By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LAKE CHARLES – Say what you want about LSU basketball coach Will Wade … again.
Most people do.
He has been harshly criticized nationally, regionally and a little locally – and deservedly so – by media for having just four players on his current official roster after promising the world just a few months ago at his introductory press conference. And he has been rightly roasted for the way he left North Carolina State last spring after just one season after knowing for several months that he likely would be leaving the Wolfpack after the one season to return to LSU.
Wade was also harshly criticized nationally, regionally and a little locally while LSU’s head coach the first time from 2017-22 for his much-investigated recruiting practices at LSU and before he got to LSU as he basically was cheating on arrival. He eventually put LSU on NCAA probation after netting five major recruiting violations himself and got fired.
But Wade knows where he comes from and holds those places dear to his heart – Nashville, where he grew up, Clemson, where he graduated from college in 2005 and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant (2005-07), and McNeese State, which hired him a year after his LSU firing when most schools avoided him.
“I know Will. I was here when he was here,” Clemson beat writer Larry Williams of On3.com told Tiger Rag Radio before the LSU-Clemson game this season. “Will was and is a huge Clemson fan. Huge. Oh yeah.”
Wade was a grad assistant at Clemson at the same time Shaka Smart (current Marquette and former Texas coach) was a Clemson assistant, and Wade coached under Smart at Virginia Commonwealth from 2009-13.
“Shaka would schedule practice around Clemson football games on Saturdays so he and Will could go watch Clemson play,” Williams said.
And Wade still holds McNeese State very dear to his heart.
Introducing Willy The Kid and the Bayou Bandits🤠 #GeauxPokes | #BayouBandits https://t.co/8IOCKfJ2sJ
— McNeese Men’s Basketball (@McNeeseMBB) October 17, 2023
Wade will begin his second term as LSU’s basketball coach on the floor tonight when his Tigers play at McNeese in an exhibition game at 6:30 p.m. in 4,242-seat Townsley Law Arena. The game is sold out with all proceeds going to the McNeese program.
FROM 2023: MCNEESE STATE GIVES WILL WADE HIS “REBIRTH”
“Those folks saved my career,” Wade said Wednesday while speaking at a Baton Rouge Rotary Club luncheon at Drusilla’s restaurant in town. “I owe everything I have to McNeese.”
Yes, McNeese and Lake Charles is to Wade what Bessie, Cripple Creek and Lake Charles were to The Band in their 1969 hit, “Up On Cripple Creek.”
When I get off of this mountain
You know where I wanna go?
Straight down the Mississippi River
To the Gulf of Mexico
To Lake Charles, Louisiana
Little Bessie, girl that I once knew
And she told me just to come on by
If there’s anything she could do
“They stuck their neck out for me when I was down and out,” Wade said.
McNeese State athletic director Heath Schroyer, who is now an associate athletic director and was part of the LSU deal as requested by Wade that brought Wade to LSU last spring, was the one who stuck his neck out and hired Wade in March of 2023 – a year after his LSU firing.
The NCAA punished McNeese for hiring Wade by suspending him almost on arrival for his first five games and also handed Schroyer a laundry list of do’s and don’ts so as to keep Wade under constant surveillance.
But Shroyer gladly rolled the dice like a true Cowboy.
“If the NCAA hammers Wade,” he told McNeese donors, “All that will mean to us is we’ll get to keep him longer.”
And Schroyer also got a new job at LSU just three years later.
FROM 2024: WILL WADE QUICKLY COWBOYS UP THE MCNEESE STATE PROGRAM
But Wade made up for all that and much more. He led the Cowboys to a whopping 30-4 record and 17-1 Southland Conference title after 11 straight previous losing seasons and nine losing SLC seasons over that span. Wade also put McNeese in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002. And the next season, Wade went 28-7, won another SLC title at 19-1 and delivered McNeese its first NCAA Tournament win in history – 69-67 over his alma mater Clemson, a No. 5 seed.
It was more than the winning, though. Lake Charles and its surrounding areas were ravaged by Hurricane Laura in August of 2020. The storm shredded McNeese’s basketball arena and caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage throughout the city. Blue tarp over damaged roofs remain around town amid other visible damage.
“It’s been a dream season coming off that,” McNeese State Foundation board member and Lake Charles native Billy Rose said as McNeese prepared to go to the NCAA Tournament in 2024. “Even though we all know he’ll be leaving before too long, he has done wonderful things that people did not expect right off. He’s a rock star here. It’s such a great story. He loves Lake Charles”
And they will welcome him back with open arms tonight.
“Will is going to get a huge ovation tonight,” Rose told Tiger Rag on Thursday. “People love him here. He was a rock star then, and he’s still a rock star with McNeese fans.”
Wade also left McNeese State a big winner and with a coach who has kept winning. That is Bill Armstrong, who was an assistant at LSU and at McNeese under Wade. Armstrong went 28-6 last season and won a third straight SLC title at 19-3 and took the Cowboys to a third straight NCAA Tournament.
“We’re very grateful for the opportunity that coach Wade and LSU is providing us to come into our building and allow us to sell it out and have the proceeds go to help our program,” Armstrong said Monday. “It’s a great thing and a huge event for our team, our fans, and the city of Lake Charles. So, we’re certainly embracing that and want to put our best foot forward and give them a show that they deserve, that this community deserves, and that our fans deserve.”
Wade arrived Wednesday night in Lake Charles and went to a dinner with McNeese donors after a golf tournament.
“Will Wade has a soft spot in his heart for McNeese and Lake Charles,” Rose said. “He gets choked up when he talks about McNeese. He knows McNeese hired him when no one else would. Will and McNeese have a wonderful relationship still. This game has created a large buzz since the summer.”
And McNeese will have a chance to win as Wade is still in the process of patching together his first roster.
“This may be McNeese’s best team since the run with Will Wade started,” Rose said. “I texted Will the other day that I know of a possible grad student from San Antonio that he could sign. He’s got a year of eligibility left. His name is Shaquille O’Neal.”
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