Men’s Basketball – Moments in time: Even the bad ones were good – Don Allen, Special to the Gazette

Men’s Basketball – Moments in time: Even the bad ones were good – Don Allen, Special to the Gazette

Acadiana Gazette, Jan. 26, 2011

Moments in time: Even the bad ones were good

By Don Allen
Special to the Gazette
     More than 5,600 fans turned out at the Cajundome Saturday night to honor more than four decades of excellence in the USL/UL basketball program and for some of us, it was a celebration of life’s defining moments.
     For me, Ron Gomez and Jay Walker, it was an opportunity to revisit the glory days that allowed us to broadcast play-by-play for a combined 50 years. For others, like former sports information director Dan Mcdonald, it was a reminder that those thousands of hours on the typewriter and computer actually did serve a purpose. But the night really belonged to the players and coaches that gave more than four decades of their lives to molding the Ragin Cajuns into a basketball identity like few others.
     Bobby Paschal was there and, except for the white hair, the man hasn’t changed a bit. Paschal coached the Cajuns from 1979-1985 and led his team to three NIT appearances and a pair of NCAA Tournament bids. Listen to him for a couple of minutes and it’s apparent he still remembers almost every play from every game. Actually they all do, but Paschal always was more single-minded than most.
     Jim Hatfield preceded Paschal and because he remained in Lafayette only three seasons, his accomplishment are often overlooked. Hatfield took over the program in 1975 after the NCAA decided the Cajuns were growing up too quickly (read: undisciplined) for the organization’s sake and disbanded the team for two years. Hatfield’s Cajuns won 21 games and the Southland Conference championship their second year back and another 19 games the following season. That was good enough for Mississippi State, which came calling with a lucrative offer and Hatfield was bound for Starkville. “Leaving Lafayette is still the biggest regret of my life,” he says today.
     Beryl Shipley, who coached the program from 1957-1973 and took the Cajuns into the national limelight, Division One competition and post-season play, wasn’t there. He couldn’t attend either the Friday social or the official reunion Saturday. Shipley, who videotaped a message for the halftime ceremony, is battling cancer and as fate would have it, was absent on the very night the university publicly honored him for the first time in 38 years, a reminder that life can be unfair. 
     But many others, including some of Shipley’s players like Denny Wright and Payton Townsend, got to walk the court again. So did Alonza “Allah the Rim God” Allen, who got a rousing ovation when his name was called, because fans will always cheer the spectacular dunks. Wayne Julien, an integral part of Paschal’s success, and Kevin Figaro, who went on to a 10-year professional career in Europe, walked the baseline one more time. So did Ted Lyles, Craig Monroe and the incomparable Sydney Grider, who still holds the school record for three-pointers in a season.
     Graylin Warner, sixth on the scoring list, looks like he could still go 40 minutes and still talks about the 1981 Great Alaska Shootout, when the Cajuns beat top-ranked Georgetown, Washington State and Marquette en route to winning the tournament. Joe Manley showed up wearing a Winston-Salem shirt but Paschal knows his former player well enough to realize no disrespect was intended. “You know, Joe might just think he’s in Winston-Salem tonight.”
     Tyrone Jones, Byron Starks, Brian Jolivette, Dean Church, Charles English, Cordy Glenn, Brad Boyd were back but Bo Lamar, now back in Columbus, Ohio, Andrew Toney, Michael Allen, Marty Fletcher and George Almones were absent.
     The reunion simply came too late for Dion Rainey, who made perhaps the most important shot in school history. Rainey passed away a year ago in Orlando, a Navy veteran of 22 years and retired as a lieutenant commander. But despite his service career, Rainey will always be known to Cajuns fans as the man who on March 6, 1980, nailed a 23-footer from the left corner in Blackham Coliseum as time expired to beat UAB and give the Cajuns their first postseason victory since the Shipley era.
     That moment in time will forever define Rainey, just as this past weekend’s gathering will define each and every one of us who were lucky enough to have had even a small role in the program’s history.

     It’s really what the event is all about, isn’t it? Don’t wait so long next time, UL.

Athletic Network Footnote: Click here for Don Allen’s Athletic Network Profile
http://athleticnetwork.net/site.php?pageID=55&profID=3056

Click here for the photo gallery of the Jan. 21-22, 2011 Basketball Reunion http://athleticnetwork.net/site1894.php 

Click here for the Nov. 1-2, 2001 Shipley Basketball Reunion    http://www.coachshipley.com/beta/scrapbook.php