http://www.nola.com/lsu/index.ssf/2017/04/no_18_in_your_program_christia.html#incart_river_home
If anything, Christian LaCouture knows how to adapt.
The Maine-born LSU fifth-year senior defensive tackle with the French surname that fits nicely in south Louisiana has lived a nomadic existence. The flexibility of his mother's military career has helped chase his dream of playing major college football.
"We've lived in Maine, Boston, Texas, Nebraska and here," LaCouture said. "You get to see different parts of the country."
LaCouture understands how to go with the flow, even it becomes a life-altering flood last August of his family home that followed a season-ending knee injury which happened less than a week after his college graduation.
"I graduated August 3, and within nine days I went from celebrating my degree and experiencing the pure joy of getting ready for the season to it all going downhill," LaCouture said. "Talk about a rollercoaster."
In December, LaCouture chose to ride for one more year, bypassing entering the NFL Draft for the second straight season.
With just a couple of remaining spring practices as LSU goes on spring break, LaCouture is again showing the improved skill set he possessed before his knee injury.
Plus when pro scouts now come calling, he has another positive on his resume.
He's wearing No. 18.
The number that speaks volumes
Since 2003, the jersey No. 18 has been given by the Tigers' head coach to the LSU player who epitomizes unselfishness and leadership, the ultimate teammate who cares more about the greater good of the team than personal glory.
After the start of spring practice last month when new head coach Ed Orgerontapped LaCouture as the 10th LSU player to wear No. 18, few teammates were surprised. They've witnessed the unforeseen challenges he's handled with a smile.
"Christian has never blinked an eye," said fellow defensive lineman Greg Gilmore, who was part of the Tigers' 2013 recruiting class with LaCouture. "When he eventually walks into an NFL office full of coaches and scouts and is asked what he brings to a team, he can say "I bring the ability to overcome adversity because I've been through a lot of it.' "
David and Amy LaCouture set the example of hard work and unselfishness for their son Christian and daughter Taylor, doing whatever it takes to give them opportunities to succeed.
The last four moves made by the LaCoutures - from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Odessa, Texas to College Station, Texas to Lincoln, Nebraska to Baton Rouge - have all been to position and support Christian's goal of playing college football at the highest level.
They patiently survived him playing at three high schools, as well as his commitments and de-commitments to and from Texas A&M and Nebraska before he settled on LSU.
The first three seasons of LaCouture's LSU career, he played in 37 games (23 as a starter) as an undersized defensive tackle compensating for a lack of girth with his ferocious competitive attitude.
During the final minutes of his 2015 junior season in the Tigers' runaway Texas Bowl victory over Texas Tech, LaCouture sustained a broken left forearm. He had a titanium plate and 10 screws inserted for healing.
Shortly thereafter, Dave Aranda was hired as defensive coordinator. He planned to switch the Tigers' base defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4, which resulted moving LaCouture to end.
After spring practice concluded, LaCouture was so excited by the position switch that he tripled his four times per week summer workouts. He pushed through sand pit running with his father, performed boxing workouts with a personal trainer and still took part in the Tigers' off-season program.
He reported for preseason physically locked and mentally loaded. On the morning of his graduation, he was back at practice in the afternoon.
Four days later, it happened.
"I had a double team combo (block), the guard and tackle came on me, and the tackle came off me," LaCouture said. "(Running back) Leonard (Fournette) was actually running the other way. As I turned my head to look, I planted my foot.
"My leg hyperextended, my knee caved in and I felt a pop. I thought someone kicked me from the side, but no one touched me. I went down and I knew something was wrong."
The knee began swelling. The next day, an MRI confirmed a torn ACL. LaCouture's season was over before it had barely started.
"It was even more upsetting when I got hurt, because I felt like I was playing very well," LaCouture said. "Coach O and Coach Aranda came to me and said, 'You've been playing so well but everything happens for a reason.'
"When you look at things like that, you can't look at it why it happened to you, you have to look at it that it happened for a reason. I kept telling myself that. My family kept telling each other that. You don't know why it happened, but at some point you will."
LaCouture wanted to feel sorry for himself, but didn't have time.
Just days after his injury, it started raining in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area and didn't quit until more than 10 rivers reached moderate, major or record flood stage.
An estimated 146,000 homes were damaged and one of those belonged to LaCouture family in the Centurion subdivision just off O'Neal Lane. It was a house that the LaCoutures bought without flood insurance because they were told it was not located in a flood zone.
