It’s not often you see fans of the Ragin’ Cajuns and Tigers breaking bread.
It is even rarer to see the head coach of the vermilion and white and the head honcho of the purple and gold showering each other with compliments, but that’s exactly what happened on Tuesday night in a private event held at Ruffino’s on the River.
Gordy Rush joined Bumper to Bumper Sports with Ben Love on Wednesday and talked about the event which was nearly a year in the making. One of the key cogs in getting this done was the late Ruffin Rodrigue.
“He started down this path and told me that he wanted to do something with Ed (Orgeron) and Billy (Napier) and tried to get it done in the summer, but we were obviously still dealing with COVID.” Rush said. “Of course Ruffin passed and we got here after the extended football season. Some great Lafayette businessmen in David Wilson and Lenny Lemoine and a whole cast of folks were really instrumental in putting the event together.”
It was also a big moment for the two groups of Louisiana football fans, as many were at Ruffino’s together for the first time ever. Even though many were there wearing pins that signified allegiance to the Cajuns or LSU, the two groups were all together due to one unifying theme.
“Coach Orgeron and Coach Napier were there and they both spoke.” Rush quipped, “The message was simply ‘It’s not house divided, it’s house united’. It was really a nice night and from what I was told there were a lot of people that were in the same room for the first time together.”
To listen to the complete interview just click on the file at the top of this page.