VIDALIA, La. &045; Former Vidalia baseball standout Glenn Donald called his old coach when he got his first head coaching job, but it wasn’t necessarily to talk of the good news.

Donald wanted to get in on the Vikings’ tournament.

The catcher on the Vikings’ 1996 state championship team is in his first year as head coach at False River Academy, and he’ll bring his Gators into the three-day Vidalia Tournament that starts today with St. Frederick facing Jena at 4:30 p.m.

The Vikings will square off against False River at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

&uot;I’ve always wanted to go back there and play them,&uot; Donald said. &uot;I’m looking forward to it. We’ve been playing pretty good ball. We’ve got our kids going in the right direction, but we’re really young. I’ve been telling Coach (Johnny Lee) Hoffpauir about it all the time. Hopefully we can beat them, but they have a great team &045; always have.&uot;

Friday’s game will be a reunion for a boy who grew up not far from the Hoffpauir house and started at catcher for two years. Donald admits now he knew he wanted to be a coach when he played on the Vikings’ only state championship team, and he landed the job at FRA as his first job after graduating from LSU in the fall of 2003.

So he’s bringing his first team back to Vidalia this weekend.

&uot;We had an opening after a team dropped out,&uot; Hoffpauir said. &uot;I’m glad to have Glenn up here. He’s one of my all-time favorite players. He was a fun kid to coach. I watched him grow up, and we were friends with his family. He’s not my first old player to coach against, but it’s fun to see them come back.&uot;

Donald’s parents moved back to Colorado, where he stayed following graduation before moving back to Louisiana during the summer. He had the degree in physical education, needed work when he moved to the Baton Rouge area, started looking around and found the opening at the New Roads school.

Now he’s hoping to get the program there going in the right direction as it’s been at Vidalia for years.

&uot;I jumped on that real quick,&uot; Donald said. &uot;Ever since then, it’s been all day, every day. It’s a learning experience. I didn’t figure I’d get a head coaching job so quick. It’s a real good school here, and I’ve got a good administration to work with. I’ve got a really good group of kids.&uot;

The Gators have gotten off to a solid start to the season, including a win in the Pointe Coupee Parish tournament last weekend. And Donald won’t deny he’s doing some of the same things now as those Viking teams did during his days as a player.

&uot;Some of the rookie stuff they do, I’ve been doing some of that,&uot; Donald said. &uot;If you’re going to learn from anybody with a program going in the right direction, Johnny Lee has done it. I lived next to him growing up. Me and Josh, we were always in the same league together. I’ve been around the Hoffpauirs my whole life.&uot;

False River will be another different team to participate in the tournament this weekend. The bracket will also feature St. Frederick, Cathedral, Harrisonburg, Avoyelles and Franklin Parish.

The top half of the bracket has St. Frederick and Jena at 4:30 p.m. today and Cathedral and Harrisonburg at 6:30 p.m.

&uot;Every year it seems like we’ll pick up one or two (new ones),&uot; Hoffpauir said. &uot;The word is out on it, and we have a lot of people wanting to get in it. St. Fred put us out two years ago in the semifinals and gave us our only loss of the year. The top half of the bracket &045; that’ll be interesting.&uot;

Donald’s Gators (4-3) have a young core of players with just one senior, four juniors and nine sophomores. The lone senior, Stephen Langlois, may be the team’s No. 2 starter, and junior Steele Welch may be the No. 1 and a candidate to play at the next level.

&uot;The next couple of years ought to be real exciting,&uot; Donald said. &uot;I’ve got one kid (Welch) who I think is a definite D-I. He lives and breathes baseball. Our one senior holds the fort down in the outfield. When we play well, we can play with anybody. But games when we’re off a little bit, it’s tough to win.&uot;

The Vikings, meanwhile, will still be without the services of Brett Hinson both on the mound and at shortstop. The senior had arm trouble last weekend, and he’ll likely be designated hitter this weekend.

But the list of unavailable pitchers doesn’t stop there &045; Tyler Bruce has a sore arm, and Tony Godbold is out of town.

&uot;Brett is not comfortable throwing right now,&uot; Hoffpauir said. &uot;We’re not going to force it on him. (The No. 1 role) just goes on the rest of the staff. Somebody has to step up.&uot;