Like any good football program, St. Joe had suffered through a period of less than memorable seasons towards the end of the 20th century. However, possessing a beautiful new campus and vibrant Madison, as well as its always present academic excellence, the school was poised to renovate and restore its proud football tradition. This reclamation project was appropriately kicked off by none other than coach Bill Raphael, at a local barbecue restaurant, fittingly, named the pigskin.

Flip Godfrey 

I was very fortunate, coach Raphael hired me at St. Joe, he’d come back as the athletic director to travel, maybe get them going into a new campus. And when they moved to Madison, and I was very fortunate to get to know him. Very, very well. What coach Raphael told me at that time, I never will. He said, you’ve had some challenges and coaches, but you’re fishing to have the biggest challenge you’ve ever had. St. Joe had not won a district game. And I think five years and I don’t know what drew me to St. Joe. And it just was a place that I just thought it would be a good, good place to come for the five years, my coaching career and, and it proved to be just that

Miller Todd 

when I first got to St. Joe in 2006, August 1st, we had 25 show up football practice. But we had 50 on the team. They didn’t practice. And on Tuesday morning, I mean, I thought, you know, coach, after you’re gonna come up with Blue Diamond, it was, we’re gonna practice and you don’t miss practice, and this is what we’re gonna do. And it took a little while to get that thought process out of a lot of people’s heads. But that was not the way coach Godfrey was gonna run thing, you know.

Narrator 

Coach Godfrey’s demand for excellence was aided by a strong nucleus of returning players. And strangely, by the landfall of Hurricane Katrina,

Flip Godfrey 

In 2005, that was the Katrina yea,r we were pretty good, really good players. They will come be seniors. We had a good nucleus. And then we in September and August, I guess when Katrina hit, we got an influx of Katrina kids. Some of them very, very good players. So St. Joe’s success rate or their land, that, the mark of success was just winning three or four games a time and first couple years of St Joe, we got the playoffs. In 2005. We were the number two seed out of our district and you know, getting beat the first round. And then the next couple three years we made the playoffs, never won a playoff game

Lester Diamond 

I became involved, I guess in the resurgence of St. Joe football when my son Andrew, started to play for Philip Godfrey. And we started to see a building excitement. We still didn’t have the breakthrough immediately. But we started to see more people coming out for the football team.

Narrator 

As expectations began to rise within the football program. Excitement spread throughout the student body and a number of other supporting student programs were either born or revitalized.

Benjamin Payne 

Ever since the the football team really came into a new light with their new head coaches, the band, spirit steppers and other groups or other divisions of the sports at St. Joe, I’d really grown

Lester Diamond 

on a Friday night, you have an environment where you have the marching band, you have the cheerleaders, and of course you have your football team. Our class size at St. Joe is usually about 70 members per class. Normally you look up in the stands and we don’t see that many students, let’s say in a junior class or senior class, because most of them honestly are participating in one of those extracurricular activities, whether it be the band, whether it be cheerleading or whether it be the football team.

Miller Todd 

It is not a traditional band where you hear, you know, classical, they jam it up, they hang it up. They take new age stuff and rock, Ronnie Ross does a great job with the band

Benjamin Payne 

Bruin broadcast is a rather new addition to the St. Joseph schools. Sports department. A Bruin Sports Radio is completely student-run, which makes it really stand out from the other schools around us like Madison central or Brandon, at St. Joe. It’s all about the students. We come in, we set it up, we do all the talking. We have our own people who do stats and bring us you know what’s happening in the game. And I say that really makes us stand out because throughout the state, we’re really the only school that broadcasts completely student-based.

Lester Diamond 

creates quite an experience. On a Friday night at St. Joe, when you have your marching band. You have your cheerleaders, and you have the football team. And the environment of St. Joe has just grown and become more electric over the last several years.

Benjamin Payne 

It’s now a lot more fun. It’s a lot more energy there is a lot more momentum going into each game.

Narrator 

By the time the 2011 season arrived, Godfrey had assembled enough talent to rival Raphael’s fame 1970 to the team that toppled mighty Mora,

Flip Godfrey 

we had come through the regular season team and won. Only game we lost was in double overtime, we had a great season going, but we still hadn’t won a playoff game.

Miller Todd 

In 2011, we opened the first round of playoffs at home first left. That year Lumberton had moved up to two, eight, but they were (5:12) a state champ. We were losing 17 to 6, or 17 to 8, two score games at halftime. And we come back and went 18 to 17. And you would have thought we wanted. It was the first time since at two or three that we have won a playoff game at St. Joe. And that game really made people say St. Joe might be old, a turning point, you know, “they might be, but let’s take a look”. Next week we beat nine.

Ray Coleman 

these guys not only know how to win, they expect to win, because the tradition is there now, guys going deep into the playoffs year after year under Godfrey, they know what to expect when they get out there on their field because the guys before them, juniors and seniors that are now gone have taught them how to win football games. And it’s apparent when you go out there, guys are not just, you know, kind of running around, you know, hoping that they’ve made the play, they expect to make the play and they’re and they’re on each other when that person isn’t supposed to be playing that assignment football. Yeah, Guys were really out there trying to make a difference for their team. And it’s it’s obvious when you go out and see them play on Fridays. And whereas it used to be St. Joe was a homecoming opponent. Now you don’t want to see St. Joe.

Lester Diamond 

the numbers, people started to stay on the team rather than quitting their junior or senior year. All of those were elements that I believe started to say St. Joe is back and is experiencing a resurgence in his football team. And it led to very successful seasons over the last two or three years.

Flip Godfrey 

The last four years we’ve won 40 games. So something that you know, I guess in my coaching career, one of the proudest things that we needed was when we got to St. Joe and not only turn the football program around with our athletic program around. St. Joe is one of our sports trophy for six years in a row now that Scannell high athletic programs have majored in Missy Pascual activity Association. We’re very very proud of it, very very proud of the people that we hired and just the atmosphere at St. Joe and it’s been a lot of fun.