Two weeks ago, Lusher Charter School defeated Warren Easton and began celebrating, euphoric over one more victory in the program’s short history.

That joyous period was short lived, however.

“We won 32-0,” Lusher head coach and athletic director Louis Landrum Jr. said. “The guys were pumped up. Then once they realized this wasn’t their varsity, it was like all the air went out of the tire.”

Friday night at Pan American Stadium, the Lions filled the tire up with air again.

This time, it stayed.

Lusher defeated Rabouin 18-6, the first varsity victory for the charter school since the program went from thought to reality.

“We were thrilled,” Landrum said. “We finally got this varsity game off our back. Finally, it’s over with now. We won.”

And they won in their first-ever varsity game. Previous to Friday night, the Lions played only a JV schedule.

One varsity game. One win. One happy campus.

“There was definitely a buzz at the school Monday,” Landrum said.

“There was a lot of murmur in the hallways,” senior center and defensive lineman Tyler Scifres said.

For Landrum, the win and game have been a long time coming. The Lusher program was originally slated to begin the year of Katrina. But the destruction from the storm changed everything, relocating Landrum to Shreveport for more than a year.

Prior to that, he ran the athletic program at Lusher’s middle school where the athletic teams won several team championships.

Though he never played football, he said he has learned valuable lessons throughout his 20 years at Lusher and while in Shreveport. 

One lesson stands out, though. “You’ve got to have some assistants,” Landrum said. “You have to have a wider base of personnel.”

It’s that personnel that helped guide the Lions to their first varsity victory. And it’s that personnel that is going to keep the players’ heads in the game when they get ahead of themselves.

Such was the case Monday.

“I told (the team) I was sensing a level of comfort, which was disturbing to me,” Landrum. “We’re just in week four. We can’t get that way now because we have a W over our heads with a varsity team.”

But Landrum can never take away just how special Friday’s win was for Lusher, its players and its coaches.

“We needed the win,” Scifres said. “It was the best feeling to start our official season off with a win. It was a really good thing we came out on top.”

“It was just an awesome experience, even for myself,” Landrum said, “to have the guys run on the artificial turf getting a taste of the real deal.”