Louisiana Baseball Teams Band Together To Help Flood Victims

[shareprints gallery_id=”181026″ gallery_type=”thumb_slider_desc” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”large” image_padding=”0″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”false” lightbox_type=”slide” titles=”true” captions=”true” descriptions=”true” comments=”false” sharing=”true”]As the rain in Baton Rouge, La., began to fall Friday, Aug. 11, Louisiana State coach Paul Mainieri sat in his office, thinking he better grab his umbrella when he left for home. The rain, which began innocuously, kept coming and coming.

By the time the rain ended that Sunday, 19 inches of rain had fallen in Baton Rouge. Some areas of the state reported more than two feet of rainfall. The heavy rain led to widespread flooding in the area as the waterways were overwhelmed.

Mainieri is a native of Miami and has been the coach at LSU for 10 years, and he has seen his fair share of storms over the years. This, however, was different.

“Certainly while it was raining, it was an inordinate amount of rain, but there was no wind and no power outages,” Mainieri said. “You could tell it was something very abnormal.”

The rainfall soon overwhelmed the region’s waterways and flood waters rose in southern Louisiana. Thirteen people died in the flooding, which damaged more than 110,000 homes and the cost of the damage was assessed at $8.7 billion and that figure is expected to rise, according to Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Louisiana-Lafayette assistant coach Anthony Babineaux’s home was among those damaged. Rangers catcher Jonathan Lucroy, a former player at ULL, offered Babineaux his house until the repairs are completed.

Roger Cador, who grew up in Louisiana and has been Southern’s head coach since 1984, said the only disaster to hit the area in his lifetime that was comparable to this flood was Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed.

“A lot of people’s lives were destroyed and it will be difficult for them to fix it,” he said. “It’s just a devastating thing.”

The cleanup efforts began soon after the flood receded, with many of the area’s athletic teams lending a hand. Mainieri received word that the mother-in-law of Ben McDonald, an LSU great and the 1989 College Player of the Year, needed help clearing out her flooded home in nearby Denham Springs. School was not yet in session at LSU, so the Tigers had not even had their first team meeting of the year. But he sent out a text to the team, asking for their help, and 20 players answered the call to clean up the house.

“They put their muscle and their back into it, and they cleaned out her house in a few hours,” Mainieri said. “In one regard it was sad because she was losing everything, but in another it was something to see young men helping a woman in need.”

Mainieri said after finishing their work with the first house, the Tigers, unprompted by him, started going house-to-house on the street and offering to help. He estimates they helped clean out a dozen houses that day, before going back out to help more people over the next few days.

“People were so grateful,” Mainieri said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of a team for their sacrifice and helping other people.”

And the people of Baton Rouge appreciated the help. Maineri was struck by the reaction and gratitude of the people his team interacted with during the cleanup.

“The most amazing thing was watching our players go into homes and hearing the reaction of people,” he said. “They had just lost everything, but they couldn’t believe the LSU baseball team was in their home. It shows you the impact you can have without realizing it.”

Many other colleges also helped with the cleanup. Southern, which also calls Baton Rouge home, has been active in the ongoing work. The Jaguars did work at Banks Elementary School, located close to campus, as well as the Living Faith Christian Center.

Cador said the players decided where they would lend a hand and organized the efforts themselves. Before the flood, Cador knew he had good people in the program, and their work in the aftermath has only reinforced that belief.

“I saw something unique in our players,” Cador said. “They just rolled their sleeves up and went to work. It was a great feeling to see that.”

Nearby teams such as New Orleans and Nicholls State aided with the efforts, and the help has also come from further away. After hearing about the devastation, Baylor coach Steve Rodriguez wanted to do something to help. With the help of his church, he set up a plan to take the Bears to Denham Springs over Labor Day weekend to aid with the cleanup.

Rodriguez’s plan was quickly supported by Baylor’s administration and players. So early in the morning Saturday, Sept. 3, they began the eight-hour bus ride to Louisiana. They started working as soon as they arrived that afternoon and worked until dusk. They worked for about eight hours the next day before heading back to campus.

Rodriguez said they went to Denham Springs not really knowing what to expect. But once they saw the damage up close, it was a moving experience.

“It became real emotional for a lot of the guys,” he said. “I think our guys went from, ‘Let’s go help some people’ to ‘Oh my gosh, a lot of lives have been changed here in a hurry.’”

The Bears didn’t go to Louisiana for the team-building experience, but their experience there certainly fostered teamwork. Rodriguez said he thinks the experience goes well beyond team-building, however.

“It was a huge reality check for a lot of people because something like this can happen to any of us,” he said. “It was a bigger thing than team-building. I think it was life-changing for a lot of our guys, I really do.”

During the recruiting process, Mainieri tells players the LSU program is supported by three pillars. The first two are their athletic ability and the education they will get at LSU. The third is service to a community that embraces the program and fills Alex Box Stadium all spring.

The Tigers regularly do community service throughout their careers, and Mainieri says the desire to help others becomes a natural instinct for the players even after their college careers end. That manifested itself following the floods.

Several of former LSU players who are now in the big leagues helped establish the Louisiana Flood Relief Fund. MLB and the Players Association gave $250,000 to the flood relief efforts, a quarter of which went to the Louisiana Flood Relief Fund. Some players pledged additional money of their own.

Mainieri said he was proud to see the former LSU players continue to give back to the community, a quality he tries to instill in them during their college careers.

“To see where they took own situations, we’ve got (10) guys in big leagues right now and they’re all trying to make people around the country aware of the need for their city of Baton Rouge,” he said.

The recovery process will be a long one for Louisiana, but as Mainieri recalls what he saw in the first days of the cleanup, he knows the region will bounce back.

“The people of south Louisiana are amazing,” Mainieri said. “You can’t break their spirit. They love life. They’re very discouraged and hurting, but you could see they weren’t going to give up.”