The 2000 College World Series seems so long ago.
And for fans who do remember that series, it wasn’t just a special time for the LSU baseball team.
That’s not discounting the Tigers’ come-from-behind victory against Stanford to capture their fifth national championship since 1991, but there was another interesting storyline that year.
Louisiana sent four teams to the NCAA baseball tournament including the University of New Orleans, Tulane and regional site hosts LSU and UL-Lafayette.
UL-Lafayette was the only team of those four to accompany LSU in 2000 to Omaha, Neb., and it was that 2000 Ragin’ Cajun team that scored two runs on a squeeze-bunt single in the bottom of the ninth inning to top big, bad Clemson.
The fight after the game was pretty cool too.
But six years after the 2000 College World Series, it’s distressing to see Louisiana teams failing to maintain the state’s baseball dominance from 2000.
LSU’s most recent trip to the series came in 2004, and Tulane participated in this past season’s contest.
But today, none of the aforementioned teams have brought home a World Series championship since 2000, and today only UL-Lafayette has a winning conference record at 10-2 in the Sun Belt Conference.
UNO is 7-8 in the Sun Belt Conference, Tulane is 5-7 in Conference USA and everyone knows about LSU’s recent problems.
The Tigers are tied with 2005 World Series runner-up Florida for the worst Southeastern Conference record at 6-12.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of all of this is LSU’s inability to retain its label of “the team everybody wants to beat.”
During the first week of April in the Tigers’ three-game series against South Carolina, a Gamecocks player clearly showed his lack of fear of playing in Alex Box Stadium – a stadium formerly revered as one of the most difficult places to win in college baseball.
The player was overheard saying “intimidator my ass” in reference to the championship billboard that towers over the right field fence.
The Gamecocks swept LSU that weekend as the Tigers’ SEC record plummeted to 2-7.
With the Tigers’ loss in the NCAA regional competition in 2005 and the team’s disappointing play so far this season, paid attendance for home games has similarly dropped.
In 2005, LSU averaged 7,508 fans, which was a decline from a record average of 7,898 in 2004.
And the drop in attendance is accordingly setting up again this season.
So far in 2006, the Tigers are averaging 7,299 fans at home games.
The consecutive drop in attendance would mark the first time baseball attendance has dropped two years in a row since 1984.
So what’s the answer – fire Smoke Laval?
Remember Laval had the most conference wins, 75, coming into the 2005 season compared to all other SEC coaches.
And remember people thought Bertman was beginning to wear out his welcome in 2001 after the Tigers lost the Super Regional series to Tulane.
Bertman spoiled LSU baseball fans with his unprecedented success in 18 years as head coach.
Laval has been feeling the pressure since his first season.
My advice to fans is to give Laval one more year for his young team to materialize into a national championship contender.
The tough decision may come at the end of the 2007 season.
Laval’s contract year.
 
Kyle is a public relations freshman.
Contact him at [email protected]