Over the course of his coaching career at Kinder High School that spanned nearly two decades, Kenney Courville compiled a record of 409 wins and 181 losses. His teams won 17 district championships, appeared in five state semi-finals, and won the state championship in 2014 and 2015.
For his efforts, Courville earned an induction in the Louisiana Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame during its banquet held Friday, January 13.
Courville, who now serves the Allen Parish School District as supervisor of child welfare and attendance, expressed being inducted was “truly as humbling of an experience” he ever had.
He went on to say, “I look at the people who are receiving these awards tonight and look at the people in the audience, and I’m trying to figure out where I fit in.”
Courville, who became head coach of the Yellow Jackets in 2000, said his coaching career was shaped by a meeting with former baseball coach at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Tony Robichaux. During that meeting, Coach Robichaux said, “‘If you work hard, you’re gonna win 50% of your games, but, if you stand for something and get your players to stand for something, you’ll win 40% more. The other 10% is just a dog fight because you’ll run into someone who’s doing the same thing.”
As he continued his remarks, Courville told those in the crowd, “We need coaches. We’ve got to have men leading our young men. We’ve got to inspire another generation of young men to get into this profession because that’s what we need right now.”
Courville further shared there was a time in Allen Parish when he presided over 19 consecutive expulsion hearings where there was no father present. “We have kids without dads,” he said. “They need those men in their lives to guide them and to teach them.”
As he ended his remarks, Courville told his fellow coaches to keep doing what they do and thanked them for what they do as well. He concluded, “Keep inspiring the next generation because that’s what we’ve got to have.”
The other inductees of the Class of 2023 were Smoke Laval, Louis “Bags” Scheuermann, Bobby Dickerson, Jim Wells, Randy Blanchard, Tony Antley, Dobie Perkins, and Paul Waguespack.
Among the other honorees that night was D.C. Arceneaux, of Kinder High School, who was named Class 2A assistant coach of the year.