Baseball: Legers’ love of baseball built on tough lessons

Kevin Foote, The Advertiser, June 16, 2016

Leger family’s legacy in athletics filled with hard lessons, triumphs 

Gunner Leger holds Barbe’s 2014 Class 5A state championship trophy along side his grandfather Wallace, left, father, Tim, and mother, Ashley. Leger went on to sign with UL and was the Cajuns’ ace pitcher during his freshman and sophomore seasons. (Photo: Submitted photo)

It all began about 50 years ago with a young man’s intense love of sports.

Wallace Leger was a student back then at Judice High — one of the small rural high schools that was part of the consolidation that formed Acadiana High in 1969.

“I played every sport that little school offered,” Leger said. “I didn’t want to miss anything. I did whatever it took to play. I just loved everything about sports.”

A few years after graduating from Judice High in 1966, Leger enlisted into the U.S. Navy and was sent to Vietnam. He got out in January of 1972.

On Nov. 15, 1973, his son, Tim, was born.

Not long after that, a family’s legacy of playing, understanding, maturing in and eventually building a life around athletic competition was about to take its first unsure baby steps.

The most recent chapter was written the weekend of June 3-6 at Tigue Moore Field when the UL Ragin’ Cajuns baseball team was eliminated by No. 2-seeded Arizona in two surprising home losses Monday after defeating the Wildcats 10-3 on Sunday.

Wallace’s grandson, Gunner Leger, is the sophomore ace pitcher for the Cajuns, who was the winning pitcher in that 10-3 Sunday victory over Arizona that had UL fans just tasting a third straight trip to the NCAA Super Regionals.

Dealing with the losing

It wasn’t to be, however.

All three were upset. All three dealt with it a little differently.

First, there was the day of the game.

“I hugged Gunner and told him I loved him,” Wallace said the day after UL’s season ended. “I shook Tim’s hand and told him I loved him. And then I just walked through the crowd and left. You can’t buy those moments.”

And then there was the time after leaving the park.

“We don’t take losing very well in our family,” Wallace said. “I didn’t want them to lose. I was crushed. My heart’s still broken. It’s going to take me two or three days to get my feet back on the ground. I’m at home, my curtains are closed, just leave me alone.”

Gunner, on the other hand, wasn’t as conflicted. His father, Tim, you see had preached to him for years about how fickle the results of an athletic competition can be.

“It hurts, so don’t get me wrong,” Gunner said. “I don’t want anyone to think that I’m happy-go-lucky about losing. No one wants to go out and lose. I really feel bad for the seniors. I’ve known Nick Zaunbrecher for years. Nick Thurman caught me for two years and I’ve known Stefan Trosclair for a long time.

“It was sad (after losing Monday). We kind of realized that it was the last time we’d all be together as a team. But I’m OK with it. I think everybody’s OK with it. Those two losses just came out of nowhere after a long winning streak. Everybody did what they could. I don’t have any regrets.”

The biggest message

It’s a mentality that was decades of tears, pain and frustration in the making for the Leger family.

Indeed, it’s one that Tim hammered into his son’s head after learning the hard way.

“The biggest thing to me to get Gunner to understand is that sports, no matter which one you play, is going to bring failure,” said Tim, who is now the receivers coach and recruiting coordinator for the University of Louisiana at Monroe football program. “You can’t control the results. You can only control the things you can control. Be thorough, be prepared, be determined, outwork everybody. Those are the things you can control.

“It’s about doing the things you can do to allow yourself to be successful. We talked a lot about ‘no excuses’ and being mentally tough and working harder than everybody else.”

It’s an approach Gunner eventually accepted after being a pupil in the school of hard knocks.

“It wasn’t always like it is now,” Gunner said. “There was a time when I rebeled against him a little bit. But I learned quickly that he knew best. He had learned things through failures in his career and getting released (from minor leagues). He didn’t want me to make the same mistakes he made.”

For Wallace, it’s a reaction he now understands and tries harder to employ.

“Gunner contains his emotions better than I do and Tim did,” Wallace said. “I know there’s a volcano beneath him, but he doesn’t express that in public.”

Wallace also told a story of him trying to console Gunner after a rough loss.

