Son’s love for dad’s passion: Consecutive state titles provide fitting end for Teurlings’ father-son duo of Brooks and Brant Badeaux
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Teurlings Catholic’s blissful bus ride ended with a return trip to its campus in Lafayette last Thursday following its 11-1 run-rule victory over E.D. White at the start of their Division II select best-of-three state championship series at McMurry Park in Sulphur.
With the team heading for their locker room to gather their belongings, the 11-year-old son of Rebels baseball coach Brooks Badeaux asked him to hit ground balls on the team’s field.
Not long thereafter Badeaux’s oldest son – senior catcher Brant Badeaux – emerged and went to play first base for his brother.
With a family outing planned for dinner that evening, Brooks Badeaux wanted to shower before going on to meet his wife with their two sons who instead settled for a rain check.
“We’ll be here a while, having fun,” Badeaux recalled the message from his two boys. “Bring the leftovers home.”
So, while Brant took over hitting grounders to Bradley, Badeaux left school with an ear-to-ear grin, totally fulfilled that his two sons were playing out his life’s passion.
“As a dad that loves baseball, that’s the American dream,” he said. “I recently had gone to the grocery store and saw a dad playing catch with his son in the yard. That was really all I wanted out of it. I wanted to play catch in the yard and for my son to enjoy baseball games with me.”
Teurlings Catholic returned twice more to Sulphur, pushed to a third and deciding game in its championship series, when the top-seeded Rebels put the finishing touches on a 14-3 run-rule triumph for a second straight Division II select title and the 10th crown in the school’s rich baseball history.
For Badeaux, a former infielder and Teurlings graduate in 1994, it was the culmination of a 34-5 season where the Rebels went wire-to-wire and repeated as state champions for only the second time in school history.
It was the fifth season for Badeaux and final one coaching Brant who will play college baseball at Columbia (S.C.) International University.
“He had a postgame interview,” Brant said of his father. “We poured the ice chest on him. That was fun. After his interview, he came over and gave me a hug. He told me he was proud of me.”
The sentiment was mutual.
Brant literally grew up on a baseball field, taking some of his first steps at what’s now referred to as Riverwalk Stadium – home of the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits. He witnessed a portion of his dad’s baseball journey which included 10 years in the minor leagues.
Brooks Badeaux was among the state’s top players when he signed with Florida State and played for legendary coach Mike Martin. He was a free agent signee and spent nine of his 10 years with Tampa Rays’ organization with seven of those in Triple-A.
There were times in Montgomery after Brant was born where Badeaux’s wife arrived early for a game with Brant who went to the field to play for catch with his father.
“The next thing I knew, some of the older guys would come out and play with him,” Brooks said.
Because of his dad’s associations, Brant didn’t have your run-of-the-mill baseball experiences growing up, ones that continually benefitted him throughout his journey.
“It’s been like a dream since I was a kid,” Brant said. “I grew up watching my dad playing at the next, next level in the minor leagues. I kind of wanted to be like him and play at the next level. About eighth grade, I realized I actually had the skills for it, and I realized it was a reality and tried for it.”
Annual family vacations were centered around visiting Major League Baseball stadiums where Brant recalls visits to see the Tampa Rays, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves.
The trips contained additional meaning for Brooks to rekindle friendships. He was a minor league teammate with current MLB managers Kevin Cash of the Rays and Matt Quatraro of the Royals. Those relationships proved invaluable when Royals’ catching coach Paul Hoover, a former teammate of Brooks at FSU, gave Brant a quick lesson on the art of catching.
“Baseball’s been a vacation for us,” Brant said. “My mom would rather go to the beach.”
The latest example of Brooks’ built-in baseball relationship benefiting his son was Brant’s choice of college where Columbia International University baseball coach Jonathan Johnson had just completed his fifth season. Johnson’s a former teammate of Brooks, a two-time All-America pitcher at Florida State who pitched in the Major Leagues for six years.
“He was a nice guy and I went on my first visit, and it felt amazing,” Brant said. “The campus was beautiful. I met some of the players and they all seemed like really good guys. I did some of my own research, liked the program, and thought it was heading in a really good direction.”
