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Thread: Where is the Plaque

  1. What a Downer


    The plaque was simply heralding Yvette’s achievements while at Louisiana, namely "Yvette Girouard, National Coach of the Year, 1990, 1993"

    Who did it? I do not know. Who knows? One or more persons do know. We may never know.

    Some UL fans claim it was a jealous LSU fan that does not like the fact that Yvette Girouard made a name for herself at Louisiana. That they are somewhat bothered by her mercenary status as LSU's softball coach.

    Louisiana fans say it fits the pattern of Louisiana's scoreboard equipment being stolen a few weeks prior to LSU coming to Tigue Moore field. I seriously doubt this. LSU's opponents do not have a history of things coming up missing prior to playing LSU.

    Some University of Louisiana fans say it was sent off to remove "Head Coach" from beneath Yvette Girouard's name and to add Stefni Whitton-Lotief as the current head coach. If this is true the plaque should have been back by now. It is a strech considering the content of the plaque. Louisiana is proud to have had a two time coach of the ear.

    Then there are some LSU fans who claim it is (ULL) or Cajun fans engaging in revisionist history. That the University can't accept her having moved on, or that the plaque would have given Yvette home field advantage at Lady Cajun park. Who knows?

    I don’t care who did it, her name belongs as a part of Ragin' Cajun history

    If the LSU led rumor is true, I do have a problem with UL removing Yvette Girouard's name, because on the one hand some Louisiana fans have lamented that no "head" football coach ever moved on to bigger and better things from Louisiana.

    We can't have it both ways, we love it when head coaches come in from all around the country, and end up retiring to Acadiana, yet at the same time we know that a sign of success is them moving on. When the softball coach takes a mercenary offer we can't lament her and the programs success. Her plaque should be enlarged and rehung.


    I do feel that Yvette Girouard will never feel quite as good deep down about being the coach of LSU as she did about being the coach of Louisiana. What you build tends to be valued far more that what you are given, but a paycheck is a paycheck and she does need to make ends meet.

    Back to the point, whom ever did it can remove her name but not her accomplishments at Louisiana. It may change perception for some but it can't change reality. She was a super success at Louisiana, end of story. OR at least it should be.

    IF Louisiana did it. . .

    A problem with the removal of Yvette Girouard's name is that it is no different from what the Legislature did to the University of Louisiana in 1984, along with what happened 1995, with the creation of a sister school.

    They in effect passed a law the chisels out the name "University of Louisiana", hoping to change perception. In effect they encourage the board of Regents to pass an edict that implies we must report in, with our whereabouts in every paper produced.

    I am not sure if they are striving to make sure we don't leave Lafayette in the middle of the night. But they can never stop the University of Louisiana's presence from being felt around the world.

    Removing the plaque Yvette Girouard's plaque is the same thing. Just as the legislature could never stop the University of Louisiana's presence from being felt. Yvette Girard's accomplishments are embedded into Louisiana's history.

    Lets embrace the memory and move on.


    It was 5 bricks tall and 4 bricks wide. I don't know who stole the plaque but I think they could have just dropped it in the trash can.

    Picture taken on May 18th, before the bricks were cleaned of silicone.

  2. What a Downer Where is the Plaque


      LSU softball coach Yvette Girouard will be inducted into the Louisiana Softball Coaches Association Hall of Fame tonight.

    The banquet is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel and is held in conjuction with the Louisiana High School Coaches Association All-Star softball games to be played Saturday at LSU's Tiger Park.

    "This is so neat ... very neat," Girouard said. "I'm honored that the group that selected me is made up of high school coaches because that's all I ever really wanted to be was a high school coach.

    "Coaching on the college level is something that happened for me. I loved the time I spent in high school coaching. My favorite part of the day was sixth hour when I got to work with my athletes."

    Girouard has spent 22 years as a college coach at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and LSU. Girouard started her career as a high school coach at Lafayette and her alma mater, Comeaux.

    Girouard never played fast-pitch softball. She learned the sport after she began coaching.

    To date, Girouard has 874 collegiate wins and ranks among the top 10 for wins.


    Link

    Advocate staff report


  3. #3

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    Originally posted by Turbine
    Other Louisiana fans say it fits the pattern of Louisiana's scoreboard equipment being stolen a few weeks prior to LSU coming to Tigue Moore field. I seriously doubt this. LSU's opponents do not have a history of things coming up missing prior to playing LSU.
    You forgot RICE. Hello!!!!! Big pattern here.

  4. What a Downer 2002 June 12th (Wednesday)


      A plaque honoring UL''s Yvette Girouard has gone missing. And that is not all that''s missing.
    Louis Rom

    Call it the plaque that never was. There one moment, gone the next. Like a nasty slider that drops off the table a foot from the plate, like the cheesy bread in the Domino's Pizza commercials.

