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Former Coach: Bobby Banna left legacy of hard workKevin Foote, The Advertiser, July 30, 2018
Bobby Banna brought a hard-nosed approach to the Comeaux Spartans from 1979 to 1991. (Photo: Advertiser file photo) In this new era of 7-on-7 football, where teams regularly line up in the spread, many youngsters may not really know the true meaning of “old school football.” Bobby Banna was the epitome of an old-school football coach. Robert Lee Banna died at his home Saturday. Visiting hours for his funeral begin at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Lafayette until the 1 p.m. Mass. “Bobby Banna was not only a coach, but a teacher of life,” said Judge Richard Haik, who played for Banna at Catholic High of New Iberia in the 1960s and for then-USL into the 1970s. “He coached hard. He was a tough, tough coach. He always told us that he was tough, because life when you finish football is tough. “Everybody gets knocked down. The ones who get up are the ones who survive. That’s what he taught us.” VOTE: Who are the area’s top high school football players of all time? Banna, who retired from coaching in 1997, spent 35 years in the profession preaching hard work. His career took several unique turns. The Birmingham, Alabama, native arrived in the area in 1959 at Catholic High, helping them win a state championship in 1962. “He was like a second father to all the kids he coached in high school,” Haik said. “Everybody loved him and respected him. As tough as he was, they still loved and respected him. And he was a very tough coach. “He demanded full speed on every play. You’re not going to take a slow step when you practiced. Just great life lessons.” In 1968, he joined the Ragin’ Cajun coaching staff as a football assistant and head baseball coach. Former UL middle infielder Rickey Broussard remembers the immediate impact Banna made on the baseball program, even though he was really a football coach.  Funeral services for longtime football coach Bobby Banna, who died Saturday, will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Lafayette with visiting hours beginning at 11 a.m. (Photo: Advertiser file photo) “In my junior year, this guy put us through some workouts that we weren’t used to, man,” Broussard said. “He was killing us. We were doing grass drills, football grass drills. We were getting in three-point stances and running these 10-yard sprints, like a hundred of them, and running stadiums. “I never had anybody push me like this guy. I always had coaches who kind of catered to me.” Broussard remembered Banna’s unique motivational skills. “He wasn’t a big guy, but he’d put the fear of God in you,” Broussard laughed. “He could do that like nobody I ever saw before. “One day, we loafing running laps around the baseball field. He got a baseball bat out of the dugout and came stood by where we had to pass in front of him. We didn’t know what was going to happen, so everybody picked it up a notch in a hurry.” The result was consecutive winning seasons. “His dedication to winning and to the coaching profession superseded anything we needed to know about the game,” Broussard explained. The next big shift in Banna’s career came in 1976, when he left USL to return to high school football coaching. First at Fatima, then at Acadiana High and finally at Comeaux High where he coached from 1979 through the 1991 season. “I remember him as being old-school,” said former Comeaux assistant coach Jerry Johnson. “He believed that hard work was the answer. We drove those kids almost to their breaking point a lot. RELATED:Comeaux High football through the years RELATED:Acadiana High football through the years “He was fair, but he wouldn’t let up. We didn’t have as much talent as everybody else, so he believed you had to work harder than everybody else.” In Banna’s mind, whatever the Spartans may have lacked in talent, they made up for in hard work. “I saw one of our former players recently and we were talking about Coach Banna,” Johnson said. “He said, ‘We would talk to kids from other schools and they would tell us, man y’all coaches are crazy. We don’t work that hard.’” The other characteristic of Banna’s Spartans was playing tough defense. “We played such good defense all those years,” Johnson said. “We didn’t do anything fancy. We just played hard. Our defense was just tough. We were just so fundamentally sound that we didn’t beat ourselves a lot. “He knew football. I learned a lot of football from him.” 
Former Comeaux HIgh head football coach Bobby Banna died Saturday. Banna also coached at Catholic High of New Iberia, Fatima, Acadiana High and USL. (Photo: Advertiser file photo) Since his retirement, Haik and so many of Banna’s former players have relished fishing trips and reunions to relive their glory days and review the lessons learned from their old coach. “Oh yes,” Haik said. “He and I have been together for a long time. He went fishing with us. We’d take him to Cypremort Point, or hunting in Texas and we took him to South Carolina deer hunting twice. “He loved to fish, he loved to hunt. He really loved life. He really did. He was a great man.” Athletic Network Footnote by Dr. Ed Dugas. Click here for the Athletic Network Tribute to Coach Banna. It includes living memorials from his former players. Click here for Coach Banna at the reunion of his baseball players in 2017. Click here for Coach Banna at the 2010 reunion of the 1970 championship football team. Click here for the Coach Bobby Banna’s obituary.
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