Brooks envisioned Brant being a natural catcher since he was younger. Aside from his frame – he’s now 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds – Brant had the kind of knowledge about the game not common for most kids his age. Throw in the fact that he could catch and throw, Brooks believed Brant would flourish in a position where he enjoyed some of his greatest relationships.
“My dad (Bobby) was a catcher (at then USL) for (New York Yankees’ great pitcher) Ron Guidry and they’re still best friends,” Brooks said. “My college teammate, Jeremy Salazar, was a (Florida State) catcher, and (former Major League catcher) Paul Bako (of Lafayette) is a friend. I always talked about the game with catchers and watched the game. I kind of knew I wanted to get into coaching and that was fun for me trying to teach him (Brant) the game early on.”
Brant found his future position fit like a catcher’s mitt, partly because of his own shortcomings.
“I wasn’t fast enough to play any position,” he said. “I could take the hits. The game was too slow for me anywhere else. I needed to be involved in every play and make the decisions.”
Brooks was content if his own children never shared his deep love for baseball.
“I’m a baseball fanatic,” he said. “I’ve told my kids just because I like it doesn’t mean you have to like it. I want to find something in common that we can do. He (Brant) always liked it in his own way. We had other hobbies: hunting and fishing.
“They took a liking to baseball and he kind of did his own thing,” he said. “We watch games together and we talk about the games. He breaks games down on his own in his room. We don’t dive into that much detail, not as I would like, but it’s his journey. That’s how he enjoys doing it. It’s awesome. We found a little common ground.”
Brooks found out just how perceptive Brant could be during a road trip 10 years ago to watch the Houston Astros’ season opener against the Cleveland Indians.
As an added bonus they would be treated to Indians’ reigning Cy Young winner Corey Kluber who put on a show during the early stages of the game.
The baseball purist in Brooks was in awe of the performance by Kluber who was working on a perfect game.
Brooks, though, wasn’t sure the rare occasion had resonated with his son and godchild who sat nearby doing what 7-8-year-olds do, including throwing popcorn at each other.
“Kluber’s cruising and they’re goofing off in the seats,” Badeaux said. “I looked at him and said, ‘Y’all are missing something special. This guy’s throwing a pretty good game. We don’t see this very often.’”
Brant’s response?
“He looked at me and said he knew,” Brooks said. “I said how? You’re not even paying attention. He said he (Kluber) had a no-hitter through five, walked the lead-off guy and he stole on the next pitch, someone made an error. Then he scored the first run and (Kluber) lost the perfect game, the shutout, and no-hitter all in the same inning. I just shut up and let him enjoy the game in his own way. That was the exact moment I was impressed.”
Brant had also listened to his father discuss the game in great detail so that when he played, he did so with an advanced understanding beyond his years.
“In T-ball, I always knew where to go and everyone didn’t know what was happening,” he said. “I kind of had next-level knowledge even if the skills weren’t developed yet. I always knew what I was doing and that helped.”
Remember, if Brant needed advice or tips on catching, his dad could call former standouts such as Salazar or Bako for help.
“They could work on his set up, some of his footwork,” Brooks said of his then 7-year-old son.
Brooks’ biggest refrain to his son was simply at its core.
“I told him the root word of catching is catch, catch the ball,” he said. “I told him that almost to a fault and he probably got tired of hearing me.”
The two were more than father-son, they were coach-players with the exception of the 7-8th grades when Brooks became Teurlings’ head coach in 2021, beginning a new dynamic at the high school level.
Brooks tried to avoid any signs of favoritism toward his son, treating him like every other player in the program. At least, that was his intent.
“He made it tougher on me, so it wouldn’t look like it was a coach’s kid thing,” Brant said. “It was probably better like that. There are a lot of stereotypes of what it’s like to be a coach’s kid like you get handed everything, you’re batting four-hole or one-hole. My dad never lied to me. He told me if I had a bad game or a good game. I always trusted him. That made it easier for me and helped me.
