They're BIG FANS

<blockquote><p align=justify><b> Some come and go, but these fans stick </b>

LOUISIANA La. — There are University of Louisiana football fans who will be at Cajun Field every season, no matter how the Ragin’ Cajuns fare.

They likely number around 10,000 to 12,000.

But Cajun Field seats 31,000, and if the Cajuns are going to meet the mandated attendance average of 15,000 set by the NCAA for Division 1-A membership, it’s probably going to take a winning performance on the field and a more aggressive approach in promoting their product.

“When it’s your university, you view it differently,” said Ricky Calais, a 1975 UL graduate who started going to Cajun basketball games with his father as a toddler and became a football season ticket holder shortly after graduation.

“As long as you feel like they’re trying, especially when you know the disadvantages they’re working under, you’ll still come. As long as they’re giving an effort, I’m showing up.”

The Cajuns are back home after competitive losses at Louisiana Tech and Kansas State, and are looking forward to seeing at least as many fans for the Sun Belt Conference opener against Middle Tennessee as the 22,117 who attended the season opener against Northwestern State on Sept. 4.

“You’ve got diehard fans who will follow them to the ends of the earth, like I did,” Jill Myers said. “I remember players coming to us after a game and saying ‘We’re sorry we lost.’ I told them it’s OK, because one day you’re going to win and I’ll be there to see it.

“You’ve got to have people stick with you, win or lose. You’ve got to back the team for the whole four quarters.”

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The Cajuns haven’t had a winning season since 1995, and the school has hit the recently instituted 15,000 average only three times since then — twice by the barest of margins.

“I think 15,000 is way too low,” Calais said. “I think it will get to 25,000, and eventually it will be like the Alabama (36,133, 1990) and Texas A&M (38,783, 1996) games.

“There’s no reason they can’t do that, assuming they have decent years, and by that I mean finishing 6-5 or better.

“It will come down to the product, although that’s not a factor with me. Look at (Cajun) baseball. They had been playing before a couple hundred fans, then they went to the College World Series and the whole grandstand is season ticket holders.

“I grew up a basketball fan, and track and field. I started going to football games as a student, probably from 1973 or so on. I’m one of the easy sales.”

“We should have 20,000 to 25,000 fans, at least,” said Myers. “With the size of Lafayette and the area, the number of students and alumni we’ve got, we should have that.”

Myers, who grew up going to high school football stadiums to watch her father, coach Bob McBride, has been a devoted Cajun follower since arriving at UL Lafayette in 1977 as a student. She also plans to be a part of future Cajun success in a personal way.

“I’m raising the 2022 Cajun quarterback,” said Myers. “This child is 6 months old, and he loves every sport. They’ve got to make their quota, because I want my son to be a Division I quarterback.”

“It is frustrating,” Calais said. “I’ve got four brothers-in-law who all graduated from UL and don’t follow UL sports. It blows my mind. At the same time, they’ve never been approached to buy season tickets to anything. And they live 10 miles away in Breaux Bridge.

“I don’t know. Maybe there needs to be an organized effort to approach graduates. Or at least go back to your graduation base.

“The winning will come, and that will solve most, if not all of the problems,” Calais said. “I think they’re doing it the right way with coach (Rickey) Bustle.”

He has gotten some people to reconsider coming to games.

“It will still come down to wins. Without wins, they’ll get 10,000 to 12,000, no matter what.”

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