ROCKY FONTENOT

Local Man Has Helped Many Students Become Better Basketball Players … And More Successful Adults

By Karla Wall

When Rocky Fontenot, owner of Rocky’s Feed and Garden Supply Center in Sulphur, talks about some of the high school students he’s privately trained in the sport of basketball, he doesn’t talk much about scores or last-second, game-winning shots (although he does mention that one of his students went from barely being able to shoot 10 free throws in a row to sinking 92 of 100 with no trouble).

No, what Fontenot loves to talk about is past students who have made successes of their lives. One student, he says, is a local doctor; one is a chemical engineer; one is a local business owner.

And one student’s career choice led to what must have been one of the most unusual situations Fontenot’s experienced in his life.

“I answered the phone one day, and a man with a low, deep voice said ‘I’m with the FBI. Do you know (the former student)? He listed you as a reference. We’d like to come and talk to you,’” Fontenot recalls. “I ended up with three FBI officers in my store. And it was one of the most eerie things I’ve ever encountered. They were just like you see on TV — like on the old TV show Dragnet. They were stiff, unsmiling. It was a bit unnerving.”

The student, Fontenot says, was hired, and is “making quite a name for himself” in the Bureau.

Fontenot also talks about having students attend and play basketball at colleges and universities such as Millsaps College in Mississippi, Tulane, LSU, Louisiana College, USL and Southern Missouri.

And some of these kids, he points out, were not on track for success at all; in college or in life.

“I had one student who was headed for disaster,” Fontenot says. “He was from a poverty-stricken family, was getting into trouble, and had a 2.5 GPA in school as a freshman. (St. Louis High) Coach Keith Kelley asked me to work with him. I asked this kid, ‘Do you want me to train you?’ He said yes, and I told him things were going to have to be different.”

By the time the student graduated, says Fontenot proudly, he had a 3.5 GPA and offers from major colleges. He’s now at Tulane.

Those are the kinds of stories Fontenot loves to tell when talking of his students.

“I teach (players) finesse on the court,” he says. “I teach them basketball skills. But I also teach them life skills. I teach them to be strong competitors without being unsportsmanlike. I tell them that it’s not about how many points you score, or whether you win or lose, but whether or not you contribute to the team.”

And he also instills confidence, both through improving the students’ skills on the court, and by providing loving support and a role model.

“I’m almost a father figure to these kids,” Fontenot says. “I remember driving one of my students and her friends to a homecoming dance.”

Fontenot has hired students to work in his store and his home, to “keep them busy, keep them off the streets and away from that God-awful X Box.”

He’s also been instrumental in his students’ plans beyond high school.

“(The students) give me letters they get from colleges, and ask me where I think they should go,” Fontenot says. “ I tell them to pick a college that will give them the education they need for the career they’ve chosen; one that will let them participate in a good basketball program; and one that fits their plans and their family geographically. You don’t want to go to a college across the country if your family can’t afford to fly out to see your games, and you can’t afford to fly home to see them.”

Fontenot has trained students from “just about every school in the area,” he says, including Hackberry, Bell City, Lacassine and St. Louis.

Oddly, though, Fontenot didn’t play school basketball himself.

“I moved around so much when I was a kid that I couldn’t play on a team,” he says. “I was constantly in different schools.”

But he loved the game, he says, from early childhood. He learned it inside and out, by watching games and listening to coaches. He learned coaching skills from his friendships with local coaches, and by attending clinics.

In 1994, the Hackberry High School basketball coach asked Fontenot to work with one of his players. And Fontenot was hooked.

“I love the kids, and I love teaching the game,” Fontenot says.

Fontenot says he’s always been careful not to interfere with the team coach’s work with the students.

“I never contradict the coach; that’s not what I’m there for,” he says.

Rather, Fontenot’s work with the students builds finesse, mechanical skills on the court, and confidence; and it adds an extra something that’s often hard to come by for players on large teams — individual attention.

“There’s no way a coach can spend an hour and a half a day with each team member,” says Fontenot. “They just can’t give that kind of individual attention.”

Simply put, Fontenot says, he’s “turned a lot of kids into great kids. I gave them love, believed in them, and they developed into great people.”

And, he says, he’s gotten as much out of the relationships as his students have.

“I’ve been grateful to be a part of these kids’ lives,” he says. “They’ve all taught me as much as I taught them.”