Men’s Basketball: UL hopes reunion sparks turnaround

Men’s Basketball: UL hopes reunion sparks turnaround

Daily Advertiser January 20, 2011

At first glance, this weekend might seem like a rather peculiar time to some for UL basketball to be holding a reunion.

The team is enduring a 4-14 season, needing four more wins to avoid the worst season the program has experienced since 1956.

This losing season will make it five in the last six, along with a .500 campaign.

In other words, we’re currently in the middle of the worst downturn the program has had in almost six decades.

To people like Jim Champagne, however, that initial reaction couldn’t be more wrong. In his mind, it’s actually the best time to hold a reunion.

Is the excitement high for the program these days? No. Is there a lot to rally around? No. Is UL basketball anywhere near the top of priority lists for many local fans like it used to be? No.

For Champagne, new coach Bob Marlin and other members of the reunion committee, however, it’s the perfect time to rally the troops. To them, these tough times demand that we remember what has been done in the past in an effort to enter the future together with a renewed spirit of hope.

Indeed, the six-year drought may have forced many to forget that there still is something to fight for. Things were really very different around here for a long time.

In the previous 46 seasons, the program had 39 winning campaigns. Of those 39 winning seasons, 20 of them enjoyed 20 or more wins.

Starting with the first season after Beryl Shipley’s only losing season in his 16-year career at UL, the program had 20 winning seasons in a 21-year stretch. The only black mark in that era was the season after the two-year death penalty.

Amazingly in that very next season, Jim Hatfield was leading the Cajuns to a 21-8 season and a Southland Conference championship.

"This once was a great program and it can be again," Champagne said. "Too many people have lost sight of that. You have to think big. If you don’t think big, you’re not going to be big."

The committee is hoping that future success begins in a small way with this weekend’s activities. Marlin came to Lafayette with high hopes of revisting past greatness in this program, as well as with an approach of embracing its past.

Yes, even the part that was filled with all the controversy that led to the NCAA probation and the two-year death penalty from 1973-75.

So as the program celebrates 100 years of basketball this season — highlighted by this weekend’s reunion — the hope is that a foundation is being laid this season that creates a framework for future success by making the current community, as well as the past coaches and players, a part of the Bob Marlin era.

"When Beryl came here in the 1950s, he made a commitment to this community to stay here and build something special," Champagne said. "After everything that’s happened, he’s still here.

"I see in coach Marlin a man with that same mindset. I can see coach Marlin being here for 15 or 20 years and building something special. I know he can get it done here."

All the past players, coaches, managers, etc. that choose to attend will kick off the reunion weekend with an alumni party from 5 to 11 p.m. at the UL alumni house on the campus.

There will be activities for those alumni throughout the day Saturday, leading up to the 6 p.m. autograph session with the fans in the lobby of the Cajundome prior to Saturday’s 7:05 Sun Belt game with UL Monroe.

There’s no reason to sugar-coat it. It’s been a rough first season for Marlin, and no one knows for sure what the future holds.

But the reunion weekend offers old-school UL basketball fans an opportunity to relive some of the glory days by just seeing many of the past stars on the court again during Saturday’s game.

While big crowds have been hard to come by of late, on the court during Saturday’s halftime will be many players that fans once flocked to see perform. In Champagne’s mind anyway, those players will be living proof that it can happen here.

He and the rest of the 2011 reunion committee are just hoping that this weekend’s remembrance and embracing of the program’s storied past will help ignite a willingness to do what it takes to return to that level of excitement in the near future.

Athletic Network Footnote: Click here for Jim Champagne’s profile http://athleticnetwork.net/site.php?pageID=55&profID=11586