We are Salmen!

There’s a quietly positive mood in the halls of the Quonset huts that serve as Salmen High School these days.

With good reason. In addition to the construction work that began in August on the Slidell school’s new state-of-the-art campus, tonight the 10-2 Spartans will host Archbishop Shaw High School in the semi-final round of the state football playoffs. If they win, they’ll go on to the state finals at the Louisiana Superdome, just three years after losing their school to Hurricane Katrina.

Once a powerhouse in their division, having won three state titles in previous seasons, the team has not won a playoff game since 2004, when they reached the quarterfinals. When Katrina’s waters swept away the school, most of the team’s senior players scattered to parts unknown as well.

“We actually made the playoffs that fall, because we were the only school in our district to field a team,” said Salmen Principal Byron Williams. “It was bizarre, because we got there without winning a single game.”

Williams said head coach Jerry Leonard managed to field a team with about 40 players, only two or three of which were seniors.

He vividly remembers the team’s first meeting a month after the storm at Pope John Paul II High School, when only a couple dozen members showed up in battered T-shirts and mismatched sneakers.

He gave Leonard free rein to do whatever he needed to get the football program up and running, while he focused on the school itself.

Across town, Northshore High School opened its doors to the 300 or so students that returned that semester, allowing them to attend classes there on a split schedule.

With help from the St. Tammany Parish School Board, companies such as Nike and grants from the NFL, the program gradually got back on its feet. Each year, the team has gotten more and more competitive, and the Spartans slowly moved up in the rankings.

“Coach Leonard has a sign in his office that says ‘tough times don’t last, tough people do’,” said Williams. “That really exemplifies the attitude these kids have had.”

The students seem to be taking it all in stride. A day prior to the game the walls remain fairly clear of spirit posters, but the Salmen cheerleaders, currently doing double-duty since basketball season also began in early November, say that will change by this afternoon’s pep rally.

“We’ll decorate it in the morning, and everyone will be there,” said cheerleader Dominique Perrier on Thursday. “It will really be a nice thing for our football team to finish first,” she added in a mischievous understatement.

Having won the last nine games in a row, the girls said it wasn’t until the Spartans beat O. Perry Walker High School on Nov. 22 in the regional round that they knew the team had a chance to go all the way.

“That was the big win,” said Cydne Holden, another member of the cheer squad. “They called us country bumpkins, but we beat them anyway.”

Williams, who graduated from Salmen himself in 1976, said the school’s journey has not been easy. He recalled that first year after the storm, when the Spartans were seeded at No. 32, and were clubbed by the No. 1-ranked Bastrop High School, which also has a playoff game this evening.

Ironically, if both teams win tonight, they’ll meet once again, this time in the Superdome.

“This road has been filled with peaks and valleys,” he said. “We’ll definitely be going there with a different attitude this time.”