Willie W. Bonvillain
November 20, 2013
Patterson still alive after hard-fought victory
November 27, 2013
Nicholls athletics director Rob Bernardi is the first person to admit that budgetary constraints make his job very difficult at times.
But through adversity, progress is often made. And Bernardi believes 2013 was a heck of a year for the Colonels.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Tri-Parish Times this week, the Nicholls AD said he believes the Colonels made great strides in the past 12 months and are in a position to thrive in the future.
The administrator said he continues to be amazed at how the university can do so much with such a tight budget – a blessing he credited to diligent coaches, loyal alumni and dedicated lawmakers.
“It’s been a very nice year. I think we’re very pleased,” Bernardi said. “I think all across the board, we’ve taken steps to better ourselves and put ourselves in a position to do good things when 2014 gets here.”
Academically, Nicholls’ sporting programs have thrived. After a long-standing battle to stay afloat in the NCAA’s world of Academic Progress Rates (APR), all of the school’s sports received a passing grade when the newest numbers were released earlier this year.
That turnaround has Bernardi beaming with pride. That’s because he’s well aware of the past and knows that several of Nicholls’ top sports (notably football and baseball) used to be well below normal and faced scholarship losses and even postseason sanctions if changes weren’t made.
“As an AD, you always want academic progress, and that is one area that we’ve made such great strides,” Bernardi said. “I look back, and in the 10 years since the APR started, it’s magnificent. If you look at where we were then and where we are now, it’s remarkable to see the progress that we’ve made. It’s something that we’re quite proud of.”
Competitively, Nicholls has also acclimated itself quite well in the past year. Bernardi said he was “exceptionally pleased” with the turnaround that’s taken place within the Colonels’ women’s basketball program. After decades of losing seasons, the Colonels broke out and won 19 games in the 2012-13 season. So far in 2013-14, the women’s team looks like it is prime for another big year with a 3-1 record, including a hard-fought road win at South Alabama.
“That’s a program with a 39-year history, and 37 of those included losing seasons,” Bernardi said. “The job that (head coach) DoBee Plaisance and her staff has done is terrific. They’ve built that program the right way with local high school kids and just a few transfers. They’ve done a great job just building it. They deserve that success.”
Bernardi also praised the work of the Colonels’ soccer team. Under coach Dylan Harrison, Nicholls set a single-season program record for victories in a season. The Colonels also groomed the Southland Conference Player of the Year, Spencer Valdespino.
“That’s another program with a 14-or-15-year losing tradition, but Dylan’s turned it around,” Bernardi said. “To be 12-6 overall and reach the conference tournament, that’s special for us. We had some good wins in there, too. They beat McNeese. We hadn’t beat McNeese in years.”
The AD also pointed to the successes that Nicholls had in tennis and track and field in the past year. He also touched briefly on the Colonels’ football program, which posted a 4-8 record. That’s up from the team’s 1-win season in 2012.
“They had a disappointing season, but I think we saw some signs that they are on the way up,” Bernardi said. “Beating Western Michigan early in the season showed a lot of promise. But I think a lot of key injuries hurt us. Losing Kalen Henderson up in Michigan I think hampered the plans. They also lost some other key guys at key spots that hurt what they were trying to do.”
But while Bernardi loves to tout the Colonels’ victories on the field and in the classroom, the university’s biggest wins may have come in facility development and funding.
The 2013 year has been an incredibly busy time for athletic development throughout the Thibodaux campus. In football, the Colonels opened a new press box elevator and redid the entire front entrance to John L. Guidry Stadium.
Across the street, the team’s baseball complex also got a facelift with a newly sunken dugout and also added seats in the outfield stands.
The Colonels also unveiled its new soccer stadium in 2013 and polished up the women’s basketball locker rooms.
Over the summer, Gov. Bobby Jindal also announced that Nicholls would receive state funding to boost its football practice fields’ sodding and drainage. That money will enable the world renown Manning Passing Academy to stay in Thibodaux for years to come.
“We’ve stayed incredibly busy,” Bernardi said. “We’re obviously quite limited in what we can do compared to other places, but we’ve really done a nice job in determining our biggest needs and allocating our resources to fit those needs.”
The Colonels AD said that with a big year almost complete, he’s already hungry for the future.
He said that Nicholls has acquired money from the state to pep up the university’s baseball complex even further. Bernardi also added that the men’s basketball facility will get a facelift in the near future.
Even with the changes, the AD admits the Colonels lag far behind LSU, Oregon, Alabama and the rest of the richest programs in America.
But incrementally things are getting better in Thibodaux. That makes the AD happy.
“We have great people here,” Bernardi said. “We have such enthusiastic coaches and so many people with so much passion. It’s exciting. We’re in a position to really do some nice things here in the future.”
Nicholls State University’s John L. Guidry Stadium is one of the many facilities in Thibodaux to undergo renovations in the past year. Colonels’ Athletics Director Rob Bernardi said he’s pleased with the way Nicholls has fared in the past year.