“He tells me, ‘Pop, it’s baseball. It’s just a game. You just take care of yourself. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be alright. He’s just so mature. He handles himself so well.”

Of course, if you talk to Gunner, he doesn’t handle losing and failure nearly as well as many believe.

“I still struggle with failure,” Gunner said. “It’s one of my weaknesses.”

Understanding competition

As the story goes, Tim’s strategy in teaching his son about shortcomings in sports weren’t always fun.

“He was hard on me, but I’ve got accustomed to it,” Gunner said. “I struggled to deal with failure. But when I started being hard on myself (early in high school career), that’s when he started backing off.”

Part of “being hard,” in his father’s mind, was teaching Gunner some valuable lessons about competing, especially in baseball, that many athletes never learn.

“People were hard on me when Gunner was growing up,” Tim explained in his defense. “Gunner would get a home run and somebody would go get the ball and bring it to me. I’d say, ‘Make sure you go get the ball when he strikes out too. Unless you’re going to bring me all four balls, don’t bring me just the home run ball.’ Home runs are part of the game, just like strikeouts are.”

The message was “you can’t control the results.”

The message, one so many involved in sports never truly comprehend, also was that Tim was proud of his son even at that young age not because Gunner hit a homer, but because he put in the work necessary to be in position to hit the homer.

That extended into his high school years at Barbe High in Lake Charles.

One evening not long after Gunner got his driver’s license, it was 10:30 p.m. and Gunner wasn’t home. His parents were getting worried.

Then the thought came to Dad to ride by the high school. Sure enough, Gunner was there throwing 150 balls into a net because no one was there to catch him.

“That’s when I knew he was a lot different than I was,” Tim said.

By that time, Gunner had heard his father’s message loud and clear.

No lesson gets into the heart of a youngster like one he learns the hard way.

Learning firsthand

For Gunner, that lesson came when he was a 12-year-old.

His father was an assistant football coach at McNeese State in Lake Charles at the time, so Gunner played for South Lake Charles’ powerhouse Little League program.

South Lake Charles was playing in the U.S. finals in Williamsport, Pa. The winner would advance to the overall championship game.

In the Waco Regional to qualify for Williamsport, Gunner was fabulous. He threw a no-hitter, hit almost .600 in the tournament and finished it out by getting a second win on the mound in the finals.

He would endure the other side of the game in this U.S. finals, however.

At the plate in that fateful game, he struck out four times.

In the field, he committed the error that led to the game-winning run.

As a pitcher, “he just couldn’t get anybody out,” Tim remembered.

At that stage in his athletic career, Dad’s wise message fell on deaf ears.

“When you’re 12, you don’t understand,” Tim said. “But I asked him, “Did you try any less than you did in Waco? Did you prepare any less?’

"You don’t control the results.”

The coach in Tim believed in the message. But he was a parent, and it was tough. Gunner would come to his parents at night crying.

“Kids can be cruel,” Tim said. “They would tell him, ‘It’s all your fault.’ Gunner had a real tough time with that for a long time.”

Gunner vividly remembers that heartbreak.

“It shook me up pretty good,” he said. “When they would show replays of the game, I couldn’t watch it. It ate me up for a long time. My dad had told me for years that you’re going to fail in sports. That made me realize it.”

In fact, two days after UL was stunned by Arizona, Gunner admitted he thought of those dark days in his life as Ragin’ Cajun teammate Evan Guillory dealt with a second straight start of not retiring a single batter in UL’s postseason run.

“Absolutely, I did,” Gunner said. “I knew how he felt. All everybody sees is that you didn’t get an out or you made the error. That’s in your head. But in reality, it wasn’t just Evan’s fault.

“Evan was a big part of our season. He’ll get over that. He’s going to play a big role in next year’s season, as well.”

Father knows best

Because of that brutal experience as a 12-year-old, Gunner grew stronger.

At some point during his high school career at Barbe, the light bulb went on. Perhaps what his father had been preaching was wiser than he originally perceived.

Like his father did as a senior at Acadiana High back in 1992, Gunner was recognized as the All-District Most Valuable Player as a senior.

