Local tourney a success, but make no mistake: Coaches are waiting for sports complex’s completion

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A local youth softball organization hosted a tournament this weekend which featured more than two dozen teams from across Louisiana and beyond.

No one was happier about that than the hotels, restaurants, sporting goods stores and other businesses in the area, which got an added weekend boost from the new guests to the area.

The Lady Wahoo softball 10U and 12U teams hosted the event at the Westside Girls Softball Complex on Martin Luther King Boulevard. In total, 25 teams traveled to Houma to play and East Texas, Alexandria, Slidell, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and other reaches of the state were represented.


Coach Scott Baudoin with the Wahoo said he and his team were proud to host the event and show folks around the South that the Bayou Country loves its sports and is committed to its kids.

“It was great,” Baudoin said. “The people and funds that our tournament brought into Terrebonne Parish was phenomenal. The hotels and restaurants really benefitted from the teams coming to town.”

Youth sports are a huge economic engine – one which grows more and more each year around the country as more attention is being paid to athletics at younger age groups.


According to a story in the USA Today, nearly 20 percent of U.S. households spend $1,000 per month on youth sports per child – a sum which is all-inclusive, including league fees, travel expenses, equipment costs and expenses on road trips pertaining to sports.

In a feature in Time Magazine in 2017, economic experts estimated that the U.S. youth sports industry had tripled in size from 1990 to 2016 and that the industry accounted for more than $15.3 billion annually in revenue.

Locally, there is a hotbed for youth sports across all age groups and in several sports. This past weekend, for example, in addition to the Wahoo tournament in Houma, several local AAU basketball teams competed at tournaments around the state. Other travel baseball and softball teams were active and competed in tournaments all across the Gulf South.


“It’s a huge deal,” said Houma parent Tyrone Williams, who has two kids who compete in sports – both in AAU basketball. “You go to these tournaments and it’s a $250 entry fee to play, then you’re spending a weekend in Baton Rouge or Alexandria and you’ll be eating at Outback, the wife will be going to the mall with the other parents. By the time you’re done, you’ve spent half a paycheck. Houma needs to get some of that here. It’s time we see some of that.”

Baudoin agrees, though there are some complications which make things difficult for the area’s prosperity.

The coach said the tournament this past weekend was a success, but there were a lot of hazards which stopped the event from being even better.


He said the area has the reputation for having poor facilities, which detracts some teams from traveling to Houma for events.

The Bayou Country Sports Park is in the works, but not yet complete and Baudoin said he wants everyone to know the importance of the project because, when completed, more tournaments like the one this past weekend will be able to easily be held in the area.

“We cannot wait for the Bayou Country Sports Park to be completed,” Baudoin said. “We are in need of better facilities. The parking was horrible (this weekend). Some teams were discouraged with Houma because they had inadequate/unsafe parking for the tournament.”


When complete, the Bayou Country Sports Park will solve a lot of those problems.

It will be equipped with more than enough space to house several teams – both in playing space and parking space.

It also will be all-encompassing, featuring both soccer, baseball and softball fields, as well as tennis and an indoor facility which could host basketball.


Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove has said multiple times on the record that the project would be a coup to the area, once completed.

“Tournaments and those types of athletic events are really good for our community,” Dove said recently when asked about the complex. “It gets people here and it pushes the economy forward and generates a lot of revenue for the businesses here in our area. It’s a win-win.”

It will have other benefits, as well.


Chris Pulaski, a senior planner with Terrebonne Parish Planning and Zoning, said the facility will be a literal game-changer for the Houma-Thibodaux area.

He said it will raise the quality of living metric locally, which may not seem like a whole lot on the surface, but which could have billions of dollars’ worth of implications on the future.

Pulaski said when businesses survey cities to build corporate offices, they often study the quality of life in that community as a way to determine how easily it will be to attract and keep employees.


This park, Pulaski said, will be a huge boost to a Houma-Thibodaux area which is lacking in entertainment options.

“It’s going to definitely be attractive to businesses and it’s going to have both direct and indirect impacts on our economy for that reason.”

Recreation issuesKARL GOMMEL | THE TIMES


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