    Like, well, civility between feuding University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Louisiana State University alums.

    UL Athletic Director Nelson Schexnayder says he doesn't even know where the plaque came from. So too, say a number of athletic department employees.

    But former Lady Cajuns softball coach Yvette Girouard, the woman whom it honored, knew it was there - behind the dugout at Lady Cajun Softball Park. There, at least, until Girouard and her new team, the hated LSU Lady Tigers, came to town to take part in last month's NCAA Division 1 Regional.

    It was then that Girouard, who compiled a .751 winning percentage during her 20 years at UL, learned that the plaque recognizing her for "coach of the year" honors she earned in 1990 and 1993 had vanished.

    After a 7-15 mark in 1981, Girouard's teams enjoyed 18 straight winning seasons. They appeared in eight consecutive Regionals and three World Series. The plaque was one of the few mementos recognizing the only coach the USL/UL team had ever known until two years ago.

    Conspiracy theorists say the plaque was removed under the cover of darkness. Perhaps by someone affiliated with the Lady Cajuns who felt snubbed when Girouard left to coach the cross-river rival Tigers. Perhaps by some LSU students perpetrating just another sorority or fraternity prank.

    It was, one person says, "like the Colts' Robert Irsay packing up his team in the middle of the night and taking off for Indianapolis."

    Schexnayder says this is much ado about nothing, that there is no second gunman, no grassy knoll.

    "It was no conspiracy," says Schexnayder. "No one's indicated that they have it, there's no (mystery) letter, no one's winked knowingly at me about it."

    But current Lady Cajuns softball coach, Stefni Whitten-Lotief - who played under Girouard during her UL career - isn't so sure.

    "I think this is the work of a very sophisticated criminal ring that waited until all our attention was focused on homeland security and, in the dead of night, swooped down and stole the plaque," says Lotief.

    "Obviously, these are some skilled criminals to successfully steal away with it."

    Schexnayder says soon after the plaque disappeared he met with Lotief.

    "I met with Coach (Lotief) and asked her if she was aware of the plaque coming down. I asked if any of her staff members had taken it down and she indicated that no, they had not," Schexnayder says

    So far, no one's called in to claim responsibility for the pilfering of the plaque. No ransom note pieced together with multi-colored words cut and pasted from magazine pages has surfaced. Just a bare brick wall with four holes where the plaque once rested.

    The plaque seems to have disappeared as quietly as it appeared. And even that's an interesting story.

    Until this Times special investigation, no one knew for sure where the plaque came from, when it was mounted on the Wall of Honor, or who put it there, says UL's sports information director Daryl Cetnar.

    "This is a big campus," Cetnar says. "Who knows ... how many unauthorized plaques are out there?"

    Schexnayder says the athletic department did not pay for the plaque, nor did it take it down. He recalls it surfacing three or four years before Girouard left for the Tigers, sometime around 1996 or 1997.

    "The plaque went up one day," and, pausing for just the right words, he says, "and that was fine."

    Some have speculated that a Girouard supporter put it up, or that Girouard herself did.

    Until now, Girouard has not commented publicly about Plaque Flak, but in an exclusive (and lengthy) interview with The Times - perhaps our biggest scoop of the year (OK, not counting our Best-Dressed edition) - Girouard said:

    "Whoa, I don't want to get involved in this."

    But, after further prodding by our pushy answering machine, Girouard, like a pitcher wilting in the late innings, gave up the goods.

    "I did not originally ask for my own plaque to be put on the wall. I didn't have anything to do with that. The Louis (Snook) Castille family insisted that it be placed up there. So, it wasn't my idea. I didn't put up my own plaque, someone else did it."

    And, in perhaps The Times' biggest scoop of the year (didn't we already say that?) this newspaper has confirmed, at least, as best one can confirm anything that is told to you by an 87-year-old Cajun man named Snook, that Girouard might just be telling the truth.

    "The plaques, I gave them that. I was very disappointed about the plaque that's missing," says Snook Castille, owner of Castille's Marble and Granite Works.

    Castille says Girouard asked him several years ago - "maybe 10 years ago" - if he could make a plaque recognizing the team's accomplishments. He's not sure if the second plaque recognizing Girouard (the one that's gone missing) was her idea or his. "I'm 87, I don't remember much," he says. Castille also recalls a brief ceremony after the plaques were mounted, but doesn't recall who was there.

    But he's sure the plaque's disappearance is no accident. "I don't even want to get into that, son," he says.

    The granite plaque, about 18 x 24 inches and weighing nearly 50 pounds, was held in place by four half-inch thick metal bolts. Easy prey for a smooth criminal.

