I Ask a Few Questions of De La Salle High School Football Coach Bob Ladouceur. I’m Waiting to Hear Back.

In my Beyond Chron column last Friday (viewable here, with the full text slated to be published soon on this blog), I argued, “We are all Penn State.” I said we must bring the scrutiny of the out-of-control football industry to our own communities, instead of simply smirking in the unprecedented sordidness that has engulfed the false god Joe Paterno and his acolytes.

Many have remarked that a key to the unraveling in State College, Pennsylvania, was its insularity – a corollary to Penn State football’s lack of accountability. I agree, and I am struck by how that most heinous of criminal patterns – systematic child sexual abuse – seems to attach itself to putative nonprofit institutions (Penn State, the Second Mile Foundation, the Catholic Church) more readily than to for-profit companies. There is plenty of corruption, plenty of ugly practices in the upper reaches of corporate America, but not so much this.

In the spirit of my own commentary, I sent a message with the text below yesterday morning to Bob Ladouceur, the legendary football coach at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, with copies to Leo Lopoz, the school’s athletic director, and John Gray, the director of communications (for the athletic department, I believe, not the school, though I could be wrong about that).

When none of those gentleman replied, I followed up today with the school’s principal, Brother Robert J. Wickman, F.S.C. I will publish any response I receive from anyone at De La Salle.

Dear Coach Ladouceur:

I am an author-journalist-blogger – please see the bottom of this message for links to my work. To be transparent from the outset, I am a critic of the football system at all levels. I seek your responses to the questions below, which I will be publishing on Tuesday morning.

By way of background, I know nothing about you or the De Le Salle High School program other than what I have read and heard as a general sports fan and as a consumer of Bay Area news media. I am familiar with your proud record of national-class athletic success, which includes alums such as current National Football League star Maurice Jones-Drew. I recall the tragic story of Terrance Kelly, the De La Salle standout who became an innocent-bystander murder victim in his hometown of Richmond, California, on the eve of embarking on a student-athlete career at the University of Oregon. By far my single biggest source of information is the very long and nice profile of you by reporter Rusty Simmons, which was published on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on October 16 of this year.

I thought Mr. Simmons’ piece was a weak piece of journalism, and I told him so directly at the time in a polite email exchange. In the course of thousands of words of praise (whose sincerity I do not doubt), he quoted and cited the post-De La Salle life of only one of your ex-players – and that was Patrick Walsh, who has gone on to assume the same job you hold, but at Serra High School in San Mateo. Mr. Simmons replied to my criticism by saying he could have quoted enough Ladouceur alums to fill a book.

Here are my questions to you:

1. Browsing your website, I was stunned to encounter first these words at the top of the home page: “The public’s perception of what we do or what we stand for is drastically different than what actually takes place. I can imagine that this is probably true for many organizations. This is especially true for our football team. People are constantly writing the local papers questioning the integrity of our program. It’s upsetting in so much that it questions the integrity of school officials and coaches sworn to uphold the ideals of our founder St. La Salle. What’s worse, it completely nullifies the hard work, sheer grit and determination of our student athletes at De La Salle High School.” What motivated you to say this? (Certainly not, I would think, coverage like that of the Chronicle.)

2. In his profile, reporter Simmons wrote that your own playing career had been ended by two serious injuries. I have no idea why he either did not ask you or he chose not to specify your injuries. Can you please do so for me?

3. Would you release publicly the budgets of the De La Salle High School Athletic Department and football program?

4. As you will see, the focus of my blog is the concussion crisis in football. Please share with my readers the complete record of the Spartans, during your tenure, in the area of traumatic brain injuries. Please also tell us the specifics of how your program has evolved in diagnosing and treating concussions and in formulating return-to-play procedures.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Irvin Muchnick