PORT ALLEN - High school playoffs will start tomorrow, and Port Allen is looking to win their fourth straight state title, and a big reason for that is the team's culture.

Practice at Port Allen is a routine very much like the regular season: a systematic march towards the end goal of a state title.

Where that march ends is up to the players. For the Pelicans, it's ended in Lake Charles three times in a row.

Second-year head coach Dimario Jackson sustained the inherited success, winning a state title in year one, but it wasn't just rolling the ball out and standing by.

Jackson was already a successful coach way before he took the Port Allen job two years ago, having won a state title at Zachary High as an assistant, but he's been able to maintain this level of success with the Pelicans through his attention to dominance on the court, and in the classroom.

"They know I check grades, sometimes three or four times a week," Jackson said.

In exchange for slipping up in the classroom, players face consequences — from running to rolling down the football field — but that's as harsh as Jackson gets. His championship culture is old school toughness with new school affirmation.