Three and a half feet of muddy water flooded the two-story home. LaCouture, his family and their 200-pound mastiff retreated to the second floor. The water subsided and cleanup began of what became $250,000 of damage that emptied the LaCoutures savings account and forced them to get loans, despite $30,000 from FEMA and $20,000 from a GoFund me account started by Christian.
"The flood woke me up, it put my injury in perspective," LaCouture said. "It's not about me, it's about a whole community.
"It was a depressing time. A lot of people lost their homes. I watched my Mom and Dad carry out wet mattresses. The memories we had in our life were just thrown to a pile.
"I was on crutches and I couldn't really do anything."
Or that's what LaCouture first thought.
Reaching out to comfort a stranger
In one of Amanda Barker's darkest hours, LaCouture made her smile.
Barker, the gatekeeper of LSU Nation, a Facebook page with more than 40,000 members, barely made it out of her house in Denham Springs before 71/2 feet of flood water filled it.
At 5 a.m. in the morning, she and her brother rounded up their three dogs and beat it down the interstate to her uncle's house in Brusly.
She can't remember exactly when she finally looked at local TV news which had a cameraman in a helicopter flying over devastated areas.
"He flies over Florida Boulevard/Amite River bridge, then he flies over my house," Barker said. "The camera was directly on my house and there was water up to the roof. I literally lost it. It was horrible."
Four months earlier, Barker had been laid off as an administrative assistant at an engineering firm. She had lost her job, then her house and had no significant other to lean on.
One of the things that has always soothed her soul is LSU sports, particularly football. Like so many other Tigers' fans, she never attended LSU but learned to love the Purple and Gold from her father and her neighbors which were all males.
"I really can't afford it, but I will go broke to go to a home game," said Barker, a vivacious 29-year old who paid $300 last year for a Tiger Stadium south end zone seat for the Alabama game. "Even if I go by myself, I must be in that stadium, no ifs ands or buts about it. To me, the amount of energy in that stadium, like when nobody stopped screaming the entire Alabama game, is worth any amount of money."
Barker was absolutely at her lowest when she posted a picture of her flooded house on the LSU Nation Facebook page to informed her extended family what happened.
The next day, LaCouture messaged her.
"I'd never met him and I still haven't met him," Barker said. "But the day after I posted on the LSU Nation page, Christian messaged me out of nowhere. He said, 'If you need anything, I'll be glad to help.' "
Barker was stunned and grateful.
"Christian was dealing with his injury, so I thought it was the sweetest thing for him to offer me a hand," Barker said. "I called my best friend who's also a big LSU fan. I told her Christian asked if he could help me and I know he can't help me because his knee is all messed up. For him to even offer was amazing."
Why did LaCouture contact Barker, oblivious to the personal anguish of his injury and the flooding of his family home?
"My family felt like we were by ourselves at first, so when somebody asked about us it made us feel a lot better," LaCouture said. "So when I saw people affected, I wanted to reach out to them and let them know if they needed help that I would help them. They were going through what we were going through, so it was real depressing. A lot of people lost their houses, lost a lifetime of memories.
"When I saw that (the picture of Barker's flooded house), I wanted to reach out to her, make sure she knew she wasn't alone, that somebody was on her side and if there was anything she needed I'd be glad to help."
Barker, ready for her life to return to normal, is about to finally move back in her house after living with her mother. She still has nightmares about escaping her house before almost drowning, but she found work in February at a Baton Rouge auto repair shop.
When Barker saw the news that LaCouture had been awarded the No. 18 jersey, she smiled as wide as that lousy August day when his simple gesture through an on-line message momentarily eased her heartache.
"Christian made me realize people do care even if you think they don't notice you," Barker said. "He made me smile when I was going through the worst time of my life.
"He deserves to wear No. 18. He's the perfect pick to wear it."
One good leg to stand on
After suffering a serious injury, it's not unusual for athletes to isolate themselves from teammates. The mental anguish is often greater than the physical pain during rehab.
But once LaCouture could walk without crutches, he was happy to accept the offer from new interim coach Orgeron and new defensive line coach Pete Jenkinsto become an assistant D-line coach.
LaCouture's teammates were just as delighted to see him back on the practice field and in the meeting rooms.
"When Christian went down with his knee, it hurt my heart," Gilmore said. "He's such a good dude, so him being able to coach helped him keep contact with the team. It also helped him learn the defense.
