A signal of hope: McNeese football back in action this spring
LAKE CHARLES, La. (BVM) — Football fans around the country travel to their respected stadiums to cheer on their favorite teams. And for McNeese State Cowboy fans, they will be able to see their football team in action again this weekend.
Considered hallowed ground to the Lake Charles community, this field is surrounded by two grassy hills and two concrete bleachers. The bleachers hold around 17,600 fans every Saturday, but with COVID-19 restrictions, the number of fans will be limited to 25% capacity.
The Cowboys currently hold an FCS-record streak of 15 consecutive winning seasons. They also lead the Southland Conference in attendance every season, and they have a conference record with 16 FCS playoff appearances. But Cowboy football fans are lucky that they can attend home games at all this spring after what they experienced last year.
In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down their football season, the Lake Charles community was hit by two devastating hurricanes in the span of six weeks. Hurricane Laura first tore through Lake Charles with wind gusts of up to 150 miles per hour along with copious amounts of rain. It was one of the strongest recorded storms ever to hit Louisiana in 150 years.
Following that storm, Hurricane Delta made landfall just 12 miles east of where Laura did. Many homes were damaged, and the community started repairs again. When it was all said and done, the two storms created more than $200 million in damage campus-wide.
— McNeese Athletics (@McNeeseSports) August 27, 2020
— McNeese Athletics (@McNeeseSports) August 27, 2020
As the McNeese State football team continued to deal with the damage, it didn’t let the devastation of two hurricanes get in the way. The team got back on the field earlier this year and just recently traveled to Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas where it won its first game, 40-37 in overtime.
To have sports back, especially football, in Lake Charles means so much to the community. Sports bring everyone together, and that’s what everyone needs right now as they continue to recover from the devastating events that took place last year.
“I’m grateful. I’m thankful and excited,” first-year head coach Frank Wilson said in a press release. “At one point when we talked about playing the season, and there was discussion of ‘where will you play? Your field, your stadium was under water coach, you guys can’t play at McNeese’. And we have a president (Dr. Daryl Burckel) that said, ‘there is no Plan B. We’re playing at McNeese’. Even I didn’t know, but he said we’ll do it; we’ll be back.
“To allow our community to be able to embrace their team, to celebrate our team. It’s a big deal. To put into perspective of what it means to our community: family outing, history, culture. People have been raised sitting on the hills of this stadium; in the bleachers, and tell stories of grandparents and aunt and uncle and sibling for many, many years, and how they bask in the joy of victory of McNeese. I get really emotional when I talk about it because I know what it means to our community.”
