About 20,000 Tiger faithful bundled up and endured 40-degree temperatures Saturday to welcome the crystal football Coaches’ trophy and the No.1 LSU football team back to Tiger Stadium. LSU team captains Glenn Dorsey, Matt Flynn, Craig Steltz and Patrick Fisher helped coach Les Miles display the shiny hardware accumulated from the Tigers’ 12-2 season. “This has been the greatest time I’ve had in my entire life,” Dorsey said to the fans. “We’re No. 1. We’re the champs, baby.” The entire LSU football team and staff sat on bleachers near the stage and listened to speeches from Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mayor-President Kip Holden, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive, Athletic Director Skip Bertman and Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, who announced his resignation Wednesday. Jindal said he once sold hot dogs in Tiger Stadium to be able to watch LSU football games. “Never in a million years would I have dreamt that we would be the first team in the country to win not one, but two BCS national championships,” he said. “And Coach Miles has already promised me they are going to win us yet another national championship.” Bertman said the Tigers’ 2007 season was the “greatest season” in LSU history. “For one time, for at least one year, you will be able to say that you were the best at what you did in the United States of America,” Bertman told the team. Miles, who was the last to speak, focused on the Tigers’ support staff and ability to overcome two triple-overtime losses this past season. “I hope when this team separates, when those seniors go on to their careers and this football team resumes practice in the spring, that the one thing they leave us is the legacy of hard work, improvement, a great feel for their teammates and a great chemistry that develops a great team … because that’s what they were,” Miles said. “Above all else, this was a great team.” Steltz said he will always remember his final appearance in Tiger Stadium before leaving LSU. “The best part was just running out into Tiger Stadium one last time,” Steltz said after the ceremony. “I got chills.” Sophomore offensive tackle Ciron Black said Saturday’s festivities made the BCS National Championship “finally sink in.” Black said the defining moment of the 2007 season came after the triple-overtime loss to Arkansas at the end of the regular season. “We had a team meeting after that game and decided that we still had something to play for,” Black said. LSU fan Phillip Syas, 27, said his favorite part of Saturday’s ceremony was hearing Miles give credit to his surrounding staff of coaches, trainers and academic advisors. Syas said the circumstances leading to the Tigers’ national championship made the season one he will forever remember. “After we won the Southeastern Conference Championship, I waited up all night to find out if we’d get to go to the national championship,” Syas said. The ceremony lasted about an hour and included live music from the Tiger Marching Band and video highlights from the past season. Festivities concluded when the 2007 National Championship flag was raised above Tiger Stadium.
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