"He didn't have a job description, so I could say 'Hey, watch my pad level on this play, watch how my hands look.' I got one-on-one coaching from him, and it helped me. I think he liked it because he had a chance to boss me around and mess with my head."
Coaching benefited LaCouture more than he initially realized.
"When I get done playing football, I'd like to be a coach," LaCouture said. "So I got to see the other side, taking the helmet off, putting the coaching hat on. I had to look at techniques from a coaching standpoint and not as a player. I wasn't getting physical reps, I was getting mental reps, watching how the linemen did and how it was corrected when they messed up.
"Even though I was hurt. I wanted to do whatever I could to help the team win. If that meant being a coach, I was going to do it."
In December, LaCouture announced he would return to play in 2017 after realizing a season missing-in-action made his draft stock an iffy proposition. Orgeron, Aranda and Jenkins all convinced him he had goals he could achieve by staying with the Tigers one more year.
"I didn't want to end my college career the way I did by getting hurt," LaCouture said. "I told myself I wanted to win a national championship before I left."
New number, same attitude
Remember LaCouture's family telling him he'd eventually realize that his knee injury happened for a reason?
Combined with the flood, it forced him to slow his roll and connect with a place and its people to truly call it his home.
"We've never been part of anything like a flood, it was a surreal moment," LaCouture said. "But when everybody in the neighborhood offered to help each other, I realized that in Louisiana we're all one family. Louisiana people are blue-collar and scrappy. That's who I like to have in my corner."
The positive reaction of being named to wear No. 18 has re-affirmed his leadership role, especially to underclassmen like sophomore Rashard Lawrencewho's backing up LaCouture at end.
"Christian hosted me (in an official recruiting visit), so it's special that we're going to play together in his last year," Lawrence said. "He's been a leader ever since I came here, he's definitely deserving of wearing No. 18."
All the positives finally made LaCouture understand why his injury occurred.
"I now look at it as a blessed opportunity born from a bad situation, a lot of good came from it," he said. "My family and I are excited. Our house is completely done. I'm going to rock one of the best jerseys ever in LSU history and we're going to have a great team."
And whichever player gets LaCouture's previous number No. 91 has a big jersey to fill.
If anything, Christian LaCouture knows how to adapt.
The Maine-born LSU fifth-year senior defensive tackle with the French surname that fits nicely in south Louisiana has lived a nomadic existence. The flexibility of his mother's military career has helped chase his dream of playing major college football.
"We've lived in Maine, Boston, Texas, Nebraska and here," LaCouture said. "You get to see different parts of the country."
LaCouture understands how to go with the flow, even it becomes a life-altering flood last August of his family home that followed a season-ending knee injury which happened less than a week after his college graduation.
"I graduated August 3, and within nine days I went from celebrating my degree and experiencing the pure joy of getting ready for the season to it all going downhill," LaCouture said. "Talk about a rollercoaster."
In December, LaCouture chose to ride for one more year, bypassing entering the NFL Draft for the second straight season.
With just a couple of remaining spring practices as LSU goes on spring break, LaCouture is again showing the improved skill set he possessed before his knee injury.
Plus when pro scouts now come calling, he has another positive on his resume.
He's wearing No. 18.
The number that speaks volumes
Since 2003, the jersey No. 18 has been given by the Tigers' head coach to the LSU player who epitomizes unselfishness and leadership, the ultimate teammate who cares more about the greater good of the team than personal glory.
After the start of spring practice last month when new head coach Ed Orgerontapped LaCouture as the 10th LSU player to wear No. 18, few teammates were surprised. They've witnessed the unforeseen challenges he's handled with a smile.
"Christian has never blinked an eye," said fellow defensive lineman Greg Gilmore, who was part of the Tigers' 2013 recruiting class with LaCouture. "When he eventually walks into an NFL office full of coaches and scouts and is asked what he brings to a team, he can say "I bring the ability to overcome adversity because I've been through a lot of it.' "
David and Amy LaCouture set the example of hard work and unselfishness for their son Christian and daughter Taylor, doing whatever it takes to give them opportunities to succeed.
The last four moves made by the LaCoutures - from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Odessa, Texas to College Station, Texas to Lincoln, Nebraska to Baton Rouge - have all been to position and support Christian's goal of playing college football at the highest level.
