For Kyle Lasseigne, coaching at E.D. White has always meant coming home.
A 1988 graduate of E.D. White, Lasseigne played defensive back and tight end for the Cardinals before heading to LSU, where he studied microbiology and graduated cum laude. He went on to medical school, but football called him back.
His first coaching job was at Assumption High School in Napoleonville, where he worked under longtime Mustangs coach Don Torres. It was a program that produced remarkable talent, including future NFL players and Super Bowl champions Brandon Jacobs and Tramon Williams. Torres’s influence on Lasseigne went well beyond football, teaching him not only the game, but how to be a father and a loyal friend.
When the opportunity came in 2000 to return to E.D. White, the pull to come home was too strong to ignore. Lasseigne joined the E.D. White coaching staff that year and was named head coach in 2007. He later stepped away from the head coaching position for five years but never really left E.D. White, continuing to serve in athletics while watching his own children go through the school.
He brought the lessons from Assumption with him. When Lasseigne celebrated his 100th win at E.D. White, Torres was one of the people he singled out for helping him get there.
“He is the most genuine person I’ve ever known,” Lasseigne said. “I’m proud to say that my coaching style resembles his.”
Lasseigne’s homecoming story is one we found more than once while working on this issue. Scott Wattigny returned to Holy Cross, Michael Courville returned to Teurlings Catholic, and Jeremy Turcotte returned to Bay High in Bay St. Louis, former players who came back to lead the programs that helped shape them. For these coaches, the school colors, rivalries and traditions weren’t things they had to learn when they took the job. They grew up with them.
At E.D. White, that football tradition stretches back generations. The Cardinals won their first state championship in 1968 and followed it with another in 1969. This year, E.D. White is honoring those back-to-back state championship teams as its 2026 Cardinal Champions.
And the Cardinals have continued to make their own history. In 2024, Lasseigne led his alma mater all the way to the state championship game in the Caesars Superdome, where E.D. White faced Archbishop Shaw, another chapter in a football story that began for him on the E.D. White campus nearly four decades ago.
THE RIVALRY RETURNS
“Vandebilt is our biggest rival, but we hadn’t played them in five years because we were in different classes and different divisions. They have a new coach, and we agreed to restart it this year. It’s a rivalry that means a lot to both schools.”
