Get up around 9 a.m., switch on
ESPN Gameday, watch football until about 2:30 p.m. and head down to campus to
search out perspective tailgate parties for our weekly tailgate
feature.
By 5:30, it is off the west side
elevators and into the press box to settle in for an evening of football and
work. A plate of beef brisket, a room-temperature salad and an endless pile of
paper possessing every possible stat you can imagine.
When the game ends, it is off to
the locker room for Les Miles’ postgame interview session, then about 11 p.m. or
so, it’s time to head home to update the website and prepare for a Sunday filled
with magazine preparations for the week.
This past weekend I had the
opportunity to take a break from my routine and view an LSU football game from a
different perspective – from the stands.
These eyes have not seen a football
game from the bleachers of Tiger Stadium in quite some time. Actually, it was
Nov. 13, 1999. I am sure you all remember that day, maybe not the date itself,
but no doubt what went on in Death
Valley that night.
Houston 20, LSU 7.
That’s right, it was Gerry D’s last
game ion purple and gold; the time I ever sat in the stands.
Every game since then (I moved to
Baton Rouge just
prior to the 2001 season), I have watched from either the sideline or the press
box. Six years later, I figured it was time to revisit the perspective of the
fan.
LSU was blessed with a pretty
impressive home slate – Tennessee, Auburn, Florida - Tiger Stadium has seen some pretty
exciting games this season. So I chose a game that wasn’t one of the headliners,
a game that meant little as the target date.
To get the full perspective, I
hooked up with some friends of mine, Alan and Beth
Freeman (Alan is the chief of police in my hometown of
Bastrop), who tailgate weekly in the motor home lot across from the vet school
at the corner of Skip Bertman Dr. and River Road.
My parents, who still live in
Bastrop, had not been to a game in Baton Rouge since LSU beat Middle Tennessee State in 2001. So I invited my folks –
Billy and Beth Deville – to join my
fiancé, Beth, and I for the weekend.
Our Saturday morning began with
breakfast at home. Around noon, we ventured out to the motor home lot, which I
was told usually served as a designated area for free parking, but has since
been converted to a temporary parking area for motor homes since the
hurricanes.
From what the Freemans had told me,
the lot had been rather crowded for conference games with Florida and Auburn, but on this Saturday, the roughly
estimated 12-acre lot featured no more than 40 or so motor homes and travel
trailers and was barely one-fourth full. It was pretty much a sea of grey
limestone gravel standing unused.
I was told Beth and I could park in
the lot near the motor homes, but met resistance at the gate by a rather
uninformed security guard, who after some muffled communication on a radio, let
us proceed into the near-vacant lot. Upon arriving at the motor home, another
security guard said I would not be permitted to park near the motor home but
could move to the rear area of the gravel parking lot, which I did with little
hassle.
Approximately 10 minutes later, a
Baton Rouge
police officer approached and began notifying several tailgaters in the lot that
if their vehicle had not towed a travel trailer into the lot, they would be
towed immediately. (He wasn’t joking as he was accompanied with a tow truck).
Luckily I was able to find a rare remaining parking spot at the vet school
across the street.
Upon returning to the lot, I
approached the officer and asked why the remainder of the lot was being unused
since there was almost 10 acres of space left vacant. The officer replied rules
are rules and he was just doing what he was told to do. He said they are to
treat every weekend as if it were a big game. While that seemed to be a
reasonable response, the troubling thing was that when I asked which university
official was in charge parking and motor home accommodations, he could not
respond.
He actually said to me, “if you ask
me, there are too many chiefs around here and not enough natives.”
It made me appreciate the media
parking pass I have near Tiger Stadium. Also I have a greater respect and
understanding of fans who spend half of their Saturdays struggling to find
parking and the aggravation that goes along with it.
At any rate, we enjoyed a grand
afternoon of visiting with family and friends, even caught several good games on
the television via satellite.
Around 6 p.m. we headed down to
Tiger Stadium. We expect to find our seats, (which were in the east chairback
section, nice new seats), watch a half of football or so, let my mother and
fiancé enjoy the homecoming festivities at halftime then return to the motor
home for a postgame wrap-up before retiring for the evening.
It didn’t go quite the
smoothly.
LSU didn’t play badly, but merely
went though the motions in carrying a 14-0 halftime lead into the locker room.
The Tigers were no doubt playing everything close to the vest, worked out of a
lot of sets and formations in prepping for the showdown coming up at Alabama.
In the meantime though, fans sat
restlessly as a “better-than- some-people-expected” Appalachian State team moved
the ball up and down the field and actually had a chance to cut it to 14-7 late
in the third quarter.
But a missed field goal squandered
the Mountaineers only real scoring chance and by the time JaMarcus Russell hit
Keith Zinger on a nine-yard touchdown pass for a 21-0 lead with 13:22 left in
the fourth quarter, we made our way to the exits.
Some observations I made during my
rare visit to the stands, first and foremost, can you say “Holy Cold Pizza
Batman!!??”
I thought the $4.00 tub of popcorn
at the movies was expensive. Try a $6.00 slab of cold pizza tossed to you from
20 feet away. Not to mention the $4.00 bottle of “Tiger Water.” I mean it’s
hydrogen and oxygen for crying out loud!
The pregame show is always
enjoyable from wherever I sit, especially when I get to watch my “sports
enthusiast” mother dance to the LSU fight song.
One of the more comical things I
noticed was a middle-aged couple sitting a few rows in front of me. Both had
dressed up in their gaudiest of Tiger garb, equipped with Tiger print outfits,
hats, etc. Plus, the always important radio headset. Throughout the game, they
sat screaming at one another because they could not hear each other because to
the headset.
Then there was the obligatory guy
who insisted on standing up every time someone moved on the field. You know the
guy, the one that leaps up and feels the need to inform everyone of his opinion
on everything from the type of cleats the team wears to who should be lining up
under center. I’m just glad it wasn’t the big, sweaty guy that feels it is a
requirement to remove his shirt after a full day of tailgating.
It was definitely an educational
experience for me. After so many years of sitting behind the scenes, it was nice
to get out and interact with the people who make LSU football and my job
worthwhile – the fans.
Plus, anytime I get to spend with
the two best parents in the world is always a bonus.
One thing I did learn, though, by
night’s end, I collapsed into the bed snoring before I hit the pillow. I thought
the players were exhausted after a Saturday night in Tiger Stadium. The old
cliché says the teams leaves it all out on the field, but in this case, I am
beginning to think that could be said of the fans.
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Matt Deville is the editor of Tiger Rag
Magazine. Reach him at matt@tigerrag.com.