They patiently survived him playing at three high schools, as well as his commitments and de-commitments to and from Texas A&M and Nebraska before he settled on LSU.
The first three seasons of LaCouture's LSU career, he played in 37 games (23 as a starter) as an undersized defensive tackle compensating for a lack of girth with his ferocious competitive attitude.
During the final minutes of his 2015 junior season in the Tigers' runaway Texas Bowl victory over Texas Tech, LaCouture sustained a broken left forearm. He had a titanium plate and 10 screws inserted for healing.
Shortly thereafter, Dave Aranda was hired as defensive coordinator. He planned to switch the Tigers' base defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4, which resulted moving LaCouture to end.
After spring practice concluded, LaCouture was so excited by the position switch that he tripled his four times per week summer workouts. He pushed through sand pit running with his father, performed boxing workouts with a personal trainer and still took part in the Tigers' off-season program.
He reported for preseason physically locked and mentally loaded. On the morning of his graduation, he was back at practice in the afternoon.
Four days later, it happened.
"I had a double team combo (block), the guard and tackle came on me, and the tackle came off me," LaCouture said. "(Running back) Leonard (Fournette) was actually running the other way. As I turned my head to look, I planted my foot.
"My leg hyperextended, my knee caved in and I felt a pop. I thought someone kicked me from the side, but no one touched me. I went down and I knew something was wrong."
The knee began swelling. The next day, an MRI confirmed a torn ACL. LaCouture's season was over before it had barely started.
"It was even more upsetting when I got hurt, because I felt like I was playing very well," LaCouture said. "Coach O and Coach Aranda came to me and said, 'You've been playing so well but everything happens for a reason.'
"When you look at things like that, you can't look at it why it happened to you, you have to look at it that it happened for a reason. I kept telling myself that. My family kept telling each other that. You don't know why it happened, but at some point you will."
LaCouture wanted to feel sorry for himself, but didn't have time.
Just days after his injury, it started raining in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area and didn't quit until more than 10 rivers reached moderate, major or record flood stage.
An estimated 146,000 homes were damaged and one of those belonged to LaCouture family in the Centurion subdivision just off O'Neal Lane. It was a house that the LaCoutures bought without flood insurance because they were told it was not located in a flood zone.
Three and a half feet of muddy water flooded the two-story home. LaCouture, his family and their 200-pound mastiff retreated to the second floor. The water subsided and cleanup began of what became $250,000 of damage that emptied the LaCoutures savings account and forced them to get loans, despite $30,000 from FEMA and $20,000 from a GoFund me account started by Christian.
"The flood woke me up, it put my injury in perspective," LaCouture said. "It's not about me, it's about a whole community.
"It was a depressing time. A lot of people lost their homes. I watched my Mom and Dad carry out wet mattresses. The memories we had in our life were just thrown to a pile.
"I was on crutches and I couldn't really do anything."
Or that's what LaCouture first thought.
Reaching out to comfort a stranger
In one of Amanda Barker's darkest hours, LaCouture made her smile.
Barker, the gatekeeper of LSU Nation, a Facebook page with more than 40,000 members, barely made it out of her house in Denham Springs before 71/2 feet of flood water filled it.
At 5 a.m. in the morning, she and her brother rounded up their three dogs and beat it down the interstate to her uncle's house in Brusly.
She can't remember exactly when she finally looked at local TV news which had a cameraman in a helicopter flying over devastated areas.
"He flies over Florida Boulevard/Amite River bridge, then he flies over my house," Barker said. "The camera was directly on my house and there was water up to the roof. I literally lost it. It was horrible."
Four months earlier, Barker had been laid off as an administrative assistant at an engineering firm. She had lost her job, then her house and had no significant other to lean on.
One of the things that has always soothed her soul is LSU sports, particularly football. Like so many other Tigers' fans, she never attended LSU but learned to love the Purple and Gold from her father and her neighbors which were all males.
"I really can't afford it, but I will go broke to go to a home game," said Barker, a vivacious 29-year old who paid $300 last year for a Tiger Stadium south end zone seat for the Alabama game. "Even if I go by myself, I must be in that stadium, no ifs ands or buts about it. To me, the amount of energy in that stadium, like when nobody stopped screaming the entire Alabama game, is worth any amount of money."
Barker was absolutely at her lowest when she posted a picture of her flooded house on the LSU Nation Facebook page to informed her extended family what happened.
The next day, LaCouture messaged her.
