Coaching with care

Dorothy “Dot” Doulet was routinely late for practice.
During her first season as Ville Platte High’s head girls basketball coach during the 2009-10 season, Doulet was balancing a workload that consisted of teaching special education at the school, coaching the girls basketball team, while also taking courses at LSU at Alexandria.
Doulet was set to graduate that December with a bachelor’s degree in physical education which caused her to be late for practice. The effect of her tardiness though would help provide her with the inspiration that has helped make her one of the most successful coaches in Evangeline Parish.
“I would get back to practice late,” Doulet said. “I wouldn’t get out of class until 6 o’clock. I would drive from Alexandria to Ville Platte and my girls would have to wait for me outside in the dark. Those girls were so dedicated. By the time I got into the gym those girls were stretched and were ready. That gave me the motivation to become a better coach. It inspired me to learn everything about the game and still inspires me today.”
If one takes a moment to examine her time so far at Ville Platte High, it is hard to fathom that Doulet ever needed to learn anything about the game.
In her first six seasons at the helm of the Lady Bulldog program, Doulet has accomplished the following: Has a regular season record of 148-30, has won at least 21 games every season, has a playoff record of 15-6, reached the state quarterfinals five straight years, made three trips to the Ladies Top 28 and has a pair of state runner-up finishes.
Not to mention there is the record of 60-2 in district play, with 30 straight victories and five undefeated title seasons.
Ville Platte opens the 2015-16 season when the team plays Brusly on Monday, November 23 at the Saint Thomas More Linear Shootout in Lafayette.
“My success is having the girls buy into my program,” Doulet said. “I am very calm coach. I try to teach them life skills. I am very involved in their life outside of basketball. I think by showing them that I care when they walk into the gym they are willing to work for me.”
Doulet has never shied away from working.
Doulet was a senior starter on the 1983 Ville Platte High girls team that reached the Sweet 16 (now known as the Ladies Top 28), the first Lady Bulldog team to do so and the last until Doulet led them their in 2011.
“That was a very good year for us,” Doulet said. “We were very athletic and all of the girls had the same goal of getting to the Sweet 16. We had never been there before. Anytime I think about it I think about Coach (Elton) Williams pacing the gym floor telling us ‘I don’t know if you are going but I will be there.’ We took that and ran with it.”
After graduation, Doulet went on to Grambling State and played softball while pursuing her associates degree in criminal justice. Doulet did not play basketball as she was deemed “too small.”
After graduating in 1987, Doulet returned home and raised three kids (Myron, Caleb and Raquel) while supporting her husband Rev. Jessie James Doulet, the pastor of Chimneyville Baptist Church in St. Landry Parish.
Doulet got into education as a teacher’s aid, a role she held for a combined 18 years at James Stephens and Ville Platte Elementary Schools, where she also coached basketball.
After enrolling at LSU-A to pursue her degree, Doulet joined the staff at Ville Platte High School for the 2008-09 school year, serving as a special education teacher and assistant on the girls basketball team under her former coach Elton Williams.
For her work in the classroom, Doulet would be honored with the Louisiana Association of Education Support Professionals Image Award. That experience working with special education students has benefited her greatly as a basketball coach.
“I now have a true feeling on how people learn,” Doulet said. “I have compassion for those who struggle as learners. I studied up on how to best relate to them. I just teach with love and that makes it easier for me.”
Doulet added, “Sometimes when you are coaching you tell a player to do something you expect them to do it. But working with special education students, if they don’t do what you say then you think to yourself well maybe they learn a different way. That has helped me learn how to work with my players in different ways.”
The following summer, Williams resigned as coach and Principal Kelli Lafleur didn’t hesitate when hiring his replacement.
“She already had a great relationship with students,” Lafleur said. “She was already an asset to Ville Platte High. She was the right person for the job. I didn’t have to lose any sleep over that. She has by far surpassed my expectations.”
In her first season at the helm, Ville Platte repeated as district champions but was upset in the opening round of the Class 2A playoffs by Red River. That playoff defeat helped fuel next year’s team which went undefeated again in district play, and reached the Top 28 for the first time since 1983 by upsetting No. 2 seed St. Thomas Aquinas in the quarterfinals.
Ville Platte defeated Pickering in the semifinals before facing Winnfield in the state championship game in Hammond. The Lady Bulldogs fell short of winning the program’s first state title in the 63-56 loss.
“That team we had that year was power packed,” Doulet said. “It stung me. I didn’t think we were coming out of there with a loss. That’s the game I didn’t expect to lose.”
With another state runner-up finish in 2014, the now 50-year-old coach has definitely raised the bar for the girl’s program, so much so that she doesn’t even have to preach to her players about where their bar is.
“My girls would probably tell you that I am too nice. But I say, ‘it doesn’t take me to yell and fuss to get what I need,’” Doulet said. “I just can walk in that gym and not even have to open my mouth and they already know what I expect out of them. It’s hard work. Were not going to set the bar high and just come down. We are going to keep working.”
Doulet and her team keeps working so one day the Lady Bulldogs can bring home the program’s first, and school’s first state championship.
“I believe that we deserve it,” Doulet said. “We have the caliber of athletes to do that. It relies on our mental ability to bring that title back home. It would mean a lot to myself, this program and for the entire Ville Platte High community.”