The Louisiana Ragin Cajuns have had something going on in the world of softball and baseball for the last several years and what they know about building a team is well known.
Tony Robichaux teaches classes on leadership to help these baseball players become better men as they leave the halls of the University of Louisiana. Michael Lotief uses his passion for the sport to energize his players and make them better. However, their teams aren’t the only ones that have benefited from these lessons.
“For me, to have mentors around that I can look at is phenomenal.” Garry Brodhead said during his press conference on Tuesday thanked both coaches for helping him become a better coach. “You go all over the country to clinics and all that, I just stay here. I look at the Lotiefs in softball and Robichaux in baseball, it’s exciting for me to be here and have this opportunity. I learned so much in the last five years from both of these guys; I really appreciate y’all taking the time caring. That’s the biggest thing, do you care about what you’re doing and boy we care.”
Brodhead just wrapped up his fifth season as the head coach of the Cajuns women’s basketball program and the program has undergone a renaissance of sorts. This season saw the Cajuns have their third straight 20-win season and had won the previous two WBIs. It’s a far cry from where the program was when they only won seven regular season games in 2011.
This success wasn’t immediate though and Brodhead admitted that how he started wasn’t the way he should have. He thought he could be the ideal example of leadership coming into the program in 2012, but that wasn’t the case as the Cajuns showed slight improvement that season, winning three more games and two more in conference.
Eventually, he got to talking with Robichaux about leadership. “Coach Robe says ‘When you recruit a kid, they’re already going to be good at basketball. It’s some of the other things that they need to learn.’ At first we spent so much time at practice and the gym and shooting. That’s great, but there are other things that they need to learn. Everything from leadership to being part of a culture that you’re going to change. He’s been doing it for 20-something years and look how successful he’s been. I really believe it, those kind of things are important for the millennial athlete”.
This wasn’t the only thing he learned from the Cajuns coaches. Lotief would teach him that caring is very important.
“The last couple of years his teams have been great in talent, but I think he has elevated his talent because he cares so much.” Brodhead said, “A lot of people think you can’t do it in Division I, but it can happen and they’re happening here at this university.”
The leadership lessons from Robichaux and Lotief have become the catalyst for the success this program has had and will continue to have. It will also help Brodhead get through what he called “the invisible climb” with flying colors.
-Clint Domingue