Southern U. breaks ground on $1.4 million baseball fieldhouse

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana  -- After 29 seasons of Southern baseball and 850 victories, head coach Roger Cador will finally have a new facility to call home.

Speaking Wednesday morning at a groundbreaking ceremony on the Baton Rouge campus, Cador said, that the construction is an example to the players “to never give up.”

Cador said the facility has been a dream that he has never given up on, even when the financing  looked bleak. He credited the late State Rep. Avon Honey for helping to put together a financial package for the facility.

"Having a new place to call home and the convenience of the facility is a great motivation factor that could give us a boost this year, " said athletics director Dr. William Broussard."

The $1.4 million,  4,200 square foot facility, will house locker rooms, coaches’ offices, a team meeting area and other rooms. The structure will be located just beyond the left centerfield wall of Lee-Hines Baseball Field.



The building, expected to be completed sometime in spring 2014, is being funding by the East Rouge Parish Mayor-President’s Office and state government.

"The completion date of January 2014 is a very realistic goal for completion," Cador said. "If the weather permits the contractors will have time to make it happen."

 

Southern University Chancellor James L. Llorens said the facility will be a showpiece for the Baton Rouge campus and set Southern apart from a number of programs in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. He also praised Cador for his relentless effort to get the facility and to fight through “red tape.”

 

"The chancellor and I have had some discussions and we do think the new facility will open new doors in the area of recruiting," Cador said.

"We now can recruit kids that we couldn’t reach at first and hopefully I can be around one more time to see a SWAC championship."

 

Darren G. Mire, chairman of  SU’s Board of Supervisors Athletic Committee, said the new facility is being built on the legacy of the great players that the baseball program has produced.

 

"The thing that gets me is all of the years that my players have went without an adequate locker room and they have never complained once about it. That is most remarkable to me," said Cador.

 

"They only looked at the opportunity to play in Lee-Hines Field."

COURTESY SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS