<blockquote><p align=justify><b>In its efforts to build a successful football program, University of Louisiana is turning to fans and the local business community.</b>
Come Saturday, it won't feel much like football season as the University of Louisiana's team takes to the field for its first home game. Not like it will in the latter part of the season. There won't be a nip in the air, rather a sullen mugginess. Late summer foliage will still cling stubbornly to the trees. A thermos of coffee won't taste nearly as good.
Nonetheless, there will be loyal fans arriving at the stadium, ready for some football, Ragin' Cajun style. UL just needs lots more of them - and even more support from a business community that is embracing UL sports wholeheartedly.
The university has launched several initiatives to build a better football program, and an expert on sports teams and marketing says it could ultimately work, with the team becoming another economic engine that drives Lafayette.
And there's much at stake, including a nebulous quality called community pride, tinged with the very real threat of whether or not UL can meet the criteria to continue playing NCAA-sanctioned sports in Division I-A.
The NCAA has decreed that by 2004, all I-A teams must average 15,000 fans at every home football game or drop out of the division.
In response, the team hired a new coach and launched a marketing effort to urge more people to attend the games. And it seems to have helped, with 2002 attendance at an average 15,056 per home game, up from an average 14,929 the year before. But the team is just barely there; it's a margin far too close for comfort.
<center><p><a href="http://www.timesofacadiana.com/html/C1B3EE1F-73E1-4116-B568-CE5C583AB70D.shtml">The rest of the story</a>
Dan McDonald Kristi Dempsey
Posted on September 3, 2003<!--
Then there is UL's relative failure to win games. The team hasn't seen a conference championship since before the mid-1990s. The team hasn't won more than three times in any season since 1996.
Turning around a football team has happened elsewhere, says Tom Regan, chair of the Department of Sports and Entertainment Management at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. (against legendary Coach Lou Holtz, Coach Rickey Bustle's UL squad narrowly lost to USC's Gamecocks this past weekend, 14-7, a surprise to many).
The success of these efforts, however, won't be seen overnight, says Regan.
The team will need to win, of course, but it will also take an avid mixture of institutional, community and business support.
If Acadiana decides it wants a winner, it could happen, Regan says.
If Acadiana wants it badly enough.
Hustle up and bustle up and fight on to victory - U of L! - Last stanza of the UL Fight Song
Second-year Head Coach Bustle's tie to the last line of the UL fight song might be a happy coincidence, but it describes more than his ability to field a winning football team. He understands that a coach must be a motivator off the field as well, says Regan.
It may only seem like inches at a time, but the UL football program is making forward progress.
Hiring Bustle was smart play, Regan says, evidence that the forward motion is already under way.
"They hired a very good coach in Bustle," he says. "He's considered one of the hottest commodities in college football. He knows what it is to be successful. He's worked for a system that works."
Bustle understands what can happen because he watched his mentor, Coach Frank Beamer, make it happen at Virginia Tech, beginning in 1987.
Hustle arrived at Tech with Beamer that year and helped him coach a team that won only five games out of 22 those first two years.
Then the unimaginable happened. The Hokies started winning in a march that led them to the Independence Bowl in 1993 and the Sugar Bowl two years later.
According to Bustle, their success was a culmination of factors, but a big part of it was changing the way the university recruited its athletes.
"It's kind of a painstaking process in recruiting, to get kids evaluated and get them approved for scholarships," Bustle says, a process he's using at UL.
He's also trying to change his team's attitude about winning, he says.
"We talk about winning all the time," Bustle says. "We talk about preparing to win, working to win. Last year I don't think we spent enough time doing that. We were trying to kind of put our fingers in the hole in the dike."
Louisiana, with only 4.4 million people, has only so many blue-chip high school athletes and most will end up across the Basin, at Louisiana State University.
That means Bustle has to use his hustle to bring them in from elsewhere, Regan says.
If Bustle is as smart as Regan thinks he is, he'll urge that the university put a vast majority of any new athletic resources into one sport, and that's football. Success in this program, it's been shown time and time again, will breed success in other sports.
But it won't happen overnight, Regan says.
"It takes time. You gotta win," Regan says. "He's a talented coach and I am not just saying that he has a great reputation. He understands that you have got to have a system that works overtime.
"He won't be a one-year wonder."
'It's hard to make a lot of money without a TV package. They've got to sell tickets and sponsorships in the stadium. A lot of it has to do with money and funding - enough funding to justify expenses to be competitive year in and year out.'
- Tom Regan, chair, Department of Sports and Entertainment Management, University of South Carolina
A winning season for the Ragin' Cajuns means more than just bragging rights.
Gerald Hebert, UL's coordinator of athletic development, says a winning season also pumps the local economy.
"Huge," is the way Regan describes the economic impact of a winning team. "In a Division I-A program, it can be a booming $50 million; we're talking $5 million a game, just on football."
"It does become an economic factor," Hebert says. "Look all over the country. When a university is doing well athletically, people feel better and it becomes a quality of life issue."
The university by itself is an economic factor for Acadiana, Hebert says.
With 19,000 students and staff, the university is one of the largest single markets in the region, he says.
