Plans for Ragin’ Cajuns athletics continue along

At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Tony Robichaux found out he’d be unable to make his speaking engagement at the Rotary Club of Crowley’s weekly meeting.
So he sent three replacements — Director of Athletics Scott Farmer and athletic development officers Stefni Lotief and Danika Arenibas — that would not only highlight Ragin’ Cajun baseball, but the entire picture of athletics at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and its 11-project master plan.
“I’m sorry I’m the B Team today,” joked Farmer as he began his talk. “We have a lot going on right now.”
As work continues on arguably the biggest undertaking in the university’s history: the university’s master plan, so to is work within the athletic department. Its plan has been absorbed by the university and has helped create a multi-prong plan to better the students’ experience at the university — no matter where they go or what they do on campus.
Part of that encompassing plan is to help the university grow the area around its facilities, making them all multi-use. In other words, the rebuilding of Cajun Field — part of Tier II of the athletic department’s plan — would not just including club and suite levels, but perhaps a bookstore and dining area, utilizing the facilities 52 weeks per year, not just six or seven days.
That philosophy is also being used in regard to the area around the Cajundome and Congress intersection. There, too, the university envisions not only state-of-the-art facilities but parking garages and residential and commercial spaces around a larger convention center, a student-athlete performance center for all Ragin’ Cajuns athletes and more.
The student-athlete performance center has proven to be something that Farmer has been eager to show off as work begins wrapping up on the 100,000-square-foot facility. It includes a weight room that is roughly triple to quadruple its current size, a training room that includes a hydro-therapy area, an auditorium, a lounge area for student-athletes and a state-of-the-art football locker room. All this while being aesthetically brilliant as well.
The performance center work as well as work at the soccer/track complex will help wrap up Tier I of the athletic plan.
And while renovations at Cajun Field and M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field still have some time to go — the athletic department is currently fundraising for the Tier II projects — the end results should mean continued success for athletics, which, in turn, helps the university.
“That’s what we can do for our university,” said Farmer on how athletics can market the university.
Lotief remarked about the increase in freshman enrollment and joked about UL being popular in New Orleans as a large number of those freshmen have come from the Crescent City.
Those looking to obtain more information on the Ragin’ Cajuns’ master plan for its athletic department can contact the Ragin’ Cajuns Athletic Foundation at RCStrong@louisiana.edu or (337) 482-5393.