On the eve of St. Augustine vs. Edna Karr, two of the city's top high school coaches and an 80-year-old playground legend came to thank the volunteers who coach New Orleans children first.

By Kim M. Braud | October 30, 2026

NEW ORLEANS - The coaches who teach New Orleans children their first tackles, layups and base hits are rarely thanked in public. On Friday night, District C Councilmember Freddie King III brought them to Gallier Hall to do it.

The NORD Coaches Appreciation event gathered current and former New Orleans Recreation Development Commission coaches, their families, and two high school coaches whose teams were set to play each other the next day in one of the most anticipated games of the season.

King, who sits on the NORD Commission, told the room that recreation coaches are not paid for the work. They spend their own time and their own money on the city's children, he said, and seldom get recognition for either.

"One you can never get back," King said, recounting his wife's advice about time and money. "The other one is pretty hard."

King said NORD shaped his own childhood and his siblings', and that his children play in NORD programs now. He described the department as something for everyone, from football and basketball to programs his daughters joined.

Two rivals, one night off

St. Augustine head coach Robert Valdez and Edna Karr offensive coordinator John Johnson Jr. both spoke, roughly 24 hours before their teams were scheduled to meet at City Park.

King pointed out that both programs come from majority-Black schools, one Catholic and one public, and described them as nationally ranked and first and second in the state.

Valdez told the NORD coaches that the young men his staff coaches came to them primarily through NORD programs.

"We expect their best. They expect our best," Valdez said of Saturday's game. "And our children will be on center stage."

He also thanked the judicial candidates who addressed the crowd earlier in the evening, saying he respected anyone willing to step into leadership.

Johnson asked every current and former NORD coach in the room to stand. The work his staff does at the high school level, he said, is only possible because of the groundwork NORD coaches lay when players are small children who could go in a million directions.

"You're not just coach," Johnson said. He listed the other roles recreation coaches take on: big brother, uncle, mentor, social worker, even the ride home and the daycare for parents who cannot be there.

Johnson said his oldest son, John "Hollywood" Johnson III, came up through NORD at Behrman and Cut-Off before starting at quarterback for Karr for three seasons. The younger Johnson is now on the West Virginia University roster.

He said he tells parents considering Karr the same thing he expects Valdez tells parents at St. Augustine.

"It's bigger than ball," Johnson said. "You're not coming to play ball. You're coming to be a part of our family."

Johnson said both teams practiced Friday and had an early call Saturday, but that skipping the event was never a consideration. "There was no way else that we would rather be," he said.

King offered his own measure of what those coaches build. His 7-year-old son, he said, is in a phase of asking which animals are fastest. One day his son asked whether the cheetah was faster than John Johnson, the Karr star. King said the question showed how children see older kids who look like them: as larger than life.

Voting since 1965

The evening's special presentation went to Coach Irvin Jordan, 80, a longtime NORD coach whom King's father, introduced. King's father said his son's commitment to NORD came from watching him coach.

Jordan, visibly moved, said his teams of the 1970s lost only a handful of football games and dominated in basketball and track. He credited the people around him: his booster club, his staff, his neighborhood, his teachers and his family, including his wife, who he said never complained about the six days a week he spent with other people's children.

"Your community is your village," Jordan said.

He told the room he graduated from high school in 1964 and has voted in every election he could since 1965, an opportunity he noted his mother did not have.

"You got to vote, people, and educate yourself," Jordan said.

He urged more men to step into public schools, law enforcement and the courts, and to stop waiting on others to fix their communities. "Once you love yourself," he said, "you can love others."

DJ Jubilee closed the formal remarks by introducing himself as a NORD coach from 1997 to 2021, with 14 city championship appearances, including eight straight. He said he has worked for NORD for more than 25 years and still does.

Judicial candidates on the program

Before the coaches were honored, Julius Felton invited candidates in the Nov. 3 election to introduce themselves. Felton urged everyone present to vote and encouraged support for Democratic candidates.

Seven judicial candidates spoke, each giving a ballot number.

• Civil District Court, Division L: Warren McKenna III (No. 60)
• State Rep. Candace Newell (No. 61)
• Civil District Court, Division M: Sean Lindsay (No. 63)
• Civil District Court: Michael Wall (No. 64)
• Criminal District Court, Magistrate: Chief Judge Juana Marine-Lombard (No. 72)
• Criminal District Court, Section H: Judge Camille Buras (No. 68)
• Criminal District Court, Section D: Judge Kimya Holmes (No. 66)

Jordan, the honoree, had the last word on what the coaches do. "You don't have time for hate," he told them. "Let's go to work."

Kim M. Braud is the Founder & Editor of Evans Cutchmore Press, an independent newsroom covering Louisiana and the Gulf South, and the author of Financial Power for Life™, a financial literacy framework that helps people earn, protect, grow, leverage, and transfer wealth. Her reporting focuses on government, infrastructure, business, culture, and the public policies that shape communities, with a commitment to highlighting progress and the people doing meaningful work in a news landscape often dominated by conflict and crisis.

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