Gretna, Louisiana native John Fourcade starred at Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero, Louisiana.
He continued his education and football career at Ole Miss and broke icon Archie Manning’s career passing yardage record on his way to becoming a school legend. He was also named MVP of the 1982 Senior Bowl where he threw for over 100 yards, rushed for 30 plus yards and scored two touchdowns.
After his time in college was over, Fourcade was a globetrotter. The undrafted free agent played for teams in the CFL, USFL and the Arena League before finding a home in New Orleans as the quarterback for the Saints during the 1987 strike shortened season.
A football lifer, after his retirement from competition he spent over twenty years as a coach in various organizations on various levels from 1995 to 2016.
He also has a long list of experience as a broadcaster, working as an analyst radio show host and other duties mainly in the New Orleans area.
We caught up to him to talk about a close call with an autograph hound, vividly remembering his first trading cards and never giving up on his dreams of making it to the National Football League.
Tony Reid-When was the first time you were asked for your autograph?
John Fourcade-I remember when I was in high school. I can still picture this. Back in the day, kids would come up to you and stick a pen in your face and ask you sign something. My dad was a cop. He was escorting us, being protective. Well, a kid came up to me with a pen and ended up sticking it into my cheek. It got in my face and freaked me out. I didn’t know what was going on. He could have poked my eye out. It wasn’t like he meant to do it. He was just trying to get me the pen to sign his piece of paper. I remember that one. To this day, I am very careful when I am in a crowd of people signing autographs. It was a freak little deal. Right then I realized what to expect as I went on throughout my career.
TR–You played in New Orleans and other strong, fan friendly markets. Who or what is the most memorable fan experience from your time as a ball player?
JF-It wasn’t like it is nowadays. Nowadays you go to ball games and I hate to say it but people dress up foolishly. I don’t understand some of the stuff. I guess it’s their thing, their gig. Back then we didn’t have that kind of fan reaction of people getting all dressed up like a Saints clown or an Ole Miss Rebel. Overall I was always treated pretty good from a fan meeting and greeting perspective. They were all nice to me. They are passionate about the game and passionate about their team. Let the fans enjoy the show, as long as they do it within reason and don’t get too crazy.
TR–1989 Topps Traded was your official rookie card. Do you remember seeing your card for the first time?
JF-Yeah. I think we were in Detroit. We were in the Silverdome. We were in our white jerseys. I remember that one. That was the Topps card. There were some cards better than the other ones. When I was playing a game in Tampa Bay they took a picture that was used on the Fleer card. I remember some of them. I still have quite a few cards at the house. That’s what happens when you get old and decrepit like I am, you have a bunch of boxes of old cards sitting around. The way it works was when you do all of these cards, the companies send you boxes of cards. I still have some left over. I think they are worth about 13 cents on the market right now. (Laughs)
TR-Did you collect sports cards as a kid?
JF-I got them a lot. I would get the packs with the bubblegum. I didn’t really collect them. If I knew then what I know now I might have had a million dollar card somewhere in there. You just don’t know. Growing up nobody emphasized keeping the cards thinking they would be worth something someday.
TR–You played professionally around the world for over a decade. Do you have a mancave or space where you have memorabilia displayed?
JF-I have something and what happened was when you move you take stuff down, you repaint rooms. We did it not too long ago. We took the mancave down. We added on to the house. We did a lot of construction work. I asked Tonya when we were going to put the stuff back up. We started thinking about it the other day. She hit me up the other day and said we would reorganize and get the man room back. I never had a big time room. I do have stuff that players sent me that I keep around. I have my jerseys. I have some Ole Miss stuff and some Saints stuff. I have a bunch of different jerseys from all of the places I played and places I’ve been. I could probably open a sporting goods store with all of the jerseys and teams I’ve been with.
TR- Speaking of jerseys, if you could go back and swap jerseys with any opponent, who would you want to swap with?
JF-First and foremost, we never did it. It didn’t happen back in those days. If you didn’t bring your jersey back in the locker room and put it in that hamper, oh my God, the abuse you would take from the equipment guys. They wanted to make sure everybody turned in their jersey. There was no swapping. There was no tearing the jersey. There was no writing on the jersey.
If I had to do it back in the day it would be Joe Montana. Come on. I played against him. He is a good friend of mine. I got to know him during my years of playing and once I got out of ball. He was always my idol. He is definitely one of the guys I would swapped jerseys with.
TR-The back of your 1990 Score mentioned you playing in seven cities and three pro leagues before you go to settle down in New Orleans. What was that whirlwind time lie for you as you traveled from city to city, league to league trying to get to a landing spot in the NFL?
JF-Well it’s not the best experience. It was like ‘When am I going to hook up and stick on with someone?’ It was frustrating because I felt like I was good enough to be on a ball club. I thought I had proven myself. Sometimes you are in a situation where you are at the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. I had opportunities that didn’t work out for me. What I didn’t do was quit.
When I was going through all of that I had a chance to go back to college. My athletic director called me and said I only had a semester left. He told me to get over there. They were going to pay for me to finish college. You know what? I have time. I was released. I had nowhere to go. I left the New York Giants and went back to Ole Miss.
One day I wrote a letter to (Saints General Manager) Jim Finks. I said in the letter that I would pay him for a workout or a tryout. If he liked what he saw he wouldn’t even have to pay me to play for his team. The day he got the letter the following Tuesday I was in New Orleans getting that workout. The following day, that Wednesday, I got the call from Mr. Finks telling me he was going to sign me. He said legally he can’t have me work for free but he admired me telling him that. That was how it all started for me. I never gave up. I knew sooner or later someone was going to give me a chance. It happened during the strike season and I got my opportunity.
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