Football: UL boosters help Ragin’ Cajun recruiting get off the ground

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, January 28, 2015

 

Ragin’ Cajuns Head Coach Mark Hudspeth and Defensive Coordinator James Willis rely on the help of UL boosters to make many of their football recruiting trips possible. (Contributed Photo)

 

 

When Gerald Hebert met with Mark Hudspeth about a plan to get UL football recruiting off the ground shortly after the latter was named head football coach at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Hudspeth beamed.

Who wouldn’t want their own Air Force?

"The day we talked about it, he couldn’t wait," said Hebert, UL’s athletic development director.

"This is what he was looking for. I mean, you almost have to be stupid not to want to do it. On top of that, with what we classify as ‘big-time programs’ – that’s what they do. We want to be perceived the same way, and perception’s a big deal."

The so-called Ragin’ Cajun Air Force soared from there.

The plan calls for program supporters to donate use of their airplanes during key recruiting missions in far-flung locales.

Hudspeth and other Ragin’ Cajun coaches, including head basketball coach Bob Marlin, have access to a fleet of private aircraft they can use to scout and visit with prospective scholarship players.

Now more than two dozen donors and their planes have been tapped, including eight or so who answer the call with a great deal of frequency — a huge help, especially in times like now, with Wednesday’s opening of the NCAA’s football national signing period right around the corner.

It’s not just use of the airplane that’s provided free of cost, though.

It’s pilots, and the cost of their time. It’s fuel. It’s landing fees charged by charter companies too.

With charter flights sometimes costing upwards of $2,000 to $3,000 per hour — it could be more or less, depending on plane size and services offered — expenses can add up quickly.

Hebert values last year’s donations at about $90,000.

"Without their help, I don’t know where we’d be in recruiting right now," said Reed Stringer, UL’s tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator. "It’s critical. What they do, it’s huge, and we couldn’t be more thankful for it."

"It stretches our reach across the Southeast, as compared to within a few hours’ radius," Hudspeth added. "So, during the time of year when you have two weeks to really ‘get it,’ it just helps you get to so many places and see so many more kids and coaches."

One donor is Marty LeBlanc, a 1986 UL graduate and a big Cajun backer.

About a year-and-a-half ago, LeBlanc and two partners bought a plane — Ragin’ Cajun Aero is the ownership entity’s name — with UL recruiting and athletics largely in mind.

"That was one of our intentions when we got the aircraft," LeBlanc said. "We wanted to make it available for the coaches, whenever possible.

"We think it’s a real important thing for the school, for trying to upgrade the programs … If we want to play with the big dogs, we need to put on our big-boy pants, you know?"

Cajun coaches have flown in the LeBlanc group’s Merlin 4C — a turboprop that seats 13 passengers and is good for flights lasting up to around two hours — at least a half-dozen times.

The planes come in various sizes and shapes, from jets to puddle-jumpers.

Chuck Crochet, a 1996 UL graduate, has been involved in the project since the get-go.

He’s even piloted Hudspeth himself, and when he can’t do that he and his business — Gulf Resource Management — have made a plane and pilot available at least once a year.

"I feel it’s particularly rewarding," Crochet said, "based on myself and my company getting in on the ground floor, the first year Coach Hudspeth was involved, and really picking the recruiting up to what’s proven to be the next level."

Scout.com has ranked UL recruiting classes No. 1 in the Sun Belt Conference each of the last three years.

The plane time-donation practice — perfectly permissible under NCAA rules — comes with a tax break. It also is akin to an actual cash donation to the Ragin’ Cajun Athletic Foundation. But mostly, it’s about doing something special for the sports teams of one’s favorite school.

"Honestly, it’s the pride in being able to support the program — being able to share a little bit of business success with the community and specifically for UL athletics," LeBlanc said. "Because UL athletics isn’t just about athletics or just about UL. It’s about what makes Lafayette Lafayette."

Not everyone, however, has an airplane on-call.

Bryan Hanks, a 1981 UL graduate, one day found himself "looking to help the program in any way I could."

"Not being in a position to own a plane," he said, "I just was trying to think of how we could help."

His petroleum landman brokerage, Beta Land Services, is structured such that he accumulates numerous airline miles and points via American Express by covering the cost of travel for its independent brokers.

"It just kind of hit me — these are transferable, and would serve a good purpose and help them (the Cajuns) out," he said. "It puts the points to good use, put it that way."

Over the years, Hebert said, Hanks and his wife Michelle have donated more than three million points/miles to the Cajuns.

UL assistants flying commercially sometimes use those, easing the athletic department’s recruiting costs.

"I could see the benefit in it, and the need," Hanks said. "They needed access to air travel, and that was a way I could help in that area.

