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Baseball: Cajuns club and its fans – Roots of the relationshipTim Buckley, The Advertiser, June 4, 2016
The long-standing relationship between UL baseball players and their fans at The Tigue is well-chronicled. But when did it all start? Were current Ragin’ Cajuns even alive at the time? Their skipper, after all, has been coaching college baseball since long before they were born. Some of the standouts on the 2016 version of coach Tony Robichaux’s No. 14-ranked Cajuns club — which was scheduled to open play in the NCAA Lafayette Regional on Friday night against Princeton — confess they are not certain of when a town and its college baseball team really fell for each other. Was it after Lafayette sent a team to the 2015 Little League World Series and Acadiana went gaga over all things baseball? Was it in 2000, when the Cajuns beat then-No. 1 host South Carolina in a Super Regional went to the College World Series in Omaha for the first and only time in school history? Was it in 1999, when Robichaux’s team — he’s in his 22nd season at UL, and coached McNeese State for eight years — made its first of four Super Regional appearances, playing against Rice at the Astrodome in Houston? Was it in 1991, when the Cajuns beat Texas A&M to reach its first Regional final game, facing LSU in Baton Rouge? Was it in 1988, when UL made its first of what is now 16 NCAA Regional appearances? One old-timer in the know suggests it probably dates to that 1999-2000 era, and that regularly being a bona fide national-title contender has a lot to do with it. Whenever it was, today’s Cajuns do realize this: They have some decidedly knowledgeable fans, and that’s a big reason the relationship is so strong. Kelsey Cameron enjoying cotton candy with Thomas Richardson as the University of Louisiana takes on Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Regional tournament at Tigue Moore Field. (Photo: SCOTT CLAUSE/THE ADVERTISER) “Ever since I’ve been coming to games, and playing here,” said junior designated hitter Brenn Conrad, who was on that Little League that went to Williamsport in 2005, “the fans know so much about the game. “The old lady in (Section) K, or whatever — she knows what’s a ball and a strike, and stuff like that. Everybody over here just knows the game, and they love it. It’s kind of like us — we love the game because we know it so well, and we’ve been playing it for so long.” Like Conrad, a local from Lafayette High, starting centerfielder Kyle Clement has no idea when it all truly began. But the New Iberia Catholic High product thinks he knows the real root of the relationship. Cajun fans tailgaiting and waiting out the rain to see the University of Louisiana take on Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Regional tournament at Tigue Moore Field. (Photo: SCOTT CLAUSE/THE ADVERTISER) “I just think it’s the culture around here — the Cajun culture,” Clement said. “They love coming out and supporting us. UL is just a really friendly place, and there’s a lot of really close people around the community.” Cajun baseball fans certainly come out in droves. UL announced an average attendance count of 4,258 in 2016, and that ranks 12th in the country. They also announced a total attendance of 114,953 for the year, which ranks 15th nationally. That makes the Cajuns the only NCAA team not from a Power 5 conference — they belong to the Sun Belt, from the lower-level Group of Five — to rank in the top 15 in both categories. They also sold 3,002 season tickets in 2016, good for $400,000 in revenue for the UL athletic department. But it’s not just the quantity that matters. It’s also the quality. Cajun fans actually will welcome an opponent’s fans with open arms — unless a game is on. “They might get on some players from the other team,” Clement said. “But after the game the (Cajun) Cooking Club is feeding them and everybody’s nice to them. It’s all in fun.” What makes Lafayette love its college baseball as much as it does, senior catcher Nick Thurman suggested, is the fact the affair has lasted as long as it has. However long that is. “I think it’s the tradition,” Thurman said when asked to put a finger on what’s behind the relationship. “UL’s had a tradition of having a good team and a great fan base.”
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