MARRERO – Billy North remembers when houses and neighborhoods didn’t dot the landscape surrounding John Ehret High. He recalls when rabbits ran wild on the school’s practice field behind the main buildings and gymnasium.

This fall will mark 22 years at Ehret for North, and still, the thought of spring practice at the Patriot Street campus excites him.

By Bradley Handwerger / WWL-TV.com

Ehret quarterback Rico Jones fakes a handoff to head coach Billy North during a spring practice. North still loves his job at Ehret after 22 years.

It was only months ago, however, that it appeared North would be heading to Thomas Jefferson, a new high school on the Westbank, where he would partake in spring drills.

During the Christmas break, North initially agreed to take the job as head football coach there, only to pull back and decide that Ehret is where he needed to be.

“I didn’t need spring football to tell me that,” North says now. “Right after the holiday, I knew I was in the right place. Not that Thomas Jefferson was a bad place, but this is the place I need to be right now.”

And now…now he can continue to enjoy those bright blue skies and crisp spring days at Ehret.

“As you get older, you learn to appreciate nice weather,” North said. “Not just being on the practice field, but some of us having been here a long time, we look at the clouds and see the pretty blue sky. We appreciate being out here.

“As you get older, you don’t know how many more opportunities you have to be out here. Our staff is having a great time.”

They’re not alone. In fact, the way the players were bouncing around the field Wednesday afternoon made it fairly evident the teenagers were having fun, too.

That can likely be attributed to several things, but none of the reason might be bigger than the Patriots’ push into the Class 5A semifinals in 2007.

It also could have something to do with a group of 29 seniors taking ownership of the team and making sure everything is done right.

“Last spring, we had a couple of seniors that weren’t as this (group),” returning quarterback Rico Jones said. “Some people took plays off. This spring, everybody is coming hard and everybody is taking every drill and getting better each and every day.”

Ehret High coach Billy North

But Jones said it’s not pressure from last year’s run that is guiding this group.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say pressure,” he said. “But everybody’s more focused. Everybody knows what we can do and what we’re trying to do.”

It won’t be easy. The Patriots must replace three all-district defensive linemen as well as a receiver and a cornerback who helped carry the team a year ago.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny that by getting into the semifinals last year, Ehret had a jump-start to 2008 that North said he already can see the benefits of.

“The thing with getting to the semifinals is you have four extra weeks of practice,” North said. “These young guys, they were really seasoned by the time we got to the semifinals. It helps a lot. We can see us getting better every week.”

“Once the season ended, we didn’t want it to,” Jones said. “We wanted to keep playing forever and ever. For us to be back out here after all the hard work we did in the weight room and the training, it’s a joy to be out here.”

And it helps that North is back. Not that the players ever expected him to truly go anywhere.

“I was thinking in my mind that he wasn’t going,” Jones said.

“They didn’t believe it,” North said. “They didn’t hear it from me, so they didn’t believe it. It really wasn’t that big a deal for the kids.”

But it was a big deal for Ehret. They still have their coach, the one who knows enough to look in the past but to keep his eye on the future.