2006 LSU Eunice team inducted into Bengal Hall of Fame

The 2006 LSU Eunice championship baseball team set the standard and laid the foundation for all that has followed in the Bengal athletic program.
Last Saturday night, that team was inducted into the Bengal Hall of Fame to join Curtis Joubert, Dr. Stephen Geumpel and Kenny Plaisance.
“This is the team that got it all started here,” Chancellor William Nunez told the crowd. “This campus has had seven national championships over the past nine years with four in baseball and three in softball.
“We have had three baseball teams, three softball teams and two basketball teams earn Academic All-American honors,” Nunez added. “That is the real definition of what a student-athlete should be.”
Nunez also introduced a new athletic fund-raising program, “the Victory Fund, a kind of fund that will carry these teams as they get the opportunity to win championships once again.”
LSU Eunice athletic director and head baseball coach Jeff Willis was both proud and emotional as he reflected on the special 2006 season.
The 2006 team included All American Brandon Richey, James Howell, Bryan Jaeger, Kyle Suire, Matt Berard, Matt Collins, Leonard Porche, Paige Hodges, Josh Pomier, Dustin Guidry, Rickey Noland, John Long, Skylar Sparrow, Mace Hebert and Vinnie Liberto.
The pitching staff included Casey Lambert, Josh Istre, Trey Davis, Thomas Tillery, Nate Duhe, Brett Durand, Matt Broussard, Luke Wagley, Josh Billeud, Alex McCollum and Corey Chapman.
“I don’t know too many people who thought we would actually win a national championship,” Willis said. “But when one team wins it, other teams start to believe it can happen.”
Willis said that team didn’t have a locker room, lights on the field or a batting cage.
“They went to the car wash, hung up their practice uniforms and sprayed them to wash them,” the coach said. “It is important to know where we have been and where we are today.”
“They were the toughest team that has been here,” the coach said of a team that finished 52-11. “They stuck together, stood up for one another and always had each other’s back.”
“As a coach I want to win,” Willis said. “But it has always been my goal to see how these young men turn out to be as husbands and fathers.”
“He instilled hope in us and the ability to fight through adversity,” Dustin Guidry said of that team. “He said it was God first, others second and me third.”
“You aren’t going to play baseball forever,” Nate Duhe said. “We learned to balance life to become great fathers and husbands.”
“I played for a lot of good coaches in my career,” Kyle Suire said. “But coach Willis was the best coach I ever had - hand’s down.
“He made me a better person, a better man and I learned life lessons along the way.”