Bob Ladouceur began coaching the De La Salle High Spartans in Concord, California in 1979, when he was twenty-five years old. He took over a team that had never enjoyed a winning season since the school's founding in 1965 and turned it into a perennial winner. From 1992 to 2003, he guided the team to 12-consecutive undefeated seasons, setting a national winning streak record for high school football of 151 consecutive wins – a record matched in amateur sports only by the 159 game winning streak of Passaic High School in men's basketball. Ladouceur was enshrined to the National High School Hall of Fame in 2001. His team has topped the USA Today rankings five times and he is a three time coach of the year. Entering 2008, his career record was 343-22-3. His .936 winning percentage is a record among coaches with 200 or more wins.
The following notes are from his book, "When The Game Stands Tall", it is a must read for all coaches.
- It's a game of technique, repetition and getting it right in practice before you run it in a game. Discipline. The game is played aggressively; it's hard, and it's tough.
- It's getting all the guys doing their jobs at one time.
- Quickness and precision instead of size and athleticism.
- We wanted to train kids to play at a level of excellence that satisfied us. We wanted to take the spirit of the game and infuse it in the kids. He wanted them to play with pure joy and abandonment. Winning was secondary to that. It was a by-product of playing at that level.
- Everybody is at De La Salle for the same reason. They want to be the best.
- We don't count wins. We count on them improving every week. We just work day to day and keep plugging away. Wins are the outcomes.
- Teach them what it takes to play at the highest level: Aggressiveness, Eliminating mental mistakes and a Love of the game.
- Are we going to do this right or are we going to accept mediocrity?
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