Bob Bass – Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2023

Longtime golf coach led Ragin’ Cajuns to 10 postseason appearances

Written for the UL Athletics Hall of Fame

It might have been the only time in their four-decade relationship that Theo Sliman was in full disagreement with Bob Bass.

Bass, already a decade into his hugely-successful run as UL’s golf coach, left a redshirt freshman Sliman off his lineup for the 2000 Sun Belt Conference tournament, an event the Ragin’ Cajuns eventually finished as runner-up behind heavily favored Little Rock.

“Yeah, I was disappointed when he left me at home,” said Sliman, now in his 16th year as head coach of the UL program he inherited from Bass in 2008. “But it made me a much better player.”

It was the kind of decision that college golf coaches make every week. In almost all college events, only five players from each school make up a team’s lineup, and virtually every program in the country has more than five roster members. It’s a decision Bass made hundreds of times during his 18 years as Cajun head coach.

He obviously made some good decisions, considering he led UL to 10 NCAA Tournament appearances, four conference championships and 18 team tournament titles. Those were the biggest reasons that Bass was named the Sun Belt’s all-time men’s golf coach when the league selected its all-time teams for its 30th anniversary – the only UL coach ever to be so honored.

Those were also the biggest reasons that Bass will be honored with induction into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame next Friday, Oct. 20, as part of the university’s Homecoming celebration, one day before UL meets Sun Belt rival Georgia State in the annual Homecoming game. He will be inducted along with seven other former athletes, coaches and staff members in a 7:30 p.m. ceremony at Warehouse 535 in Lafayette.

The numbers, the wins and the honors that Bass accumulated between 1991-2008 will be lauded at the induction, but Sliman said those accomplishments were only the by-product of what Bass did for his players.

“He turned boys into men,” said Sliman, whose UL team pulled off the biggest upset in Sun Belt history last spring in winning the team title as a No. 10 seed. “He taught me how to compete at a higher level, how to be a tougher competitor. He had high expectations of you as a player, but he also had a deep belief that we could reach those expectations.”

It didn’t take long for Sliman to see the wisdom of that perceived spring 2000 snub, and three years later he was sitting in the front seat of the team’s travel van along with Bass, who was behind the wheel for the interminable road trips.

“After he told me I wasn’t in the lineup for the conference championship, he had a man-to-man talk with me,” Sliman said. “It grew me up by him sitting me at home. It helped me be a pretty good competitor my junior and senior seasons.”

That front passenger seat was also where Sliman told Bass about his future plans, which have now come into fruition.

“I remember coming home from my final event my senior year,” he said. “I’m sitting up front with , and he asked me, partner, what’s next, and I told him I was going to marry Mary (the two now have three children), I was going to try to pursue playing professional, and if that doesn’t work out I’m going to come back and get your job. I thought it would work out that I would be his assistant.”

When Bass decided to step down after the 2007-08 seasons, the long-time Cajun mentor knew there was only one best selection to take over the UL program and continue a unique family legacy. Bass’ father Bill Bass also served as Cajun golf coach in his long career with the university, and Sliman’s father Teddy Sliman also led the USL program.

Bob Bass, though, had the most success in the position, coaching two All-America selections (Trey Coker in 1992 and Richard Ainley in 2000), 31 all-conference players and 35 All-Louisiana players, two LSWA Players of the Year and one Newcomer of the Year. He earned three Coach of the Year honors including the Sun Belt honor in 1993 and 1997.

Bass, though, might have been more proud of coaching 12 Academic All-Americans including two-time honorees George Cestia, Morgan Landry and Michael Smith.

The Cajuns won the 1991 American South Conference title in his first season as coach, the team’s third straight title in that league, and followed that with three Sun Belt titles in 1993, 1997 and 2007 in his next-to-last season. UL made its first Sun Belt appearance in 1992 and finished second in the league tournament while earning an NCAA at-large berth.

One year later, the Cajuns won the Sun Belt title by a 25-stroke margin, at the time the second-biggest margin of victory in league history thanks to UL having the top three individual finishers in the league tournament – an unprecedented achievement.

UL also won back-to-back titles in its home event, the Louisiana Classics, in 1993 and 1994, and that tournament which Bass helped the UL program with founding back in 1986 continues to this day as one of the nation’s longest-running and best-known events.

All that success came as no surprise to Sliman.

“He expected a lot out of you and he was very hard on you,” he said, “but you knew that he cared. It was 100 percent tough love.”

Bass remains an integral part of golf circles, including continued service with the Palmer Cup (the collegiate version of the Ryder Cup) where he was honored in 2019 with the Arnold Palmer Cup Legacy Award as only the third-ever winner. The former Cajun four-time golf letterman and two-year football team member holds similar honors from the Golf Coaches Association of America and the Louisiana Golf Association.