"Their spending power affects the entire region," Hebert says. "That is a lot of people in one small area and they all spend money."
"First and foremost, it is important that we understand that as a community, the university plays a key role - not just in the economy, but in the overall quality of life," says Gregg Gothreaux, president of the Lafayette Economic Development Authority. "We are very lucky to have a university of this size in our community."
Gothreaux says a winning athletic program at a university does have an impact on the psyche of a community. It also has an affect on the business community in a region. A business helping the university is helping itself, he says.
He explains that a successful athletic program brings people out to watch the games and that boosts a community's way of looking at itself. A community that is feeling good about itself is usually one that is spending money, he says.
"The business community can support a university not only with their dollars, but also with their in-kind services," Gothreaux says. "A successful athletic program brings with it a sense of well-being that lends itself to the success of the community economically."
Hebert says the university is getting a boost from Acadiana's business community.
"They recognize the economic importance of the university to Lafayette," he says. "These are companies that have stepped up to help and not asked for anything in return."
Among the companies that are helping: Pixus Digital Printing, AAA Signs, O'Neal Steel Inc., Carpet and Drapes, The Floor Store, Stoma's Furniture and Interiors, Knight Oil Tools, Stevens RV's, Stone Energy, Angelle Concrete, Stabil Drill, Southern Structures, Total Towers and Moncla Well Service.
Hebert says a project started in 2002, "Support Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns - It's Good For Business," has been successful. That program is being sponsored by the Lafayette Economic Development Authority, the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce and Cox Communications.
"It's all about pride in the university and our community," says Max Hoyt with Pixus. "We have a world-class community. We are just doing our part."
Pixus has been installing graphics at the press box at Cajun Field, working on 22-foot banners that will be suspended near the Cajun Field concession area, and putting 8-foot Ragin' Cajun logos on the floor of the lobby of the Athletic Department.
Begneaud Manufacturing Inc. also is helping.
The company recently teamed with UL to enhance the appearance to the entrance of the UL Ragin' Cajuns athletic complex.
Hebert says he asked Begneaud for help. His request: Signs.
However, he says, he was not sure what was the best way to create them and he was operating on a limited budget.
Don Begneaud, owner and chief executive officer of the company, says Hebert's request fit their criteria for such projects.
"Rather than just saying 'yes' or 'no' (to nonprofit agencies), we established criteria for in-kind donations versus monetary contributions," Begneaud says. "Once we established that this project fit our criteria for in-kind donations, we assembled a team to determine how to produce the signs."
Using state-of-the art laser equipment, Begneaud produced a series of metal signs that Hebert says are perfect.
"The reward on this job is more than name recognition," Begneaud says. "It is the feeling of pride in knowing that we did something for the community that will be there for years to come."
Hebert says these examples are just a physical sign of the support the university is getting from Acadiana's business community.
"We are trying to send the message to the community, and to our players, that UL's athletic department is interested in a classy and professional look," Hebert says. "Community involvement like we are seeing is priceless to us. We welcome any firm that wants to come in and help."
'It's a three and one-half hour infomercial for our university. That in and of itself should explain to those who wonder about our membership in Division I-A.'
- Jim Oakes, Louisiana Tech athletic director, whose team played third-ranked Miami this past Thursday in a nationally televised game, on the benefits of playing a game televised by the ESPN network.
More than a few naysayers believe that UL would be far more successful if it threw in the towel and dropped into a lower division. Everybody loves a winner, and the university could be successful against the likes of McNeese State in Lake Charles and Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.
The pundits, however, say dropping to I-AA will never happen unless the university simply can't meet the NCAA requirements.
And there are many good arguments for keeping a sports franchise in I-A, including:
* I-AA schools rarely have the opportunity to play guarantee games, that is, games that promise to be financially profitable. NCAA regulations require teams to have six victories to be bowl-eligible and allow only one win over a I-AA opponent to count toward that number in a four-year period. NCAA rules also limit teams to 12 regular-season games. That's why most upper-division I-A teams rarely play a I-AA opponent.
* There are 56 spots out there for bowl games (only I-A teams are eligible for these bowls), and the minimum payout for a bowl game is $750,000 per team.
* Teams in the I-AA national football playoff system actually lose money by playing in it. Unless the teams are close geographically, the revenue split from game attendance and the small television payout normally doesn't even cover travel costs. Grambling and Southern, despite their recent success, bypass the I-AA playoffs in order to meet in the Bayou Classic each year.
* Division I-AA teams rarely appear on a national television broadcast (some appear regionally). Louisiana Tech's game last week against Miami in Shreveport was on ESPN, which gets into 92 million homes and is earmarked to sports fans.
'It's kind of tough right there because of LSU 45 miles away. There are rabid fans at LSU.'
- Tom Regan, chair, Department of Sports and Entertainment Management, University of South Carolina
Realistically, insane fan support, like at LSU, won't happen anytime soon, says USC's Regan.
"That doesn't mean you can't be successful. If they have a good time, get excited, allegiance can change in a couple of different ways. But the money will follow season tickets," he says.