During Gunner’s career in Lake Charles, his grandfather, Wallace, was making “four or five trips a week” to Calcasieu Parish to follow his grandson’s progress.

Like many proud grandparents have done over the years, Wallace saw an early indication of future greatness.

“I’ve been throwing the ball with Gunner since he was 5 years old under a shade tree in the backyard,” Wallace said. “I remember one day when he was young, I was playing soft toss with him. He was just a pup.

“I threw the ball too far over his head. He spun his hips and did a crow-hop and caught it. Then he came over the top with it and hit me right in the forehead. He said, ‘I’m sorry Pop.’ I told him, ‘You didn’t make Pop sad, you made him very happy.’ I had never taught him how to spin his hips.”

Some wondered why Wallace made so many trips to Lake Charles.

“I had to,” he explained. “He might go play (college) ball on the East coast somewhere and I wouldn’t be able to see him play.”
After all, 22 years earlier,son Tim left home right after high school to begin a life of traveling around the country in buses as part of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ farm system. He was a fourth-round draft pick.

He’s coming home

Then came the great news. Gunner would actually be coming home.

“Then Tim told me, ‘Pop, he’s going to UL,’ ” Wallace said. “I live less than a mile from The Tigue. I couldn’t believe it.”

By the end of Gunner’s freshman season, the young left-hander was the starting pitcher for the Cajuns against the LSU Tigers at a packed Alex Box Stadium in the NCAA Super Regionals.

“What I told people who asked me how I thought he would do was that Gunner’s not going to flinch,” Tim said. “I had no idea how well he’d pitch. I just knew he wasn’t going to go over there and lay down. Pitching in front of all of those fans in Baton Rouge had no effect on him.

“I told him, ‘All of those fans screaming at you weren’t there when you put in all the hours and hours of hard work and preparation to get to that point, so why let them affect you?’ It’s really just him, the catcher and the hitter when he’s out there.”

For the record, Gunner and the Cajuns only trailed 1-0 going to the eighth inning in that contest, only to give up four in the eight to eventually fall 6-3. Gunner gave up four runs on five hits with one walk and four strikeouts in 7.2 innings.

True to form, Tim wasn’t upset or disappointed in any way.

“What a great experience for Gunner,” Tim said. “I’m supposed to be upset because he gives up a ground ball that gets through the infield to Alex Bregman? That’s dude is a first-team All-American, a first-round draft pick. He’s pretty good.”
As usual, Gunner felt he had done everything he could to prepare. The results just didn’t go his way that day.

“When I don’t prepare as good as I possibly can, I hate that feeling,” he said. “When I do, no matter who steps in the box, I believe I’m going to get him out, because I’ve done everything in my power to be ready.”
Tim had told him over and over again that “you don’t just show up and go 4-for-4 or throw a complete-game shutout.”

Dad’s failures

Tim had learned that fact of life in a much harder way. He had done it, gotten away with it and paid a dear price for it.

When Tim’s senior season of 1991-92 began at Acadiana High, he was a throwing quarterback for the veer machine Wreckin’ Rams. He had done well enough to earn a scholarship offer from Louisiana Tech to play football and even baseball in Ruston.

But once the spring rolled around and baseball began, other options started to arise.

One day, Acadiana High was playing at Denham Springs and he got a message from Yellow Jackets’ second baseman while taking a lead off second base.

“Brett Bailey (son of then-LSU assistant baseball coach Beetle Bailey) tells me, ‘Why you playing football? My dad absolutely loves you.”  I was like, ‘Really?’ That’s when I started realizing that there might be some opportunities for me in baseball.”
After his senior season was completed, that other option ended up being the Major Leagues Amateur Draft when the Pirates selected him 118th overall in the fourth round as a outfielder.

“It broke my heart,” Wallace said. “I wanted him to play college ball. Kids just see the rainbows and the roses The minor leagues are tough.

As Tim watches his son Gunner flourish as a college baseball player today, he sometimes wonders what that experience would have been like for him.

“Absolutely I wish, in hindsight,” Tim said. “The experience would have been great. I needed that in my development. I thought I was ready for the minor leagues, but I wasn’t close to being ready. I wasn’t mature enough.

