Everyone knows one sports fan who has a strange superstition. Some fans have to wear the same clothing for every game. Others have to follow a ritual on game day for when they shower or what they eat.
One LSU fan’s ritual is that she earns a degree from the University every year the Tigers win a national championship.
Earlisha Whitfield, Ph.D, has earned a degree the same year as the last three national championships won by LSU: her bachelor’s degree in 2003, her master’s degree in 2007 and most recently her Ph.D during the 2019 season.
She knows every song the band plays and every cheer that goes along with them. As a student, she attended football and basketball games whenever she could.
Whitfield originally grew up in poverty in Bastrop, Louisiana. She said she was highly charismatic in high school and participated in every club she could so she could travel to state conventions. For her, those trips were her only vacations.
Whitfield’s love for LSU began when she took a field trip to Baton Rouge for a Beta Club convention. She said it was the first time she saw real light before.
“You know what lights they were? The lights of the [Mississippi River] bridge,” Whitfield said. “I had only ever read about lights like that in books. I could cry now thinking about it. I knew Baton Rouge would be my home.”
Originally her family expected her to attend University of Louisiana Monroe or Grambling University. She said everyone advised her not to go to LSU because students there were racist and would treat her differently, but she did not apply anywhere else.
“Every person treated me like family,” Whitfield said. “I loved my professors, and my professors loved me. I never, ever, ever had one person treat me like I didn’t belong there. I never had any instance of racism.”
Whitfield graduated from the University with a bachelor’s degree in 2003, the same year that the Tigers beat the Oklahoma Sooners in the Sugar Bowl under Nick Saban.
She started a career in education upon graduation, hoping to teach impoverished children in urban areas. She soon realized she was not as well-equipped to teach urban students as she once thought, and she returned to the University to get a graduate degree in education.
“I wasn’t prepared to teach kids that were so far behind with behavioral problems,” Whitfield said. “I grew up poor, but I’m from the rural area, so I didn’t really know about urban kids. That’s a whole other degree.”
She said that she could not have earned her degree without the help of her mentor, Professor Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, who specializes in urban education and still teaches at the University.
“[Dowell] helped me through this process all the way through my Ph.D,” she said. “She had to help me understand the urban poverty perspective, and how to build relationships with those kids.”
Whitfield earned her master’s degree in education in 2007, again graduating the same year that the Tigers won the national championship, this time against the Ohio State Buckeyes under former coach Les Miles.
Following her master’s degree, Whitfield grew more comfortable teaching her classes and building relationships with her students. She applied for grants wherever she could to give her students opportunities that they couldn’t afford.
The changes she made in her community led her to receive a promotion as the assistant principal of her school and subsequently pursue a Ph.D to obtain higher leadership positions in the future and perform research that could help her community.
Whitfield said many people ask her why she went to LSU for her Ph.D. since it blocks her from being able to teach at the University in the future. She said it did not even cross her mind since she never saw herself teaching at a university.
“I always wanted to work with kids, so I never thought about it,” she said.
Whitfield just earned her final degree this past year– the same year in which Coach Ed Orgeron led the Tigers to beat Clemson University in the national championship game. She said it was the first championship game that she did not attend in-person since it was too expensive.
Though her friends and family are nervous now that she is out of degrees to earn, Whitfield has no concern that the Tigers can win another national championship without her.
“I’m not worried at all,” she said. “I just thought I was lucky to have that happen. I think that we are going to be fine; maybe we will get another one next year.”
She is continuing her education career as assistant principal at Iberville Charter Academy in West Baton Rouge.

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Photo by Iberville Charter Academy