The name Yvette Girouard is practically synonymous with the game of softball in the state of Louisiana. The former head coach of both the Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette) Ragin’ Cajuns and the LSU Tigers, Girouard is an NFCA Hall of Famer and is also a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Girouard retired from coaching following the 2011 season, but has certainly not disappeared from the softball scene. An ambassador for Baton Rouge-based Marucci, Girouard also serves as a color commentator for the SEC Network for television and online broadcasts throughout the season.
We caught up with Girouard at the NFCA Convention in Chicago in early December and got her thoughts on a variety of topics from her own career and the current state of the game she loves.
JWOS: When you are in the broadcast booth, what is your approach to getting ready for a game?
Yvette Girouard: Well, I try to do as much research as possible. When I first retired, it was so easy because I still knew all the players, even on the other teams because I either coached against them or recruited them. So I have to do a lot more homework now. Of course, the internet is so helpful and because I still have so many contacts, I can call the coaches and the teams involved and get some insight into the team and players. After thirty-five years of being on the dirt and grass, I kinda know about what goes on into the daily production and goings-on of a softball team.
JWOS: Your broadcast team was one of two during the 2018 regionals that got to “stay put” and call the regional with the team you called during the season. What was it like calling postseason with ‘your’ team?
Girouard: Well, you know, we’re not supposed to have ‘a team’ or be an ‘LSU homer’. But, again, I think it really brings quality to the broadcast because we know the Tigers so well because we call so many of their games and we can bring a lot more insight into the call because we know the team so well.
JWOS: You have called several LSU/Cajuns head-to-head games. Having coached at both schools for so long, what’s it like when you’re calling those games?
Girouard: I can’t win for losing in that situation; I’ve never been able to. I’ve been cursed and blessed in both situations. It doesn’t matter what I say on the broadcast, it’s not enough for either program to be happy with. I try to stay neutral, I try to call it like I see it, and to tell you the truth, I wish I never had to call those games because both of those programs have been so good and they are matched together so frequently that they may never make it to Oklahoma the same year because one has to beat the other to get there.
JWOS: When you first retired from coaching and got started in broadcasting, and had to make that transition from the dugout to the booth, what was that process like for you?
Girouard: Not as easy as I thought because, as a coach, they can just stick a mic in your face and you can just blab, because you know your team so well and it just comes so easy. When you put the mic in front of you, you say one wrong thing and your phone is blowing up because everybody is correcting you. Whether it’s your English or your knowledge of a player or whatever… but again, you can tell who does their homework. You can’t know everything, you can’t know everything about the players and what they do, but you just try to do your best. [Play-by-play partner] Lynn Rollins has been around this so long and he has been my mentor and he is very easy to work with and I think our broadcasts show that.
JWOS: You’re right; you definitely can tell that chemistry. Do you have any thoughts on LSU this coming year, losing all of that great pitching?
Girouard: Well, you know, how do you replace two all-Americans in the circle? But if anybody can do it, I think Beth Torina can. I think she is one of, if not the best pitching coach in the country. I have a lot of faith that she can produce some really good pitchers again. And again, there’s a lot of new faces on that team so I’ll be at practice probably day one in the spring so that I can learn the team over, also.
JWOS: Give me your thoughts about the new transfer portal and how things are progressing with that.
Girouard: I am so grateful that the transfer portal did not happen in my coaching lifetime because I probably would not have had a team. I am an old-school coach and that would have been too easy for a lot of players to say ‘oh, I had a bad day. She doesn’t like me. I’m leaving’. I think it’s horrific.
JWOS: Somewhat on the same hand, we’ve had sixty head coaching changes this offseason. What are your thoughts on that?
Girouard: Well, there’s money in the game now. The game is everything that we old-timers fought for. TV time, real money in salaries. Fantastic stadiums. But with that comes getting fired if you don’t get the job done. You know, I know if you look at it from a player’s perspective, the coach can leave so the players should be able to leave. But being on the coaching side of it, I think that’s just one more element of society where if something is too hard, let’s just quit and move on.
JWOS: Final question! If somebody gave you the magic wand to wave over any aspect of the game of softball today, is there anything you’d like to change in some way?
Girouard: I need to think about that one for a second… of course, all coaches think the officiating is not that good. I’d like to see something with the umpires. Maybe you’d have to pay them more, I’m not sure what the solution is. I hate the international tiebreaker rule. And I think offensively, the game is at a point where, don’t do any more changes. I think we’ve done enough changes to make this game more offensively-friendly. But I just think from a pure playing-the-game standpoint, I like it a lot. You know, the rule is not so harsh on illegal pitches anymore. That was a great change. The slapping rule, there’s a lot of all-American slappers that wouldn’t have had careers if they had been under this rule that’s in place. I think it’s a good rule, you just have to teach it a different way.