    "It would be real easy to take it down," Castille says. "You get a little crescent wrench ..."

    Castille says he contacted Schexnayder's office when the plaque went missing.

    "I spoke to the assistant and I told her I was disappointed and she says, 'Snook , we're looking into this' ... and I didn't hear from them since."

    When asked whether this would even be an issue had Girouard gone to work for, say, Stanford University, Castille says, "No, I don't think so."

    Lotief wonders why it's an issue at all. She wonders why no one's talking about the team's back-to-back 50-win seasons, about their team record 76 homeruns, about their star shortstop, Alana Addison, who became the school's first player to make the USA National Elite Team, earning her a shot at the 2004 Olympics in Greece.

    But did she go to work for LSU?



    Link
    Times of Acadiana
    Louis Rom is public life editor for The Times.
    Phone him at 237-3560, ext. 118,
    louisrom@yahoo.com


  5. #5
    Zeebart21's Avatar Zeebart21 is offline Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Greatest Fan Ever

    Default

    Turbine, I love you man....

    I know where the plague is, it aint coming back.

    F# lsu

    Z.


  6. #6

    Default

    The bottomline here is that Yvette did what she was hired to do and much more. She built the Lady Cajuns into a powerhouse and she coached and taught Stephi to be a tough competitor and the best replacement we could have for coach of the Lady Cajuns.

    Yvette in moving to LSU simply accepted yet another challenge in the only way she knew how...straight on with an all-out effort.

    The person or persons that took her plaque if ever found out should be barred from Ragin Cajun events of every description. If it was a University decision the person should be fired and exposed as a disgrace. Yvette was, is and always will be the Lady who put softball on the map


  7. #7

    Default

    I don't know where the plaque is but I for one think it should never have been put up.... I know what she did in building the program but I'll never be able to get beyond the quote her first day as the A&M coach:

    "They say life is a journey and not a destination. But as I sit here I realize now that this has always been my destination..."

    Fine... You chose a big recruiting budget and a fancy office over the program you helped to build..over the fans that were out there cheering you when women's softball was a joke... but we were there....

    Today UL is blessed by coaches who happen to think THIS is their destination... people like Tony R... people like Steph W.... and now add to this list people like the General!!!! This is home for them... this is their family....

    Hey Girouard.... have your executive assistant fire off a memo on your custom designed stationary with your name engraved on the top... remember it was your "destiny"

    But forgive me and others for not memoralizing you here along your "journey" path


  8. #8

    Default Re: Coach 1980-2000 Yvette Girouard

    So, did the plaque ever get replaced?


  9. #9

    Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    It sure looks nice as a stepping stone in my garden.


  10. #10
    Zeebart21's Avatar Zeebart21 is offline Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Greatest Fan Ever

    Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    Quote Originally Posted by CDeb
    It sure looks nice as a stepping stone in my garden.
    Nice try... You know that new slab I just poured for my renovation? Its under it.

    Z.

  11. Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    I thought talk of the plague was long done with.


  12. #12

    Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeebart21
    Nice try... You know that new slab I just poured for my renovation? Its under it.

    Z.
    I think you got one of the "souvenir" plaques handed out at LSUA&M games to show their fan base how mean and classless we are.

  13. #13

    Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    Quote Originally Posted by CDeb
    It sure looks nice as a stepping stone in my garden.
    You can be as crass and ____ty as you want. It was a chicken____ thing to do (taking down Yvette's Plaque).

    She Left us for rhat other school. I was not happy about that. The fact is our program is what it is and where it is because of Yvette. She took a program and brought it to the top and she deserves better than some of you people are giving her.

  14. #14

    Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Snuffy
    You can be as crass and ____ty as you want. It was a chicken____ thing to do (taking down Yvette's Plaque).

    She Left us for rhat other school. I was not happy about that. The fact is our program is what it is and where it is because of Yvette. She took a program and brought it to the top and she deserves better than some of you people are giving her.
    You haven't got the foggiest effing clue who you're talking to.

    You'd eat your words, your keyboard and your computer itself if you knew how much ____ I took for defending Yvette after she left and throughout the next season.

    So don't come over here and give me that "you people" ____.

  15. #15
    Zeebart21's Avatar Zeebart21 is offline Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Greatest Fan Ever

    Default Re: What really happened to Yvettes plaque ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Snuffy
    You can be as crass and ____ty as you want. It was a chicken____ thing to do (taking down Yvette's Plaque).

    She Left us for rhat other school. I was not happy about that. The fact is our program is what it is and where it is because of Yvette. She took a program and brought it to the top and she deserves better than some of you people are giving her.
    Hey SNUFFY!!!! Im sorry...

    wait....NO IM NOT!!!!


    Z.

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