"I'd never met him and I still haven't met him," Barker said. "But the day after I posted on the LSU Nation page, Christian messaged me out of nowhere. He said, 'If you need anything, I'll be glad to help.' "
Barker was stunned and grateful.
"Christian was dealing with his injury, so I thought it was the sweetest thing for him to offer me a hand," Barker said. "I called my best friend who's also a big LSU fan. I told her Christian asked if he could help me and I know he can't help me because his knee is all messed up. For him to even offer was amazing."
Why did LaCouture contact Barker, oblivious to the personal anguish of his injury and the flooding of his family home?
"My family felt like we were by ourselves at first, so when somebody asked about us it made us feel a lot better," LaCouture said. "So when I saw people affected, I wanted to reach out to them and let them know if they needed help that I would help them. They were going through what we were going through, so it was real depressing. A lot of people lost their houses, lost a lifetime of memories.
"When I saw that (the picture of Barker's flooded house), I wanted to reach out to her, make sure she knew she wasn't alone, that somebody was on her side and if there was anything she needed I'd be glad to help."
Barker, ready for her life to return to normal, is about to finally move back in her house after living with her mother. She still has nightmares about escaping her house before almost drowning, but she found work in February at a Baton Rouge auto repair shop.
When Barker saw the news that LaCouture had been awarded the No. 18 jersey, she smiled as wide as that lousy August day when his simple gesture through an on-line message momentarily eased her heartache.
"Christian made me realize people do care even if you think they don't notice you," Barker said. "He made me smile when I was going through the worst time of my life.
"He deserves to wear No. 18. He's the perfect pick to wear it."
One good leg to stand on
After suffering a serious injury, it's not unusual for athletes to isolate themselves from teammates. The mental anguish is often greater than the physical pain during rehab.
But once LaCouture could walk without crutches, he was happy to accept the offer from new interim coach Orgeron and new defensive line coach Pete Jenkinsto become an assistant D-line coach.
LaCouture's teammates were just as delighted to see him back on the practice field and in the meeting rooms.
"When Christian went down with his knee, it hurt my heart," Gilmore said. "He's such a good dude, so him being able to coach helped him keep contact with the team. It also helped him learn the defense.
"He didn't have a job description, so I could say 'Hey, watch my pad level on this play, watch how my hands look.' I got one-on-one coaching from him, and it helped me. I think he liked it because he had a chance to boss me around and mess with my head."
Coaching benefited LaCouture more than he initially realized.
"When I get done playing football, I'd like to be a coach," LaCouture said. "So I got to see the other side, taking the helmet off, putting the coaching hat on. I had to look at techniques from a coaching standpoint and not as a player. I wasn't getting physical reps, I was getting mental reps, watching how the linemen did and how it was corrected when they messed up.
"Even though I was hurt. I wanted to do whatever I could to help the team win. If that meant being a coach, I was going to do it."
In December, LaCouture announced he would return to play in 2017 after realizing a season missing-in-action made his draft stock an iffy proposition. Orgeron, Aranda and Jenkins all convinced him he had goals he could achieve by staying with the Tigers one more year.
"I didn't want to end my college career the way I did by getting hurt," LaCouture said. "I told myself I wanted to win a national championship before I left."
New number, same attitude
Remember LaCouture's family telling him he'd eventually realize that his knee injury happened for a reason?
Combined with the flood, it forced him to slow his roll and connect with a place and its people to truly call it his home.
"We've never been part of anything like a flood, it was a surreal moment," LaCouture said. "But when everybody in the neighborhood offered to help each other, I realized that in Louisiana we're all one family. Louisiana people are blue-collar and scrappy. That's who I like to have in my corner."
The positive reaction of being named to wear No. 18 has re-affirmed his leadership role, especially to underclassmen like sophomore Rashard Lawrencewho's backing up LaCouture at end.
"Christian hosted me (in an official recruiting visit), so it's special that we're going to play together in his last year," Lawrence said. "He's been a leader ever since I came here, he's definitely deserving of wearing No. 18."
All the positives finally made LaCouture understand why his injury occurred.
"I now look at it as a blessed opportunity born from a bad situation, a lot of good came from it," he said. "My family and I are excited. Our house is completely done. I'm going to rock one of the best jerseys ever in LSU history and we're going to have a great team."
And whichever player gets LaCouture's previous number No. 91 has a big jersey to fill.