“He’s still my dad,” Brant said. “It was kind of weird sometimes. He’s like two different people. At Teurlings, practices, and games, he’s coach Brooks and when we get home, he’s dad. We’d drive home from games and sometimes we’d talk about it in the car and as soon as we got home it was over. He was good about that.”
Teurlings reached the state semifinals and quarterfinals in Brooks’ first two seasons when Brant, a switch-hitter, reached his sophomore year where there was an older catcher ahead of him.
Brant got a few opportunities to catch in 2022 and was approached by pitching coach Kraig Schambough about the possibility of calling his own games.
The results were encouraging and for Brant the product was a result of his familiarity with the game, his willingness to study hitters and develop trust within the pitching staff.
“It’s an awesome feeling to be a part of that,” he said. “It worked out really well. I called every pitch. I’m thinking and studying. If I tried that hard in school, I’d probably be going to Harvard.”
That became the norm the past two seasons where Brant called every game during Teurlings’ run to consecutive Division II select state titles.
“He started going to the bullpen before games,” Brooks said. “He was breaking down scouting charts, reports with the pitching coach. He put together a game plan on how he would attack each game, it started working and he was doing a good job. Just the speed of the game – the tempo – allowed the pitchers to get into a better rhythm. I felt like our pitchers really improved last year. The pitchers pounded the (strike) zone and he didn’t give free bases. He did a great job.”
Teurlings’ pitching staff, led by Bossier Parish Community College signee Aidan Domingue, had 12 shutouts last season in ’24 and returned another talented group this season for Brant to work with.
Junior Evan Vincent, a UL-Lafayette commitment, was part of a deep staff along with sophomore Isaac Boudreaux, junior Dylan Helms, and seniors Jace Garber and Zan Johnson.
“It involves a trust between me and the pitcher,” Brant said. “Just knowing what they want and knowing this is going to work. Most of the time they don’t argue with me. They’ve grown to trust me and realize I kind of know what I’m doing. I learned a lot last year from Aidan, what he liked, and I used that to learn from other pitchers.
“I’ve had to learn what each pitcher likes individually, how to either hype them up or calm them down in certain situations,” Brant said. “I go over the options in my head whether it’s a fastball away, or slider low and in. If they shake off the first one, they’ll want the other one. That’s why we’ve had a lot of success on the mound. The tempo was just so fast, you kind of kept them (hitters) off balance.”
Brant’s jubilation during last year’s state championship struck a chord with his father.
“The biggest compliment I could give him was that he was a team guy,” he said. “There was nothing more he wanted to do than to win a state championship for Teurlings. He didn’t have a very good game offensively, but he was the happiest he could be because he was able to win a state championship for his school and with his teammates.”
For the second straight season, Teurlings played to its strengths under Badeaux, winning its second straight state title by hitting one home run on the year.
“My standard is based on the Major League Baseball level,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to accomplish. That’s OK if you don’t have power. Be the best person that you are and the whole team embraced that. They embraced having great at-bats because that’s something you can be good at.
“As a coach I want them to hit a home run every time up, but that’s not possible,” he said. “We played the game to our strengths and Brant’s strength was to have great, quality at-bats. He consistently had good, quality at-bats for us as well as many other guys on the team.”
Teurlings scored 8.1 runs per game and didn’t pick up their first homer of this season until a shot from junior shortstop Will Power in Friday’s 4-3 loss to E.D. White that evened the championship series.
The Rebels answered a day later with their fifth run-rule victory of the postseason and 14th of the year, pounding out 13 hits for 12 runs in three innings en route to a 14-3 triumph.
Senior designed hitter Jack Purser and senior second baseman Ryan Berard each went 3-for-3 with Purser driving in four runs and Vincent, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, was 2-for-2 with three RBIs. He was also the Game 1 winner on Friday with nine strikeouts and one hit in five innings.
“We acted like it was another game when we were in Sulphur,” Brant said. “We just did the same thing we’ve been doing all year.”
No one understood their role better than Brant who jokingly said he had the necessary power but never hit anything over the fences between the foul poles.
Because of his aspirations to sign a college scholarship, Brant appreciated his father’s honesty in the assessment of his game. He could be someone who could handle the bat, move runners over, and drive them in when necessary.
