During his prep coaching career, much of it at Destrehan High School, Marty Luquet would warn his players of quite a difficult opponent on the horizon.
That opponent? Luquet himself.
“I would tell them, ‘You don’t have an opponent at practice – I’m your opponent at practice,’” Luquet recalled. “But when we play the game, we’re all together, and we’re playing hard, and (the other team) is the opponent. It was my job to make sure you’re doing the things you’re supposed to be doing to be successful.
“You work hard, you stay disciplined, you learn the game and when the game comes, you play without hesitation. The preparation was everything – the game was fun.”
Luquet won more than 500 games during his head coaching career that spanned three decades, and twice brought Destrehan to Class 5A state runner-up finishes. That success brings Luquet another honor – he recently learned he will be inducted into the Louisiana Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“You’re humbled by it,” Luquet said. “I’ve been going to their conventions and to the inductions and I’ve seen some incredible baseball coaches go into the Hall. To know I’m going to be one of them is very humbling.”
Luquet began his career at J.F. Kennedy High School and was head coach at O. Perry Walker and St. James before becoming head coach at DHS.
He earned a baseball scholarship to play at the University of New Orleans, where he was coached by Ron Maestri, a Hall of Fame coach himself.
“I had a love for baseball coming out of there, and I knew I wanted to coach,” Luquet said.
While at Walker, he brought the Chargers to the state baseball tournament for the first time in its program’s history.
That summer in 1986, Luquet guided Walker (Algiers Post 218) to win the American Legion First District championship – the first time a public school team had won that crown in 37 years, and it has not happened since.
While at Walker, Luquet met Louis “Rags” Scheuermann, the legendary New Orleans baseball coach who led Loyola and Delgado to great success on his way to the Hall of Fame.
“To be able to go into the Hall of Fame alongside two mentors, two people who had the most influence on my coaching career, that’s really special,” Luquet said.
Scheuermann would speak to Luquet about coaching, the finer points of game management and keeping cool under pressure.
“I was a very high-strung, fight for every inch young coach,” Luquet said. “And he pulled me on the side and said you can’t do that. You’ve got to be able to go out there and make your point and get out of there before they throw you out, because if you’re sitting in the stands or out in the parking lot, it doesn’t help your team. He taught me to have restraint and to realize I need to be there for those kids.”
How long did it take to truly internalize that lesson?
“It took a while,” Luquet said with a laugh.
Scheuermann took Luquet under his wing. He brought him to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, for the annual All-American Amateur Baseball Association Tournament.
“I had the chance to watch them work,” said Luquet. “I got to see them coaching from the inside and that really made a difference. I learned what was important.”
Luquet had success before arriving at Destrehan, but he said that DHS was truly where his career took off.
His first year as Wildcats baseball coach he guided the team to the state baseball tournament for the first time in school history. It was the first of four straight years Destrehan would reach the tourney.
“My philosophy has always been the same. We’re gonna work hard – we’re not gonna get outworked. But we’re also gonna have fun,” Luquet said. “I wanted to make my players better. Not just as players, but to be better people and better men because I care about them. That’s what we as a coaching staff wanted to do before anything.”
Those players learned discipline from him and his fellow coaches. Practices at Destrehan would begin at 9 a.m. – but if a player arrived at 9, they were met with ‘you’re late.’
“’But it’s 9,’ they’d say. No, 9 is when I start coaching. You have to be ready before that,” Luquet said. “The kids used to call it Luquet time. If practice is at 9, he really means 8:30. You’re installing what they’re going to do when they go work in the real world. You don’t show up at your job and punch it at the second you’re supposed to be there. You get there early.”
To get to the state tournament for the first time, Destrehan needed to beat Mandeville in the second round of the 2002 playoffs. The Skippers hit a 3-run home run in the first inning, then another 3-run home run in the second to put DHS down 6-0.
“I turned and said, look, we can’t get 10-run ruled at home,” said Luquet, referring to the mercy rule that ends a prep baseball game if a team leads by 10 after five innings. “We were on an 18-game winning streak. We can’t get 10-run ruled. We rallied. Every time we had an opportunity, Trey Simon got a big hit. We came back to beat them. That was huge.”
In 2003, Destrehan defeated Barbe in the 5A semifinals to reach the state championship game for the first time. The Wildcats were facing pitcher Wade LeBlanc, who hadn’t lost a game in two years. With Beau Jones on the mound for Destrehan, the Wildcats broke through in the late innings to win.
“We got a hit, they made a couple errors, and then Trey Simon broke the game open,” said Luquet. “That put us on the statewide map.”
In 2004, Destrehan was ranked seventh nationally to begin the season. It would play the second-ranked team in Catholic-Baton Rouge in the first series of the year and the Wildcats earned the win. A day later, Catholic evened things up with a win of its own.
“And they dogpiled,” Luquet said. “When it’s the second day of the regular season, and it’s a program the quality of Catholic High, and they dogpile – we had arrived.”
Destrehan certainly had. DHS reeled off 30 wins in a row after that game and went 33-2 on the season. It climbed to a No. 2 national ranking.
“We had a group of hard-working, really good players,” Luquet said. “They made it fun.”
Luquet’s final prep stop was at Riverside, but he’s not done coaching. He recently accepted the head coaching position at Harry Hurst Middle School, and he said he’s looking forward to that new chapter.
“It’s a chance to teach fundamentals,” Luquet said. “To learn how to practice, to put in the work and to see the reward.”
He’s also coaching St. Charles Parish’s Little League team.
Everything has led to him receiving that Hall of Fame call. He becomes the second person in his household to earn the Hall nod – his wife Lori was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2023 for her standout career over three decades as a sports journalist.
“She said ‘welcome to the club,’” Luquet said.
