Dale Weiner

Dale Weiner was an American high school football coach and teacher who turned Catholic High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, into one of the state's most consistent football programs. Over 35 seasons as a head coach he compiled a record of 317 wins and 109 losses, one of the best totals in Louisiana high school football history, and in 2015 he led Catholic High to its first state football championship. He was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2025. He died late on the night of Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at the age of 74. His family announced the next morning that he had gone "peacefully into the arms of Jesus."

Weiner was born on March 18, 1952, in Baton Rouge. Football took hold of him early. As a five year old standing behind the end zone at a Baton Rouge High School game, he watched Jimmy Taylor angle his body between two defenders to score a winning touchdown, and he later said that was the moment he knew football was something he had to be part of. He played on the line as a boy at Bernard Terrace Elementary School, and at Baton Rouge High School he came under the influence of coach Boots Garland, who saw how much he loved the game. He graduated from Baton Rouge High in 1970 and went on to Louisiana State University.

He began coaching in 1975 as an assistant at Catholic High School of Pointe Coupee under Jim Hightower, who would also become a Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee. Head coaching jobs followed at Catholic of Pointe Coupee, Trafton Academy (now The Dunham School) and St. John in Plaquemine. Weiner had hoped one day to coach at Baton Rouge High, but the school became a magnet school without a football team. He applied for the Catholic High job in Baton Rouge once and was turned down. When it opened again a couple of years later, he was hired, and he took over the Bears in 1987.

The program he inherited had a run of losing seasons. Weiner later recalled how an early win in his first year helped his players start to believe in themselves, and seeing young men discover that they could win became one of the lasting satisfactions of his career. In 30 seasons at Catholic he won 282 games, an average of more than nine wins a year. His teams won 18 district titles, reached 15 state quarterfinals and eight semifinals, finished as Class 4A state runner-up in 1990, and in 2015 won the LHSAA Division I select state title with a victory over nationally ranked Rummel. Earlier that season, on October 2, 2015, he earned his 300th career win when Catholic beat Teurlings 28 to 14. He was named state coach of the year three times and district coach of the year 15 times.

Weiner was known for his offensive play calling and for the spin offense, a misdirection running scheme he taught to other coaches through coaching clinic videos. He was just as committed to the weight room. A pioneer of Olympic style weightlifting for high school athletes, he led Catholic High weightlifting teams to 18 state titles and was inducted into Gayle Hatch's Louisiana Weightlifting Hall of Fame. Downstairs in the school's athletic building, the Top Bear Wall honoured players who reached strength goals in the power clean, bench press and squat, with different levels so that every player had something to reach for.

More than 140 of his former players went on to compete in college football, and 17 reached NFL rosters, including Warrick Dunn and Travis Minor. Former players remembered him for the "cur dog" mantra he instilled, a call to live genuinely and to the fullest every day, and for the Friday letters from "the cur dog" that were read aloud in the cafeteria. Every game began and ended with prayer.

Weiner retired as head coach in December 2016 at the age of 64, handing the program to his offensive coordinator, Gabe Fertitta. He stayed on as a full time teacher at Catholic and worked with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes before retiring from the faculty at the end of the 2021 to 2022 school year, after 47 years in coaching and education. He said then that he looked forward to time with his wife, Lindy, and the rest of the family, and to "some serious fishing."

His faith ran through everything he did. His son Neil, also a football coach, said his father had a fine singing voice, helped lead praise and worship at his church in Baton Rouge for years and recorded a CD of Christian songs he had written. In 2025 he was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and Louisiana Public Broadcasting profiled him in its series Behind the Glory.

Weiner died late on November 11, 2026. The cause of death was not made public. Catholic High announced a visitation in the school's student center on Monday, November 16, from 4 to 7 p.m., with funeral services at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, November 17, at First Presbyterian Church. Gabe Fertitta wrote that, apart from his own father, no other man had more of an impact on his life.