“Anytime you see somebody’s name, you always see the date they were born and the date you died. He always talked about the dash and that dash that’s in between the day you’re born and the day you die it’s what you do with the dash that makes you. There’s more to the dash with Tony Robichaux than anybody I’ve ever met and I think that describes him better than just about anything I can think of.”
Dan McDonald joined Bumper to Bumper Sports along with several others to talk about the late Tony Robichaux who passed away on Wednesday afternoon. Dan’s comments were related to an epitaph of a man that touched several people not just in the Acadiana area, but across the country when it came to college baseball.
Robichaux was a great coach on and off the field and with several people in the community mourning the loss of a legend and a hero to many in the area and beyond, the outpouring from people on social media was nothing short of outstanding. When it comes to his legacy, what he did on the baseball field was secondary in his mind, but there’s no doubt that the baseball program will be forever changed.
“He built this with his bare hands and he literally went out and sold the signs.” Ronnie Rantz said, “When you needed money for the program, he was the one to ask. I think it meant more to him because he had so much sweat equity invested in it. Life for Coach Robichaux was bigger than just ‘Hey, I can make a little more money if I jump over to this school. I always wondered what he would if he went to a program like Mississippi State. Now that seems insignificant and I’m glad that he had stayed at UL for 25 years.”
He also mended some of the fences when it came to the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns and LSU playing more frequently and according to LSU head coach Paul Mainieri, all it took was one phone call.
“There were issues between UL baseball and LSU baseball and I wasn’t here when all the incidents had happened and I thought this is ridiculous. We’re one hour apart, there’s two really good programs and we should be all in the spirit of promoting college baseball in this part of the country. One day I just picked up the phone and called Tony and introduced myself and said ‘I wasn’t here when all that happened and I don’t know whose fault it was but I’m willing to give it a try if you are.’ He was so happy that I had called him because he wanted to reinstate the series as I did.
“We both talked for a long time that day about sportsmanship and having class in winning and dignity when you lose. We both agreed that we would teach these kids in college.”
Listen to all the interviews that we had on 103.7 the Game with several remembering the late Tony Robichaux