Breaux Bridge’s Terry Martin Wins 2016 Kiwanis Crying Towel [VIDEO]
Most coaches are no-nonsense, but every year the football coaches of Acadiana come together and show their funny side.
The Lafayette Kiwanis Club hosts the annual "Crying Towel" event every year before their massive jamboree, and there's always one or two comedians that come out of the coaching crowd. This year, it was Breaux Bridge's Terry Martin.
Coach Martin made the move from Cecilia to Breaux Bridge in the offseason, and he said he's still trying to get up to speed with all his player's nicknames. When he started listing some of the names his players go by, the entire room started cracking up.
Anybody with football experience probably heard some weird nicknames, and sometimes they make no sense at all.
Once Coach Martin settles in behind the podium, the jokes start rolling in.
He wasn't the only coach from St. Martin Parish who got behind the mic and kept the jokes rolling. It must be something in the water.
St. Martinville looks like a completely different team under Vincent Derouen. Coach Derouen is a colorful character, and his players feed off his massive personality. Not only is he a fiery leader on the sidelines, his sense of humor is always on point.
Coach Derouen started off the festivities, and he set the bar awfully high.
Can you tell Coach Derouen is a former Crying Towel Champion? He definitely put in a top-three performance, but so did Cecilia's Logan Duplechien.
Duplechien is quite the storyteller, and he shared some hilarious tales from his time with the Bulldogs this summer. He mentioned a player with "R" and "L" tattooed on his right and left arms, and Duplechien was proud of him for finally learning his right from his left. He also mentioned he wanted to win the towel because they need more of them in Cecilia.
He might not be the head coach at Cecilia, but you can see why they always pick him to represent the Bulldogs at the Crying Towel.
Imagine being at practice with him AND Terry Martin. No wonder Cecilia was so good last year. They probably never stopped laughing.
The best two lines of the night though came from two of the best coaches in the room.
Sonny Charpentier leads Teurlings Catholic with a laid back personality, but he also has one of the more subtle senses of humor in the area. He joked about his own age, but he threw a jab at Acadiana's Ted Davidson too.
"We tried to run the veer at practice the other day, but we couldn't do it," Charpentier said slyly. "Ted knows the veer because he's the only one old enough to remember it."
Boom. Coach Charpentier bringing the heat. Don't worry, Coach Davidson had a great line of his own.
The coaches stretch the truth a bit at the Crying Towel event, but nobody said jokes had to be 100 percent true. Acadiana is good every year, so Coach Davidson knew it was time for him to start making things up behind the podium.
"I'm feeling like Ryan Lochte," Davidson said with a grin. "I got some tales to tell."
Ryan Lochte joke? Not only was that funny, it was timely. This clearly isn't Ted's first rodeo.
The most powerful words of the day came from St. Thomas More's Shane Savoie. Savoie is one of the youth ministers on campus, and his message carried a lot of weight.
Savoie wanted to remind everyone that even if the coaches in the room lost every game this season, they still did their jobs as coaches. Not only do coaches try to win games, they try to turn boys into men. The young men of Acadiana went to work helping the flood victims in their neighborhoods and all across South Louisiana. We should all be proud of them.
Powerful words from @STMathleticsnow's Shane Savoie. We should all be proud of the young men in Acadiana right now. pic.twitter.com/CPXHHDrwRz
— Acadiana Postgame (@PostgameSports) August 23, 2016
It's not always about sports. Whenever communities come together like this, tragedy doesn't stand a chance.
It's always nice to kick back and share a few laughs before football frenzy officially begins, but it's a good thing we only get one Crying Towel event per year. If we had more, the area would lose some talented coaches to a career in standup comedy.