An upstart basketball coach in our area is going to be helping Vandebilt in their quest to win the State Championship this winter.
Central Lafourche graduate and local basketball coach Caroline Loupe confirmed to By-U Sports this week that she is going to become an assistant girls’ basketball coach at Vandebilt Catholic.
Loupe jumped out of her successful playing career and right onto the sidelines. She was the head boys’ basketball coach last year at Lockport Middle School. She said to now be able to transition back to the women’s game and to work with a loaded Vandebilt team is a blessing. The Terriers are among the favorites to win the State Championship in Division II Select.
“I feel very, very excited,” she said. “Everything I am doing now in college and my career is to better my future and become a great coach at the highest level possible. I feel very honored to be chosen to coach on Coach Coleman’s staff and be welcomed to Vandebilt.”
Loupe has a unique situation at Vandebilt – one which she said will help her to be the best coach that she can. Because she is so recently removed from high school, she actually played against some of the prominent members of the Terriers’ roster when she was at Central Lafourche and they were underclassmen at Vandebilt. Some of those players are key pieced on Vandebilt’s team and are prominent pieces who are being recruited by colleges.
Loupe said the Terriers started to work this week and the environment is great, but also intense with the players working as hard as they can to be as good as they can possibly be each day. Having that knowledge of the players coming in, she said, gives her an advantage.
“I kind of feel like I have a slight advantage to being able to help them get better due to me playing against them in the past,” she said. “I literally studied their game, picking it apart to compete against them and now, I can help build them up to become better players.”
Loupe said she will miss her family at Lockport Middle School, saying that she is extremely thankful to the school for taking a chance on her right out of high school and giving her a chance to be a first-time coach. Loupe said getting that year of experience last year is something she will always appreciate and will never forget.
“I learned how to have firm boundaries in who I want to be as a coach , making sure the players respected me and knew when it was time to work they worked hard,” she said of her year at Lockport. “Being with how young I am that can be challenging at times, but I am definitely getting better. It also helped build confidence in myself. I saw what I was teaching make sense in real game time and it worked. I cannot thank Lockport enough for being able to start my career there and the staff , faculty, and other coaches will always have a place in my heart.”