Greg Johnson named new head football coach at West St. John

West St. John has turned to an alumnus as its new head football coach.

Greg Johnson has been promoted to head coach of the Rams.

Johnson has been at West St. John for the last five years after teaching and coaching in Houston, Texas previously. Johnson has coached wide receivers, running back and special teams at West St. John.

Johnson replaces Brandon Walters, who resigned less than three weeks ago after serving six years as the head coach of the Rams, capturing the 1A state championship in 2017.

“Coach Walters has left the program in good standing and I just have to take it and keep moving on,” Johnson said. “It is pretty challenging right now. We didn’t get a chance to have a spring program. Just going through the process is difficult. There are a lot of concerns from the kids and their perspective.”

West St. John has only 23 players in the program right now.

“We expect up to as many as 10 to come out and join us when school starts next week,” Johnson said.

Johnson played at West St. John for legendary coach Laury Dupont, a mentor, who guided the Rams to state championships in 1998, 2003 and 2004 and had the Rams in six state championships in his tenure. Dupont is a member of the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame.

“Coach Dupont coached me,” Johnson said. “There was a respect built and a culture of winning that we built. It’s about winning. Our community doesn’t want to hear anything else and we understand that and we want to win. There are always high expectations. We just need to keep the kids focused and focus on winning. We understand winning here.”