Bobby Hebert Sr., ‘face of the bayou’ and dad of former Saints QB, dies from coronavirus

Bobby Hebert Sr., the patriarch of a football family that included former New Orleans Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert Jr. and former LSU offensive lineman T-Bob Hebert, died Saturday after recently testing positive for coronavirus.

Hebert Sr. was 81 years old, and over the course of those 81 years rarely found a person he could not strike up a conversation with, said those who knew him.

Football analyst and south Louisiana native Mike Detillier had a relationship with Hebert Sr. that he guessed spanned at least three decades, but he couldn’t be sure. The amount of time one was around Hebert Sr. was sort of irrelevant anyway.

“Mr. Bobby was the face of the bayou here in Lafourche Parish,” Detillier said. “When you saw him, you knew where he was from. I mean, he could talk. You didn’t spend five minutes talking with him, you were there a while.”

Bobby Sr. took great pride in his own family. Two sons played professional football, with Bobby Jr. playing more than a decade in the NFL and Billy Bob playing a season in the Canadian Football League. He took immense satisfaction in T-Bob playing at his alma mater, LSU, and he did the same with his granddaughters’ fashion exploits in California.

“My mom said it best: He had 11 grandkids, and he had individual relationships with every one,” T-Bob said. “It wasn’t just a blanket thing, everybody had their own special bond. We’re talking boys, girls from damn near 40 (years old) all the way down to 18.’

It was a cruel stroke then for a big personality to have spent his final days largely sequestered from the world after recently testing positive for coronavirus.

The day before his father died, an emotional Bobby Jr. called in to WWL radio and addressed his father’s health struggles.

“He’s tough,” Bobby Jr. said in the appearance. “You can be tough and the virus can overwhelm you, but I know he’s a fighter. … He’s fighting, he’s trying to hang in there. They’re giving him oxygen, he’s breathing and he’s trying to fight through it.”

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