The LSU Athletic Department is in trouble. For years, LSU has fallen behind its SEC counterparts, and now the football team will be mired in losing seasons from now to eternity.
If many of our facilities aren’t upgraded or rebuilt altogether, the world will come to a screeching halt. Tiger Stadium will implode on itself and it will constantly rain on the rubble.
These projects, which include fixing the Pete Maravich Assembly Center’s roof, building a new baseball and softball complex and tearing down the West side of Tiger Stadium and rebuilding it with nice luxury boxes for all the fat cat alumni and Tiger Athletic Foundation members. These things are a must if the school is to go flying into sports oblivion, but they won’t come cheap.
Athletics Director Skip Bertman and TAF are doing everything they can to make sure LSU becomes the best fund-raising school in the country, surpassing big-spending schools such as Florida and Ohio State, but they can’t do it alone.
That’s why it needs you Fair-weather Fans to come and save the day. So what if you don’t want to give up your $50, 50-yard line seats you’ve had since 1956 but used only during the years when the Tigers finished above .500. You bleed purple and gold, so TAF and the Athletic Department can make your wallet hemorrhage.
Besides, college athletics is a business. Forget that the Southeastern Conference, the top money-getter in the NCAA, spread more than $101 million to its 12 schools for the 2002-2003 fiscal year, according to secsports.com. Why does it matter that the NCAA’s money-makers are amateurs who don’t see a dime while the schools reap all the rewards from major TV deals and teams winning bowl games and national championships?
That’s why it has you, hard-working Fan.
Is getting that third mortgage on your house and taking on a fifth job really such a burden if you get to bring your family of four for a nice Saturday night out in Tiger Stadium? At least your seats in the nosebleed section are clean and real urinals have replaced the men’s room troughs.
Imagine as you look upon the tiny ants from your high seat, which is very comfortable without a pesky, thick wallet poking your backside, that you helped create such a wonderful place to bring your children. But then some loud students who couldn’t afford tickets sit next to you and the moment is gone.
If you turn around, you can see workers tearing down Tiger Park, a hideous, depilated softball field built in 1997 with a new press box added just last year.
It won’t matter that after you help fork up the millions of dollars for these projects, half of the Fair-weather fans won’t show up for the 2005 Florida game because the team is 1-4 and football coach Nick Saban left for the Chicago Bears because his new football office was made of bronze instead of gold. Who cares? We’ll still have the best damn buildings any side of the Mississippi River.
But after he is replaced with former Tiger head coach Curly Hallman, the cheapest coach left on the market, they’ll sing a different tune and ante up more money. The resurgence of long lines outside the Athletic Administration building will force season ticket holders to donate money online.
Fair-weather Students need to get involved too. Without these improvements, there won’t be a nice, affordable place for them to watch the Tigers, get sloppy drunk and leave in the third quarter regardless of the score. So to make sure they do their part, the Athletic Department can set up donation bins outside local bars, to make sure students give away their money when they’re least likely to miss it.
LSU has lagged behind on major athletic projects – except for the 2000 addition to Tiger stadium and the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student Athletes – since 1979 so we have a lot of construction to catch up on. With the sudden influx of money, the Athletic Department will be able to start every major project at the same time, hindering roads on the west side of campus useless.
This is of no concern because those shuttle buses that take fans to and from Tiger Stadium will replace all forms of transportation around LSU. It may be a little burden that the buses run only once every two hours because it takes the 104-year-old driver a little more time to drive across campus going only 10 miles per hour. But in the long run, it’s worth it.
So remember, the fate of the Athletic Department and possibly the world is in your hands. Just make sure you’re holding lots of money.