Strictly by the numbers, finding a base of fans shouldn't be much of a debate locally. The UL Alumni Association currently lists 24,629 active mailing addresses for alumni in Lafayette Parish and 14,278 more in the five parishes that share a border with Lafayette, including Acadia, Iberia, St. Landry, St. Martin and Vermilion parishes. The LSU Alumni Association lists only 4,312 active addresses in Lafayette Parish and 4,104 in the other five parishes.
That's 38,907 to 8,416 if you're scoring at home.
So how come, because there are nearly five times more UL alumni than LSU alumni in Acadiana, there is even a question over where the area's loyalties lie?
That variance in numbers only underscores a different point, one that most Cajun supporters refuse to acknowledge or don't want to hear.
Quite simply, and especially in football: The average LSU fan is much more passionate about his program than the average UL fan and is much more likely to open his wallet to fulfill that passion.
The UL athletic program reported approximately $880,000 in monetary giving during the last fiscal year. The Tiger Athletic Foundation, LSU's primary conduit for athletic gift-giving, operates outside of the LSU athletic department and records are not as accessible, but it's estimated that $500,000 of that group's annual $12 million to $14 million take comes directly from the Acadiana area.
LSU sells many more tickets in Acadiana compared to its alumni base than the hometown university. UL athletic director Nelson Schexnayder has said many times that if every alumnus in Lafayette Parish alone would purchase one season ticket to any sport, his department would be more financially solvent than at any time in its history.
The reason for LSU's success locally, despite the smaller alumni numbers, is personified in Mike Bernard, one of the few local sports fans who falls into a rare middle ground - a supporter of both programs.
Bernard is a 1983 graduate of then-USL and speaks fondly of being in Blackham Coliseum as a youth to watch Bo Lamar's exploits. But, even with that background, his allegiances lie elsewhere.
Fans may know Bernard better as "Bandit," a frequent guest on local radio shows and himself a regular part of high school sports broadcasts over KJCB-AM. That's "Bandit" as in "Chinese Bandit," in homage to the legendary LSU defensive unit of the late 1950s.
He's only missed two LSU home football games since 1976.
"My dad started taking me to the games when I was 5 years old," Bernard says.
There is no question of Bernard's loyalty to LSU. What makes him different, though, is that he also wants good things to happen in his alma mater's athletic program - and that makes him a pariah in parts of both camps.
"I'm just a sports fan," he says. "I don't know why people worry about those things, but some of those people are just nuts. They're not really rivals ... you don't have to choose one or the other.
"I have LSU fans asking me all the time why I go to the Cajun games. I know guys with Web sites that can't stand the Cajuns. To me, that's childish."
Animosity between the two schools' fan bases reached a peak (maybe sunk to a new low would be a better description) at the 2002 NCAA baseball regional at LSU's Alex Box Stadium. UL had advanced to the College World Series two seasons earlier, a place that LSU had visited five times during the '90s, on the way to four national titles. Both teams were looking at an Omaha return.
Both teams won their opening game in the double-elimination event, and rowdy fan behavior was rampant one night later when the Cajuns took a win over the Tigers.
LSU came back and won twice over UL the next day to earn advancement, but that Sunday is better remembered for the grandstand ugliness that carried over to the field. Taunting from both dugouts took a quantum leap from normal baseball trash-talking. A Tiger bat "accidentally" flew into the Cajun dugout, UL pitchers "accidentally" plunked two LSU batters and ejections hit both benches.
The baseball skirmish was only 15 months ago.
Another issue that raises hackles on both sides has been brewing for more than 15 years - the name of the local university.
Even before 1982, there was talk of the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) seeking to change its name to the University of Louisiana. That year, for a brief time, the name was changed and the compass-point designation removed. Shortly thereafter, the Legislature retroactively banned individual school's naming privileges.
Four years ago, the state's higher education governing bodies were revamped, and USL again became the University of Louisiana.
"LSU fans think that UL is trying to better itself with just a name," says Jay Walker, a long-time broadcast sports veteran and daily sports-talk host on KPEL-AM. "But it's not just a one-way thing. There's a small percentage of the fan base here that would rather see this football team go 0-12 as the University of Louisiana than see them go 12-0 as UL."
Virtually every on-air and online debate involving the two schools boils down to the name change in one form or another, and it's been a consistent theme.
Walker, for one, says he thinks that the middle ground of dual-program supporters is larger than most people think.
"I think the people who are fans of both schools are in the majority," he says, "but we hear from the others more frequently."
Bernard's passion isn't divided straight down the line, but he's also pragmatic about it.
"I don't have to take sides," he says. "I can't. My dad and I have a business here, and people from both sides have to buy from us."
'There's nothing wrong with shooting for the stars. That's what we should all strive for.'
- Tom Regan, chair, Department of Sports and Entertainment Management, University of South Carolina
Kristi Dempsey is metro editor and Dan McDonald is a sports writer for The Daily Advertiser. Also contributing to this report were Advertiser business reporter John Sullivan, Times reporter Nick Pittman and Times editor Judy Johnson. To comment on this story, e-mail timesedit@timesofacadiana.com.
