LAKE CHARLES – The Lake Charles Gumbeaux Gators will have a new but familiar face leading the team in 2026.
Team owner Ronnie Rantz has announced that longtime McNeese head softball coach James Landreneau has taken over as coach of the Texas Collegiate League team for the upcoming season. He will be assisted by pitching coach Carl Labit, who helped coach the Baton Rouge Rougarou to the 2025 TCL championship this summer. Stephen Klein, who was the head coach of the Rougarou in 2025 and was set to coach the Gumbeaux Gators in 2026, has stepped away due to family reasons.
“We are beyond excited to have James join the Gumbeaux Gators family,” said Rantz, who acquired the team in October. “He is arguably the most successful head coach in the Southland Conference over the past five years in any sport and is well respected and loved in the Lake Charles community.”
He also lives about four blocks away from McNeese State University’s Joe Miller Park, affectionately known as “The Jeaux,” which recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. The Gators, established in 2024 and debuted with a playoff season, finished 9-37 last summer, but still saw record crowds and twice topped the 2,000 mark in attendance.
Landreneau is in his 14th year at McNeese State, his 10th as head coach of the Cowgirls, and is the program’s winningest coach with a career record of 339-181. He earned his 300th career win in February. He was named the Southland Conference Coach of the Year for the second year in a row and the fourth time in his career after leading the Cowgirls to a fourth consecutive regular season title. Landreneau was a longtime youth baseball coach and league manager before switching diamonds to softball, first as a hitting instructor, then an assistant and finally, as a head coach.
“Luckily it turned into a career,” he said. “It’s exciting. I’ve been a baseball fan my entire life. As much as I love softball, I equally love the game of baseball. To have an opportunity to coach high level athletes is always going to be exciting and a new challenge is just part of life. It’s what you live for is new challenges.”
The Mamou native said the timing was right for him to take on this new challenge, having put together a solid coaching staff at McNeese over the last year.
“The first part of last summer I was alone,” he said. “I really feel like my staff that I have in place, for the summer our biggest challenge is always going to be recruiting, and I feel like we did a really good job this fall of getting out there, getting some of the kids we need. We have a really good plan going into the spring and into the summer. I just really feel comfortable with that.”
By Lori Lyons