By Teddy Allen
Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Big day in Ruston for Louisiana Tech Athletics.
The University and the Sun Belt Conference will host a joint press conference at 3 p.m. in the Davison Athletics Complex on the Tech campus to officially introduce Tech as the newest member of the Sun Belt.
The press conference will be streamed at www.youtube.com/latechathletics, and you can read more about the move here and here.
Most things considered, the move appears to be an efficient one for both Tech and the Sun Belt, one that, the University hopes, “will renew rivalries and provide a better competitive experience for Bulldogs and Lady Techsters.”
The bottom line is less travel expenses, more money at the gate, more intense rivalries.
From a fan’s point of view, you should be able to drive to several away games on a Saturday night and be able not only to get back home that night, but also to not fall asleep in Sunday school the next morning.
In the days of the WAC and CUSA, that scenario was often a jump ball at best.
No matter what happens on the fields and courts and no matter the conference, each league is always broken down into separate schools and each school into separate sports, and each of those is represented by one team. And that team changes every year. And with the overall changes in the NCAA allowing player movement, those teams are more and more becoming drastically different each school year.
Which made me think of something that modern teams might learn from a long-ago band of teams in Ruston. A bunch that stuck together and, well, things turned out pretty good.
Just because they ran out of games and eligibility, the Louisiana Tech football squads of the program’s Golden Era, 1971-74, didn’t stop being a team. They’ll always be a team. They’ll always be in the Southland Conference. And they’ll always have a 44-4 record.
And as long as two teammates remain, they’ll always have each other.
Every year in early June, as many of those old champion lettermen as are able gather, along with their wives and family and a few invited friends, to spend a couple of days just eating and visiting.
Just being together.
This year was no exception. The most recent venue was, as it has been for the past decade or so, Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, eight miles from campus and from Joe Aillet Stadium where this bunch went 19-1 — the loss coming in 1971 — during those four golden seasons when what’s now called “The Joe” was just getting broken in.
During that span, Tech went 44-4, captured four straight Southland Conference titles, and won national championships in 1972 (National Football Foundation), 1973 (NCAA) and 1974 (UPI).
This was before NIL and the transfer portal, back when, once you signed your scholarship paper, you were more or less “stuck” with each other.
The advantage was that if you had the right mix — and Tech obviously did — you might not only win, you might develop friendships that last a lifetime. You knew the bus driver and the secretary and the guys on the other teams and your English teacher and for sure you knew the guys you stood with on the sidelines and in the showers and in the huddles.
“It’s a special group of guys and wives who committed to the pursuit of excellence,” said four-year letterman Roy Waters during the most recent reunion. “When that happens, winning takes care of itself.”
The guy Waters most often had to block in practice was future NFL Hall of Famer Fred Dean who, like Waters, was a four-year letterman and another of the many heroes on those championship teams. Before he passed away in 2020, Dean was a regular at the reunions.
“We loved playing in Aillet Stadium,” he said in 2018 as the University celebrated the stadium’s 50th birthday. “It was our home and we wanted to always protect it. But, really, we just all loved each other and wanted to win for each other.
“Every day it was fun to be together.”
For this team, it still is.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
For the latest local news, subscribe FOR FREE to the Lincoln Parish Journal and receive an email each weekday morning at 6:55 right to your inbox. Just CLICK HERE to sign up.
