Metro League had a brief, though storied, history

Long before the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) had placed its member schools in districts, sports teams were lumped into “leagues,” based on the size of the school's enrollment. The leagues were named to recognize the types and locations of their teams.

Locally, the New Orleans Prep League included the larger Class AA schools, specifically the city’s public and Catholic schools. Then, in 1940, the Riverside League was created to accommodate the smaller Class A and B schools, such as Newman, New Orleans Academy, St. Paul’s in Covington and the six schools from Jefferson Parish.

Then there was the short-lived Metropolitan League, created in 1950 by a group of local principals to find a consortium for new and non-LHSAA member schools that the established leagues didn’t want. It was a sort of purgatory for schools that no one welcomed for various reasons.

The original half-dozen

The Metro had six original teams. Five were Ridgewood Prep and St. Martin’s in Metairie; Sacred Heart and Delgado in New Orleans; and Holy Name of Mary in Algiers. The
five had been rejected by a vote of the Riverside principals.

The sixth was former prep league member, S.J. Peters, whose baseball teams in 1928 and 1929 won state AA championships. But, the mid-city public school’s time was coming to an end. Its location was heavily commercial, and its enrollment fell drastically.

In 1952, after just one year in the Metro League, Peters became a junior high school. Among the dissidents in the expansion of the Riverside League were the principals of members Rugby and New Orleans Academy, Newman, St. Paul’s, Metairie, Jefferson, Kenner, Westwego, Marrero and Gretna.

A year earlier, Country Day dropped out of the Riverside League, opting to compete in six-man football, a sport that was popular in Plaquemines Parish. However, the Metairie Park school had a difficult time scheduling opponents and returned to the Riverside League in 1954.

Requests from Redemptorist and newly opened De La Salle were not considered because the consensus was that both Catholic schools were large enough to be admitted into the Class AA league after a few years of growth. Both became members of the newly formed Catholic League in 1955.

Hahnville’s application to the Riverside League was also denied for an unexplained reason.

The initial rejection of Holy Name and Ridgewood drew the ire of local prep sports writer Kirby Ducote, who reminded Riverside League officials that consolidation of the six Jefferson Parish schools into two large schools on the east and west banks of the parish in 1955 would create a void they would be unable to fill if the applicants joined the LHSAA.

Blue Knights had their day

Holy Name of Mary became the most successful of the Metro league teams. One year after the league ceased operation, the Blue Knights won the Class B state football championship under the coaching of former Tulane player Harry Hahn. They won 12 games and defeated Delhi, 34-7, at Behrman Stadium.

But, 1955 was the last hurrah. Playing above its classification, Holy Name joined the AAA Catholic League in 1956. Its moment of fame ended that season. The 1957 team lost all nine games and managed just 14 points. The Blue Knights drifted into obscurity as an elementary school just a few years before the Archdiocese of New Orleans constructed Archbishop Shaw as its West Bank flagship high school. As a trade school, Delgado was denied entry into the LHSAA.

The “Traders” stayed for two more years before deciding to play only intramural sports. Sacred Heart, located at 3200 Canal St., fielded its first high school athletic teams in 1951 to little fanfare. Its first football team failed to score a single point. The Jets went 1-8 in 1952 and 0-7 in 1953, with a lone victory over Delgado in 1952. Under Clendon Butera’s coaching and as a new Riverside League member, Sacred Heart fielded its finest team in 1956. The Jets posted a 7-1-1 record and won a playoff game before losing to Donaldsonville in the second round.

The 1957 squad won the Riverside League again with a lone tie with Slidell and made its final playoff appearance, a 20-6 defeat to Zachary. At the end of the school year, Sacred Heart became an elementary school. Its star players just walked across the street to enroll at Warren Easton, which, with their inclusion in 1958, played for a state AAA championship.

Ridgewood had a long history as an LHSAA member after the Metro folded. It fielded teams for 75 years before closing in 2023 due to low enrollment and financial issues.

The 1964 Eagles won the school’s only state football title as a Class B school. But most notably, Ridgewood was one of the most successful schools for girls’ sports, having won numerous state volleyball and basketball titles. The Golden Eagles also won three state championships in softball and claimed the 1975 Class 1A baseball trophy.

The most successful of the bunch has been St. Martin’s. It has stood the test of time since it opened in 1950. Coach Tony Porter built the program from scratch. When he retired after 29 years at the helm with 135 victories, the athletic programs had developed into a competitive Class 1A entity in most boys’ and girls’ sports. And it continues to thrive today.
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