It’s getting to be the right time of the year for local taxidermist Rocke Fournet.
Hunting season is on its way and football, the McNeese State kind, is here.
He’s partial to both — the mounting of animal skins, birds and fish for which he makes his living and football for which he was both a player and coach — and he’ll talk about each to anyone who wants to listen.
Football took Fournet to taxidermy, which he has been practicing for the past 43 years and ranks as one of the best in the business.
“I had just finished my playing career and was a graduate assistant coach at McNeese,” Fournet said. “Coach (Jack) Doland would let me have about three months off in the summer and that’s when I began (as a taxidermist).
“Gary Bell, who had run track with me at Lake Charles High, got me into it. He had Deep South Wildlife studio in Lafayette and an auxiliary shop here. I began by running the place here in the summer and when I could get off. Mainly I started with skinning and other prelims of the mount and went on from there.”
He noted that his first mount — a mule deer head and shoulder mount — collapsed on him.
Once he got the hang of the mount, though, Fournet’s career as a taxidermist took off and it wasn’t long before his football career was over.
And it was a great career. He was one of the top defensive backs in the nation during his time at McNeese, going on to earn all-conference honors, induction into the university’s Hall of Fame and a shot at the pros.
But perhaps what most makes him one of the heroes in Cowboys football history is that he wore the “Black Hat.”
That hat is also in the McNeese Hall of Fame. Fournet explains his wearing of it and what it meant came about the following way.
It was his junior year at McNeese. Out of Lake Charles High, Fournet accepted a scholarship to Louisiana Tech but a back injury in his first season sent him home.
“They told me that my scholarship was still good but I would have to give up football,” he said. “I stayed up there in the athletic dorm for a year but I felt out of place, came home and went to work at the plants.”
He would soon have emergency surgery due to a herniated disc and the doctor who operated on him told him that “We might even get you back on the gridiron.”
Fournet said with renewed hope he began working out again and after a year went to McNeese as a walk-on. After spring drills he was on full scholarship and the story of the “Black Hat” was born.
His strength, said Ernie Duplechin, his position coach at McNeese, was that “he was so tough. He was just an exceptional player and could play both the pass and the run equally well. We flipped him from side to side to go against a team’s best pass receiver.”
The “Black Hat” made its debut in the spring of 1970 when Doland took over.
“I got dinged several times from hard hits and got a concussion,” Fournet said. “I hit one guy real good in practice, broke his nose, cracked my nose, blackened both of my eyes and had seven stitches in my cheek. I also broke my helmet.
“Coach Doland called me into his office the next day, looked at me and said, ‘You look like hell. We’re going get you another and better helmet.
“It was an air helmet (a new model for more protection). It was dark blue but it looked black. I wore it during the spring and the preseason and expected the managers to paint it before our first game. The Thursday before that opener, it still wasn’t painted and I went to Coach about it.
By then, Doland had found that Fournet was to be one of the defensive team leaders.
“He told me that I was going to wear the black helmet and it will be an honor for me to do so. I later figured out how he came up with the ‘Black Hat.’ Coach and Bum Phillips were good friends. When Bum was coaching at Nederland (Texas) High, he put his best defensive player in a black helmet and called him the Black Hat.”
That’s what Doland did and Fournet didn’t disappoint, time after time making key plays, tough hits and going from side to side in keeping the opponents top receiver corralled.
Doland would later be quoted in newspapers that Fournet was wearing the ‘Black Hat’ because Doland wanted everyone on the opposing offense to know exactly where Fournet was on the field or he was going to hurt somebody.
Fournet’s junior season was a standout one as he recorded eight interceptions (running one back for a touchdown), returned kickoffs and punts and also played a few downs on offense. The opposing team’s top receiver was usually down the list for pass receptions in the game. The senior year was going along the same way (five interceptions) until a knee injury sidelined him for the final four games of 1971, including the Grantland Rice Bowl.
“I later realized what a great honor it was to wear that helmet,” Fournet said. “I even began keeping it on when I was on the sidelines, especially in games against USL (now Louisiana-Lafayette) and Louisiana Tech, because their fans would throw things at me.”
He still had a chance at a pro career. During his final season the word was that Cincinnati had him down as either its first or second draft pick. The knee injury, though, brought on other thoughts. Fournet was later flown to Cincinnati, where he ran a time of 4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash for Paul Brown and was signed to a free-agent contract. However, in a workout covering Charlie Joiner, another Lake Charles native, on a post route, Fournet broke the play up but got his leg caught in the artificial turf and felt the knee pop.
That’s when his coaching career began. But he would still have one more professional chance.
“I came within an eyelash of going to the (Houston) Oilers when Bum was there. He told me if I can run a 4.6 he could use me on the kickoff team. I felt I could, but during (McNeese) practice one day I tried covering (Richard) Ellender and felt the knee pop. I called Bum that night and told him I was finished.”
Fournet coached with the Cowboys until 1977, leaving his part-time work with Bell behind and opening his own shop on Common Street. It since moved to Kirkman Street.
Said the “Black Hat” of the past 43 years as a taxidermist, “It’s been very good for me. Right here (Southwest Louisiana) we have the most knowledgeable sportsmen in the world. They are good critics of taxidermy. They know what to look for in a mount and they will let you know if it’s right or wrong. I have really enjoyed my work.”
And he loves football — particularly McNeese football — just as much.
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