"I think it gives us a tremendous advantage. Both Coach Hudspeth and Coach Marlin — they would name individual players and say, ‘We would never have a shot at these guys without having access like that.’ "

Not all recruiting trips, of course, result in landing the target.

Just knowing they’ve helped the greater good, however, is more than satisfying for boosters like LeBlanc.

He encourages all Cajun fans to find ways to help, even they don’t own a plane or have miles to donate.

"(The coaches’) effective use of time is kind of the same thing as us in business: The more ‘better’ trips you have, the more effective you’re gonna be,’" he said. "It’s nice that we’re able to provide that, but I think it’s just as important as the guy that can only afford a hundred bucks to RCAF and he gives his hundred bucks.

"Every nickel and dime is what counts. We need the guys that can only afford that to pony up and do what they can afford. That’s when we’re gonna really compete, is when everybody’s behind it."

And many are, in their own unique way.

"Everybody is a big part of the team," Hudspeth said.

Hebert said travel agent Stephanie Roberts and her company Travel Time donate time to set up trips.

Then there’s a group of car dealerships from around Acadiana who donate use of loaner vehicles to not only many Cajun head coaches, but also several of their assistants.

Those vehicles absorb plenty of miles when recruiting needs call for hitting the road.

"We’re the ones in the cars, beating up the highways," Stringer said of himself and fellow assistants coaches.

Stringer drives a 2014 Toyota Camry that he prefers because of its Bluetooth speaker-system technology, which helps him to responsibly drive hands-free — and get plenty of work done.

"I’m never off the phone," Stringer said, "because you’re calling kids, you’re calling coaches, you’re calling parents."

Sometimes — especially for Hebert, who has learned about the private airplane world the last few years — you’re calling for a favor.

When boosters answer, it’s a big lift.

"We’ve got a great group of dealerships, group of guys, that work with us and give us opportunities to use their vehicles," Stringer said. "They put us in nice vehicles so we’re pulling up to houses looking good and looking big-time.

"Without the car dealerships and the planes," he added, "we’re a completely different program."

The UL football team recruits from Lafayette out.

Coaches drive west on Interstate 10, east on 10 and 12, and north on Interstates 49 and 55.

"We have a four-hour footprint," Stringer said, "but sometimes we go out of that footprint if we need to."

The planes allow it.

Hudspeth can travel without worrying about long TSA lines, losing time in commercial airports, missed connections, major-airline cancellations or lost luggage.

"We wouldn’t be able to get where we wanted to get (without them)," Stringer said. "It would be impossible. You don’t have enough time in the day.

"We would have to change our recruiting philosophy, we would have to change how we go about our business during this contact period (without them).

"I can’t say enough how grateful we are, and how important is it," he added. "It allows us to get Coach Hud in front of all these families. It allows us to get Coach Hud into these homes seeing these kids, having the head coach sitting right there in front of (them)."

Assistants sometimes fly with Hudspeth too, but it’s the head coach who makes most use of the planes.

He loves it, save for that one day last recruiting season.

"It got a little jittery last year," Hudspeth said, "when the oil pump went out on one of the planes coming into New Orleans."

One emergency landing later, the Cajuns coach was right back at it.

He’s flown as far as Miami and North Carolina to recruit, and feels that gives him a leg up on many other Sun Belt and Group of Five conference coaches.

When Hudspeth was an assistant coach at Mississippi State prior to coming to UL after the 2010 season, in fact, he said that school had its own plane – but didn’t have access to a multitude of planes like the Cajuns do now.

"What people don’t realize," Stringer said, "is you are very limited on the opportunities you can go to schools or visit a kid’s home, especially with the head coach. … If you’re recruiting 50 kids and you have 25 or 22 days to do it, you’ve got to be able to get from Point A to Point B fairly quickly."

"It allows you to see so many players, and that’s a huge advantage," Hudspeth added. "You’re seeing five players a day as compared to one or two. So we’re doubling or tripling the amount of players the other universities are seeing."

That’s precisely what Hebert had in mind when he and now-retired UL vice president Ken Ardoin helped start the plane program about five years ago.

"It made perfect sense," Hebert said.

"You can go to two or three places in one day, and be back by nightfall. When you have to drive to some of these places in Mississippi or Texas or Alabama or Georgia or Florida — you’re gonna get one visit, and then there’s no way you’re gonna make it back by that night."

Especially around this time of year, covering ground — whether over the roads, or through the air — is what it’s all about.

If things go well now, it makes it much easier for the Cajuns to accomplish what they have since Hudspeth’s arrival — four straight 9-4 seasons, four straight New Orleans Bowls wins.

"They (the plane and car donors) are a part of the success we have as a football team, because we’re only as good as the players we have. Period," Stringer said. "We can’t take bad football players and win games. That doesn’t work."