Cajuns Atlhetics To Host Fan Day Sunday, Aug. 15 At Cajun Field
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. - The 2004 college football season is rapidly approaching and to start the year off right the Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football staff would like to invite everyone to join them for Fan Day 2004. It will be held at Cajun Field on Sunday, Aug. 15, 2004.
Fan day is free and open to the public.
Fans are asked to arrive at 6 p.m., entering the field through the tunnel located behind the athletics complex building. All festivities will take place on the playing field.
Ragin' Cajuns pennants will be handed out to fans for use in autograph opportunities.
Ragin' Cajuns football players and coaches will be on hand for autographs and photos. The volleyball and women's soccer team's players and coaches will also be in attendance.
Parking will be available in the stadium parking lot via the Gate 5 entrance (parking lot between Cajun Field and the Cajundome), which is adjacent to the practice fields off of Cajundome Blvd., and located behind the visiting team side of the football field.
<center><b><i>LOUISIANA SI
Cajuns a week away from starting practice
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. — Univerity of Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajun football program has not had a winning record since 1995, when current Carolina Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme was a junior and UL was 6-5.
Since that season, the best the Cajuns have done was 5-6 in 1996.
Not surprisingly, none of the top 15 single-game home attendance marks at Cajun Field has occurred since 1996.
Delhomme left after the 1996 campaign, and the Cajuns plunged into records of 1-10, 2-9, 2-9, 1-10 and 3-8 before Rickey Bustle took over the program as head coach.
The Cajuns are 7-17 in two years under Bustle.
Last year’s squad finished with a flourish, winning four of its last five games after a disheartening 0-7 start and giving Cajun fans hope that their long wait for a winner was nearing an end.
That optimism may boost attendance at 31,000-seat Cajun Field above the 15,056 and 13,995 averages so far under Bustle.
The 2004 Cajuns report back to Bustle a week from today, eyeing a Sept. 4 season home opener against Northwestern State and a schedule that appears more reasonable than guarantee-loaded slates in years past.
“The schedule is very fair,” Bustle said. “We’ll always have one or two of those kind of (guarantee) games, but that’s better than having six or seven.”
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Bruce Brown
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Bustle’s squad impressed enough people with its upbeat finish to earn four spots on television this fall.
The most discussed contest, of course, is the Nov. 5 home game against Sun Belt Conference favorite North Texas.
That Friday night contest has been set for a 9 p.m. kickoff on ESPN2, and if the rest of the campaign goes their way the Cajuns could find themselves in a significant battle for league honors.
Bustle is asking area high schools to schedule that evening’s regular-season prep finales a bit earlier, the better to give football fans a chance for a double dip of enjoyment.
Some 86 million homes will be able to view that game.
The Sept. 11 date at old foe Louisiana Tech will be picked up locally by Cox Sports on the Lafayette cable.
UL’s Sept. 25 game against visiting Middle Tennessee, a rematch of the Cajuns’ 57-51, four-overtime classic finale of 2003, will be carried locally by Cox Sports.
The other TV contest is the Oct. 2 visit to up-and-coming Florida International, which will be aired on Florida’s Sunshine Network.
That’s quite a bit of attention for a program with such a downtrodden immediate past.
Will the Cajuns be worth the fuss? Possibly, although UL is picked to finish in the bottom half of the Sun Belt after tying for No. 2 behind North Texas in 2003.
Some questions to keep in mind when the Cajuns hit the field on Aug. 9:
Will sophomore quarterback Jerry Babb continue the exponential growth he showed at the end of the 2003 season, or will transfer Luke Sniewski threaten his starting job?
Is the running game in good shape with senior Dwight Lindon as the leader of a committee of backs?
Do the Cajuns have able talent at wide receiver to ease the loss of Fred Stamps?
Will sophomore offensive tackle Brandon Cox develop into the kind of tackle who can reach the NFL, like Anthony Clement did before him?
Is place kicker Sean Comiskey the best kicker in UL history? Will he join Rafael Septien, John Roveto and Richie Cunningham as NFL kickers in two years?
