but those who stuck around are fiercely loyal to him.

“A lot of players, when they were in high school, they didn’t care for him, but they would die for him,” said City Councilman Mike Koonce, who played for Suarez.

Koonce said Suarez got him his first job at the Lake Charles Country Club.

“You played three years for Suarez? You can work here, you don’t need to fill out no application,’ ” Koonce said the club pro told him.

It seems everyone who played for — and against — Suarez has a story about him.

Former Barbe head coach Jimmy Shaver tells of an all-district meeting when he was an up-and-comer and Suarez was a grizzled veteran, a story which Suarez recounted.

Suarez said he had two players he felt were definite first-teamers — running back Robert Rigmaiden and center Dennis Peoples.

Running backs were put up first, but when Rigmaiden didn’t make it, Suarez excused himself from the meeting.

“I said there’s no need for me to be wasting Sulphur High’s time, because if Rigmaiden didn’t make it, I ain’t got anybody else,” Suarez said. “I told ’em good-bye and God bless you.”

Suarez coached against some great players, notably Bradshaw, Bert Jones and Joe Ferguson, for whom he singles out his highest praise.

“Joe Ferguson was the best we played against,” Suarez said. “That was because he was pinpoint.”

As far as who the best player he coached was, Suarez is less precise.

“It’s hard to say,” he said before bringing up Arthur Davis, who was on Sulphur’s ’65 state title team. Davis’ mention is just as much about his talent as his work ethic.

“Ain’t none of them loafed, but he always went above and beyond the call of duty,” Suarez said.

Davis became a motivational tool for Suarez.

“Not a halftime went by that I didn’t hear, ‘If Arthur Davis was here this game would be over by now,’” Walker said with a laugh.

Koonce and Walker were polar opposites on the Sulphur team — Walker an all-state quarterback who went on to play at Texas A&M and Koonce a tall, lanky kid who only saw significant playing time on special teams. Their respect for Suarez, though, is the same.

“I always credit him for me staying on a job, because he instilled in me that you don’t quit,” Koonce said.

“He may not have always been right, but you never knew when he was wrong,” Walker said. “He came at the right time because we had such a hard-nosed mindset in town. You had a huge number of parents behind him because they wanted their sons to be men.”

STILL IN THE GAME

Like most coaches, football wasn’t just a job for Suarez — it was an obsession, and still is.

Suarez still keeps an eye on Sulphur High and high school sports, noting the number of private schools that find their way to the No. 1 spot in the prep polls these days.

Suarez said he’s watched every televised college football game over the past 15 years.

“I don’t miss them. I watch all the formations, I watch all the blocks,” said Suarez, musing on the ways the game has changed.

“It’s more of a pushing type of deal than it is blocking. It will make the cycle, but I don’t like that standing up and pushing.”

Resthaven has something akin to a sports bar — sans spirits — which has five televisions, a useful tool for a football nut.

“You get that ESPNU and it shows games 24 hours out of the day,” Suarez said. “It shows the replays. I said, ‘I’ve seen that game so many times I’m going to turn it to something else.’ ”

Could he coach today?

“I’d be smarter now,” Suarez said. “I wasn’t very smart back then.”

Legendary Sulphur High School football coach Shannon Suarez. (BRAD PUCKETT / AMERICAN PRESS)