“Bigger Than Baseball”: Iota Mourns the Loss of Beloved Head Coach Leonard Cloud
by: William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Iota’s interim baseball coach Kyle Smith called it the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do.
There had been some landmines in his own life that he managed to resolve until he had to tell a group of his own baseball players on Friday their ailing head coach wasn’t coming back.
A two-year battle with colon cancer claimed the life of Iota head coach Leonard Cloud Jr. He was 37.
The Bulldogs were also scheduled to play a game that day, but that was the least of Smith’s concerns. It was the welfare of 30 teenagers who held out hope to be coached again by Cloud who had officially been away from them since November.
“I’m a young guy and have had to do some things in my life that I considered hard,” Smith said. “Friday was the hardest thing that I had to do. To get in front of 30 15-18-year-olds and explain to them that their guy isn’t going to be at practice or games anymore. We had some guys really upset, some that didn’t know how to process it.”
Visitation is scheduled for Cloud, the husband of Angelle and father to Owen and Austin, at 11 a.m.-8- p.m. at Geesey-Ferguson Funeral Home in Iota. Visitation resumes at 8-11:30 a.m. Tuesday followed by funeral services from 12-1 p.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Iota.
Smith said there will be several factors taken into account before Iota (9-8) resumes its season. The Bulldogs are scheduled to host Church Point in a District 4-3A game on Tuesday.
“We’re going to play it by ear, kind of monitor the situation,” he said. “It’s a real delicate situation we’re dealing with how the kids and families feel, how the community feels. We want the kids out there and he (Cloud) would want those kids out there, but the last thing we really want to do is put some kids on the baseball field that just aren’t mentally at a baseball field yet.”
Cloud, a graduate of Iota and agricultural teacher became Iota’s head coach in 2018 and led the Bulldogs back from a slow start all the way to a Class 3A state runner-up finish against Berwick. He also guided Iota to the quarterfinals the following year followed by appearances in the quarterfinals in 2021 against Iowa and semifinals versus Lutcher.
Last year’s team with Cloud back from an absence the previous season, won the District 4-3A title and was the No. 2 seeded team that reached the Division II non-select state quarterfinals against Pearl River.
“We thought he had it beat in January of 2024,” Iota football coach/athletic director Ray Aucoin said. “He came back and coached a full season. That was beautiful to watch. The only thing I can think of the last couple of days is the good times, I can’t think of any bad times.”
Unconventional path to the top job
Cloud was revered by the community and school whether you were just a student or an athlete.
“Everybody on our staff admired him as a man, loved him as a friend,” Aucoin said. “He was definitely a solid rock on our coaching staff and faculty. About 80% of the teachers taught him at school.”
Aucoin, then the school’s defensive coordinator, recalled crossing paths for the first time in 2016 with Cloud, an assistant with the baseball team.
They joined forces on Iota’s football staff when Cloud was the defensive backs coach and helped Smith implement a 3-4 defense and was a part of the staff in 2022.
“When I became the head coach (2022), he wanted to step back and have more time with his kids and be with baseball,” Aucoin said. “I tricked him into being an analyst where he watched film and was in the press box on Fridays and it worked out pretty good.”
Cloud wasn’t the school’s first choice to become head coach after Javier Solis left after the 2017 season.
Chance Mistric was the initial choice to replace Solis following a competitive interview process, but the school found itself coming back to Cloud when Mistric informed the school that he couldn’t accept the position because of family concerns about a week after being selected.
The athletic director at the time was unsuccessful in reaching Cloud who had gone to Holly Beach with his family until Aucoin tracked him down with the news that he was Iota’s new baseball coach.
“From where he started, to where he ended up and took this program, is something I’ve never witnessed before,” Iota pitching coach Stephen Broussard said. “Just a complete student of the game always wanted to learn more. The biggest thing about him that helped this program was his refusal to be mediocre at anything.”
The Iota program rallied around Broussard, now in his 10th season, in 2012 when he was diagnosed with colon cancer that he beat. One of his biggest supporters during his ordeal was Cloud.
Angelle Cloud said in a televised interview her husband was first diagnosed with colon cancer in February 2023, a disease that brought the close-knit Acadia Parish community together like never before. The was an awareness throughout, trying to help the Cloud family defray expenses, with the sale of CLOUD STRONG bracelets and T-shirts.
Those same supporters took part in a prayer/rosary Sunday for Cloud and his family at the Iota baseball field.
“I was glad to hopefully help him in some type of way,” Broussard said of Cloud. “He would also call to ask questions. Similar to baseball, he was also a student of life. He wasn’t afraid to ask questions about anything.”
Impacts on different levels
North Vermilion state championship baseball coach Jeremy Trahan developed a rapport with Cloud over a number of years when their two teams regularly met.
They were also friends off the field that spent time together at coach’s conventions, including last year’s national event in Dallas.
“We saw each other and talked last year,” Trahan said. “He was battling his condition, but he looked good. Things just took a turn for the worse in the past year. He was just a good guy and ran a great program. Ever since he’s been there, they’ve had a top-notch team. It’s just such a sad situation.”
Trahan said there were several characteristics that went into playing a Leonard Cloud-coached team.
“They were always going to be ready,” he said. “They were going to be tough kids. They were going to throw strikes. They were going to play the game the way. You knew you were going to have to play. In a public-school perspective, you’re going to have your up and down years, but they always had guys that knew how to play the game.”
Cloud served in his analyst’s role for Aucoin this past season for Iota’s jamboree and one other game, but wasn’t up to the physical demands to continue.
“He was always full of joy, always found positive things,” Aucoin said. “He’s coach Cloud. He’s a musician. He can sing and he can make you cry when he sings. He was a good ag teacher and had a great baseball career.”
Once Iota completed its football season with a 17-10 loss to Lakeshore in the Division II non-select regionals, school officials appointed Smith the interim head coach for the upcoming baseball season.
Cloud had taken a medical leave of absence and on good days, he may have surprised the team with a visit to the field.
“At the time when you hear that, you don’t take it for granted,” Smith said, “but when you hear he’s going to be out for the season, you just figure he’s going to be out for two or three months and you’ll see him again in the summer when it’s time to start cranking it up again.”
Smith and Broussard are part of a coaching staff along with Tristan Miller and Evan Cherry that have been entrusted with maintaining Cloud’s philosophy, holding the players to the same standard that will forever make him proud.
Smith realizes the task is daunting.
“We have four coaches that will work to keep what he built alive,” he said. “I’ve never seen someone pour themselves into a program, or into kids that weren’t necessarily his. The things he’s doing for this program are bigger than baseball. He’s touched any athlete or student at the high school, middle school, and elementary. He’s touched people that we don’t even know.”
Broussard recalled a special time with Cloud when they coached their own sons over a four-year period in youth baseball.
“He touches everybody that comes into contact with him,” he said.
Once the season began and Cloud’s condition was uncertain, Iota’s season has been a rollercoaster of sorts. The Bulldogs won three of their first seven games, reeled off a season-high three-game winning streak until dropping three of their last seven games that included the district opener to Pine Prairie, 7-5.
With a scheduled home game last Friday with Westminster Christian – a contest labeled, ‘Strikeout Colon Cancer’ – news spread of Cloud’s passing earlier that day, resulting in the game’s cancellation and Smith later addressed his teary-eyed team.
“At the end of the day, we all have the understanding that if you didn’t have one before, we now have a reason for why we’re going to do the things we’re doing,” Smith said. “That’s not just on a baseball field either. It’s the way you carry yourself in life because he did it the right way and brought you up the right way.”