Will the new multi-look 4-3 defense solve some of the Cajuns’ rough edges from a year ago?
Is it possible to get frequent flier miles, even though you’re on a charter, after playing consecutive games at Miami (FIU), Las Cruces (New Mexico State) and Moscow, Idaho (Idaho) in October?
Is the third year a charm for Bustle?
Do the fans plan to come?
Will they like what they see? Stay tuned.
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Bustle pitching success at ULL
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. -- Admittedly, Rickey Bustle has extended himself a time or two over the past two years beyond his realm as football coach in order to give his program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette a voice.
His agenda has been as conventional as Kiwanis and Rotary speaking engagements, tapering off dramatically to more unorthodox methods.
Bustle attended his first Bishop's Charity Ball dressed as a ... well, a Bishop.
"I had to study up on which one I was going to be," he said.
Bustle's even crossed over into the world of reality television. He's cut his share of local commercials that trumpet the arrival of a new season, urging students and fans alike to purchase season tickets and pledge their support for the team.
Unlike some pitch men, Bustle acknowledges being unpolished and uncomfortable in front of the bright lights. But he refuses to accept a dime for his appearances, instead relishing the time to get a message across about the program and university that provided him with his first head coaching position.
"Whatever I can do to help the program," Bustle said of his sole motivation. "My players give me a hard time about the commercials I do. I'm the worst actor there is in the world. But I do it for exposing our program, to let people know we're willing to help ourselves."
UL-Lafayette President Ray Authement may be arguably the only other person outside of Bustle who yearns with such passion to see the Ragin' Cajuns win again in football.
It's been eight straight years since UL-Lafayette, including two on Bustle's watch, put a winning product on the field. The last time the Cajuns went to a bowl game, the 1970 Grantland Rice Bowl, current Athletic Director Nelson Schexnayder was a starting wide receiver on the team.
Never <b>in the 102-year history of the school's program</b> have the Cajuns experienced eight straight losing seasons. Yet there isn't a hint of the apathy and eroding fan base that reached epidemic proportions under former coach Jerry Baldwin.
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By WILLIAM WEATHERS
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Bustle's won exactly seven of the 24 games he coached in at UL-Lafayette in trying to dig out from the calamity Baldwin left behind. The Cajuns finished 4-8 a year ago to finish second in the Sun Belt Conference, a mark that included four wins over the final five games. It was only the 10th time that UL-Lafayette won at least four conference games in 40 years of league affiliation.
"Everybody wants to win now, including me," Bustle said. "I want to win yesterday. I think people do understand this is a process. I think what we're doing is right and we're doing it slowly. But the foundation is solid."
One look around the school's athletic complex is a testament to the greater victories that Bustle and his coaching staff have won off the field.
Since his hiring 21/2 years ago, Bustle has exhaustively tried to rally support for his program. He's reached out to every civic organization that would have him, visited often with UL alumni factions between Houston and New Orleans and extended a warm hand to the school's student 15,000-member population.
The reward for Bustle has been an outpouring of warmth and enthusiasm for his efforts. His ability to make each and every one he's come in contact with, take a small piece of ownership in the program, has produced some very tangible examples within the building he works.
Through private donations, UL recently completed a renovation of its locker room that houses 112 lockers. The old, cramped training room has nearly tripled in size.
And that's just Phase I. There are plans to add another wing to the complex that would house coaches offices among other things, add on to the weight room and a proposed multi-purpose indoor practice facility could be finished by the fall of 2005 or spring of '06.
"That's a lot to happen in two years," Bustle said. "The community has supported so much of that. Obviously they believe in what we're doing."
The overall direction of the program also earned Bustle a two-year contract extension, courtesy of Authement, to provide him five more years to fulfill a vision, for both himself and those around him, of turning the Cajuns into a winner once again.
"There was a time when I wondered whether I'd ever go to a bowl game and then I went to nine," Bustle said. "But my name's on this program. I want to make this one of the best jobs in the country. I want this program to go to a bowl for everyone that's invested something in it."
For Bustle, that's a day that can't arrive soon enough.
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