Tee Cotton Bowl features many festivities before rivals meet in opener

For the second year in a row, rivals Sacred Heart of Ville Platte and Ville Platte High School will meet on the gridiron in the 2018 season opener. The contest is set for Friday night at 7 p.m. at Sacred Heart Soileau/Landry Field.

The Ville Platte City Championship is the 15th edition of a game that has become known as The Tee Cotton Bowl. Ville Platte will look to avenge last year’s 40-19 loss on their home field to Sacred Heart.

The Tee Cotton Bowl has been hotly and closely contested, with Sacred Heart holding a 8-6 edge over Ville Platte.

It is more than a game, with the entire community’s staging of many events leading up to the game. There is a team display in Ville Platte City Hall, a city-wide decorating contest, a Lil’ Tee Cotton Bowl and a a banquet for both teams Thursday night where the featured speaker will be former Eunice, McNeese State and Chicago Bears Super Bowl champion Keith Ortego.

The Tee Cotton Bowl was featured by NFL Films in 2002 after Hurricane Lili, when the community rallied around the game to show Ville Platte’s spirit and strength to the world.

The annual game has also been blessed by Pope John Paul II while former Super Bowl winning NFL coach Tony Dungy has trumpeted the rivalry as well in writing. The game has also been featured in the book Sharpened Iron by Mel LeCompte Jr.

This year, the teams got a blessing from New Orleans Saints & Pelicans owner Gayle Benson and earlier this summer both teams had the opportunity to bring the Tee Cotton Bowl to Metairie in a visit to the Saints/Pelicans Facilities as well.

The game day festivities will start off with local radio station KVPI having their morning show on location from the Dr. Charles Aswell residence on main street in Ville Platte for a morning tailgate open house in addition to the station’s broadcasting the game that night. The Open House at the Aswell residence will be from 8 a.m. to Noon.

At 2:15 p.m., Sacred Heart and Ville Platte High will both have their pep rallies at their schools. At 4:00 p.m., there will be a city wide parade for the game; both cheerleading squads will be on Army vehicles. The Ville Platte team will cross the tracks at 5:15 p.m. and walk to Sacred Heart High for the game.

The pre-game will feature tailgating, an all-day affair in Cajun Country. The Tee Cotton Bowl will have a radio-controlled airplane show pregame along with snowballs and Balloons for the kids.

There will five inductees into the Tee Cotton Bowl Hall of fame which will happen at the end of the 1st quarter and they include Sammy Fontenot, Hansoni Holland, Nick Colligan, Jerry Joseph, and coach Dutton Wall Posthmohusly, who coached at both schools with a stop at Welsh along the way.

The game arrives at 7:00 p.m. featuring a pair of young teams who should match up well. The Sacred Heart Trojans are coached by Josh Harper and the Ville Platte Bulldogs are coached by Jorie Randle.

Dr. Tim Fontenot, the co-founder of the game, along with his son Jacob are eagerly awaiting the contest and are hoping for a cleanly played game with few or no flags thrown.

Both teams will perform the Haka, the New Zealand battle cry, as part of the pregame festivities. Halftime will feature a fireworks display.

At game’s end, the Ville Platte City Championship Trophy, the MVP trophy and the Tee Cotton Bowl Trophy will be presented.

You can listen to a preview of the game and follow live reports of the game on Ken Trahan’s Original Prep Football Report this Friday night on WGSO 990 AM, at WGSO.com, through CrescentCitySports.com and on The Original Network of stations around Louisiana.