Sulphur Coach Wins the Battle of His Life

By Garrett Lumpkin

For Sulphur head football coach Paul Bourgeois, the 2008 season was the most difficult of his life. However, it had nothing to do with the Golden Tors’ 5-5 record.

After each football season Bourgeois visits his family doctor for a routine checkup. But when he went to his doctor in February of 2008, something didn’t feel right.

“I was going through a stage where I felt real tired,” said Bourgeois. “There were some things that we talked to the doctor about, so we did some blood work and everything came back negative.”

After the visit, he was experiencing the same symptoms. Bourgeois didn’t have much energy and lacked the drive to do normal daily activities. He went back to the doctor in April and asked for more blood work.

This time the doctor came back with some disturbing news. MRI results showed that Bourgeois had a quarter size benign tumor in his brain. As soon as he received the news, Bourgeois drove two hours to MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. He was scheduled to undergo surgery to remove the tumor on June 3, 2008.

“The surgery lasted ten hours and went well,” said Bourgeois. “The reason for the length of the surgery was because the tumor was in a bad location, basically in the center of my head.”

The surgeon was able to remove all but six millimeters of the tumor. What was left was destroyed through six weeks of radiation treatment.

Bourgeois began his radiation treatments in late July of 2008. He had to undergo radiation once a day, Monday through Friday. With a new football season beginning in early August, Bourgeois did not want to spend weeks at a time at MD Anderson. He decided to go back and forth between Sulphur and Houston.

“Thank goodness I have the coaching staff that I do because they were basically running the show during August,” said Bourgeois.

Many people told Bourgeois that driving back and forth during his radiation treatments was ridiculous. But the coach didn’t see it that way. Coming back to Sulphur every chance that he could gave Bourgeois a sense of relief.

“Traveling back and forth worked for me,” said Bourgeois. “MD Anderson is a sad place to be. There are some very, very sick people at that place. To be able to come to work and be with youth, coaches, and a lot of healthy people…I felt better when I came home.”

In the six months following his surgery Bourgeois gained 60 pounds. But the weight gain wasn’t due to his diet or work out habits. The tumor basically smothered his pituitary gland. The pituitary gland secretes many important hormones which greatly influence growth and metabolism.

“Basically, I have no use of my pituitary gland anymore,” said Bourgeois. “It doesn’t look like I work out and diet, but I do, and thank goodness I do because obviously I would be a lot bigger.”

The road to recovery for Paul Bourgeois looks outstanding. He went back to MD Anderson in October of 2008 and learned that the lesion was no longer reasonably defined. And the news was even better for Bourgeois when he returned to Houston in April. The lesion was even smaller than it was in the previous examination.

Now having survived this ordeal, he has an even greater appreciation for being able to do what he loves, which is coaching high school football.

“This has been my most enjoyable spring since I have been in coaching,” said Bourgeois. “Last spring I wasn’t sure if I would be able to continue coaching, and with the surgery looming, I wasn’t able to enjoy myself because I didn’t know the outcome. Now I’m just happy to be here.”

Local Sports Roundup

McNeese Eying National Championship
There are thousands of rodeo fans in Southwest Louisiana. Unfortunately, the sport does not receive much attention from the media. Rodeo coverage pales in comparison to that of other sports like football, baseball, and basketball. I believe that rodeo deserves more attention considering what the McNeese State men’s rodeo team is doing this year. “We’re coming into the College National Finals Rodeo and we’re going to try and win a national championship for McNeese and for Lake Charles,” said Winn Ratliff, a sophomore bull rider. The MSU men’s rodeo team will compete in the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyoming from June 14-20.
It’s been an incredible turnaround for the Cowboys and their second year head coach Justin Browning. In 2008, the men finished dead last in the Southern Region which consists of nine teams. However, this year not only did the Cowboys win the Southern Region, they won nine of ten rodeos during the regular season. “My goal coming into this year was to win the region,” said Browning. “I just didn’t expect us to be so far ahead of the other teams.
“We’re not just winning. We’re beating the competition badly,” said Jeremy Mouton, a junior who is the region’s top ranked bull rider.
It’s common knowledge that people who rodeo are tough. When asked if he had suffered any major injuries while riding bulls or bareback horses, Winn Ratliff said with a straight face, “I haven’t had very many injuries. I’ve only broken my leg. I dislocated my arm, and I just broke my jaw. I’ve been very blessed.”
“In rodeo there is a saying,” said Browning. “It’s not if you get hurt, it’s when.” Luckily for the Cowboys, they have avoided “the devastating injury” and should be at full strength when they compete for a national championship in June.
McNeese State University is the only Louisiana College or University which competes in rodeo. So the Cowboys will not only be representing SWLA in Wyoming, they’ll be representing the entire pelican state.

Local Sports is Big Business, Brings Big Dollars to SWLA
Earlier this month, Sulphur’s Frasch Park hosted the Fast Pitch 56 High School Softball State Tournament. The two day tournament brought an estimated 21,000 people to the lake area and produced a local economic impact of around four million dollars.
The numbers were reported by the Southwest Louisiana Convention & Visitors Bureau. The Fast Pitch 56 is one of several local sporting events that pump millions of dollars into our local economy each year. This money assists in improving the quality of life in our community with better infrastructure, better roads and better schools.
The SWLA CVB also reported that for 2008, local sporting events produced a $28 million dollar economic impact to the local economy. And the number should be even greater in 2009 with a projected $24 million dollar economic impact from May-July alone.

Quick Sports Hits McNeese State Softball
I have to hand it to McNeese for hiring Natalie Poole as the Cowgirls head softball coach last July. In her first year at the helm, Poole led MSU to its first ever win against LSU. Her Cowgirls finished second in the Southland Conference, and won 20 SLC games for just the third time in school history. The other two years that the Cowgirls won 20 SLC games was in 1994 and 1995 when Poole was playing for them.

Sam Houston Baseball
The Broncos have arguably been the area’s most impressive baseball team during the regular season.
They are seeded #1 in the 4A playoffs, and are looking for their first state championship since 2001.

Barbe Baseball
Head coach Glenn Cecchini recently won his 600th game as the Bucs head coach. Cecchini has led Barbe to five state titles (98,00,01,06,08) which is a Louisiana Class 5A record. The Bucs are in search of state title number six as they enter the 5A playoffs seeded 4th.