That paled in comparison to his defense where Brant thrived, not only his ability to call pitches but control the opposition’s running game (opponents had a 29% success rate of stealing bases) and not allow extra bases with passed balls.
Brant, the All-District 4-4A first-team catcher, batted eighth in this year’s lineup with a .262 average and .442 on-base percentage. He doubled twice, had a triple, and drove in 18 runs to go with 16 walks and was hit 12 times.
Defensively, he maintained a fielding percentage of 1.000 without an error in 226 total chances. This season, he also caught a perfect game, two no-hitters and several one-hitters.
“The saying is defense wins championships and that’s done it twice for me,” Brant said. “Hitting’s going to come and go. You’ll have a hot streak and a cold streak, but there’s no excuse for being bad on defense. That’s the one thing you can control. That’s what my dad always taught me. I learned that if I can be good on defense and stay consistent with that, the hitting will come and go.”
Brooks’ appreciation for his son’s play was immeasurable.
“He does a good job of handling the strike zone,” he said. “He’s been a big help. He has a good feel for the game. Very rarely do we give up free runs on passed balls. That’s huge at the high school level.
“He’s just a team guy,” he said. “He’s one of the first to clean out the dugout or clean up the bus. I thanked him after the state championship game for making these last four years special for me. Hopefully, he has the same viewpoint. I know his situation wasn’t easy. We always had tough conversations.”
Three weeks ago, during the school’s Teacher Appreciation Week, Brant penned a letter to his father.
More than anything he appreciated his father’s integrity and the life that he had created for him, his brother and two younger sisters.
“I told him we were thankful for all of the sacrifices he made for us,” Brant said. “We were grateful for the example he set, how to be good men and women. He’s been a great dad. He can turn the switch on and off from dad to coach real well. I had to tell him thank you for being himself and always pushing me to be the best that I could.”
At that point in the season, Teurlings hosted Archbishop Shaw in the state quarterfinals, narrowing the window on their remaining time together in the dugout.
“There were a few tears when I wrote it,” he said. “Just the emotions. I was thinking this was the last season he would be coaching me.”
The reception of the letter was one of immense pride.
“It meant the world to me,” he said. “I told him since he was little the best gift I could ever give him is the truth. If you tell me you want to play college baseball, which he did when he was young, then I’m going to tell you the truth. Otherwise, we’re not doing either one of us any good. We had those tough conversations, and he would fix it. He accomplished his goal. He’s going to go play. I’m super excited. I think it’s going to be a great fit for him over there.”
A year ago, Brant surprised his dad with the game ball from last year’s state championship. He was on the receiving end of the final out, keeping the ball in his back pocket following a strikeout and presenting it to his father afterward.
“It was kind of a special moment for us,” he said.
Brant had similar plans in the top of fifth in last Saturday’s finale, but the final out was a groundout that went to first baseman Jack Ortego.
That did little to dampen the pandemonium of the team’s celebration on the infield.
Brant warned winning pitcher Zan Johnson, his cousin, that he planned to tackle him following the final out, but Johnson was elusive and escaped toward second base, where he wound up getting toppled by another teammate.
A second straight dogpile to commemorate a state championship season was different because Brant was a senior and playing for his father for the final time.
“I love all the guys on the team, they’re all like brothers to me,” he said. “I’ll remember it forever. It’s hard not to remember that. We talked about it all year. Winning last year was a special moment for all of us because we kind of came in as underdogs, we surprised everybody. This year we came in as the team to beat.”
Brooks understood the finality and was steadfast in his belief that Brant was prepared to handle the next step in the game without him by his side.
“It was a blast for me,” he said. “I really had way more fun than he had. He handled it unbelievably well. That’s just a credit to the person he is, remaining respectful as being able to separate the coach, dad, friend, and disciplinarian. We could say we left the game at the field, but he took the brunt of it. I can talk to him differently than other kids that I coached.
“A lot of kids wouldn’t have been able to handle the way I talked to him or the expectations or standards that I held him to,” he said. “He answered the call, and it’s never affected our relationship at home and that’s a huge credit to the young man that he’s become.”