“Then from a player development standpoint, there’s no question I would have benefited greatly from it. I have no idea if that would have helped me get to the big leagues, but it would have definitely helped me.”

Tim’s mental preparation going into professional baseball obviously wasn’t the same as when Gunner arrived on UL’s campus two years ago.

“I was competitive, but it was all misguided,” he remembers. “It was more of a fear of failure than a willingness to succeed. Gunner doesn’t have any of that. He’s not afraid to fail.”

Dad’s regrets

Like so many sports families are still today, it was about results in Tim’s early days as an athlete.

“He (Wallace) was very involved,” Tim said. “We just did it differently. It was things like, you can’t go outside on game days. It was rigorous.

“If you’re playing for success in a game of failure, then when the success doesn’t come, it can ruin the whole experience.”

Like many fathers, Wallace coached and offered advice until Tim got too old for his expertise.

“Tim was always a good athlete, just like me,” Wallace said. “I knew he was good. I tried to help him as much as I could. Eventually, it got to the point where I couldn’t help anymore.

It got to where he knew more than me. He would say, ‘Pop, that’s not the way you do it.’ So I sent him to clinics to learn.”

Even now, there are regrets on how those days were handled.

“It was different with Tim and I,” Wallace revealed. “Tim always told me, ‘No matter what I do, it’s not good enough.’ I thought he wasn’t pushing hard enough. I could see his potential. But I was too tough on him.

“You live and you learn. I was doing what I thought was right. As a parent, there’s no rulebook. But I’ve got to man up and admit it. I think I messed up with Tim. I was too hard on him. It’s not like that with Gunner. I just hug him and tell him I love him.”

Leger’s minor league career lasted three years. He came dragging home again with five doubles, one triple, no homers, 18 RBIs, a batting average that never exceeded .211 and a ton of bumps and bruises … physically, mentally and emotionally.

It’s a lesson Tim has used to help mold Gunner into what he’s become as a first-team All-Sun Belt Conference performer. It has also helped him mold the many football players he’s coached over the years at St. Thomas More, McNeese State and now at ULM.

He calls it’s the ‘Curse of the Oversized Gift’.

“I just always threw the ball a little harder, hit the ball a little farther and ran a little faster than everybody else growing up,” he explained. “But those were gifts. I didn’t do anything to earn those things. I never worked hard enough to develop those gifts into their full potential.

“Trust me, all the great ones work hard. Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson had great gifts, but they worked hard to develop those gifts to accomplish what they did.”

The second chance

Fortunately, the opportunity arose for him to pick up his football career where he left it, sort of. Instead of Louisiana Tech, McNeese State’s football program gave him the chance for the college career he left behind.

“I had a great time at McNeese enjoying the college experience,” said Tim, whose son played three years of football as a wide receiver at Barbe before a leg injury forced him to forego his senior season.

After a few years as a graduate assistant at McNeese, Tim coached at St. Thomas More from 2001-06, before heading back to McNeese as a receivers coach and offensive coordinator. During those years, Gunner apparently watched and learned more than Tim imagined.

“Little eyes have big ears,” Wallace observed. “Gunner’s seen all that since he was a pup at St. Thomas More or at McNeese. He sounds like a guy who’s been in coaching for years. But again, he’s been around it since he was a pup. He was spoon-fed it.

“He’s very personable. He presents himself well in public. He’s just got his feet on the ground. One day I told him he might make the big leagues. He told me, ‘Pop, that’s not for me to decide.’ That’s how grounded he is.”

It’s still too early to tell if Gunner will advance farther in the game than his father did.

For that matter, Tim’s athletic story hasn’t completely been told yet either.

“To see how Tim’s developed, I’m so happy, so proud,” Wallace said. “I love him. I know I’m prejudiced, but I think he has a great understanding of sports. He wants to be a head coach of his own program one day. I believe he’s going to be a head coach one day.”

Indeed, the Leger family’s long, bumpy, insightful road through the crazy world of sports seems to be smoothing out over time.

“It’s been a great ride,” Wallace said. “I’m a disabled veteran. This is my life. I love sports. I’m living a dream. My grandson is playing college baseball right down the road from my house and my son is working toward being a head coach one day. What more could I ask for? I’m living a dream.”