We’re nervous.
As we all know, ESPN’s “College GameDay” is coming to Baton Rouge to film its weekly broadcast outside our very own Tiger Stadium.
The guys at GameDay are no strangers to Death Valley. They were here to broadcast their show back in 1996 and 1997. The 1996 visit was, of course, when Lee Corso fell victim to some flying objects at the merciless hands of some Tiger fans standing near the broadcast booth.
It was rumored that Corso refused to come back and film at Tiger Stadium because of this unfortunate incident.
However, as bizarre as this story is, here at The Reveille we have found that it is actually a pretty common occurrence for a visitor to decide that he or she would rather not come back.
We also realize that will put a smile on the majority of the fans’ faces. Mission accomplished, right? Wrong.
Tiger Stadium is one of the most feared and challenging places to play a game of football. It outranks many of its collegiate stadium peers as well as the majority of the professional stadiums.
We love that, and we hope the students and fans keep it that way. We also hope that the fans will realize the defining line between intimidation and inappropriate behavior.
There is not one person on this editorial board who cannot think of someone who has been harassed, hurt or had property damaged simply because they supported the opposing team.
For example, one of our friends from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette came to visit us when the Cajuns and the Tigers were scheduled to square off. She got decked out in her red and white clothes and spent her day with other spirited Cajun fans. After being harassed and ridiculed all day, she had conceded that Tiger Stadium was a rough place to be for someone supporting the other team. However, she vowed never to return after the tiniest Tigers, little kids, threw cups and other things at her as she passed them on campus.
Fan passion reached dangerous levels at last year’s season opener at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., when police had to break up a riot that started after thousands of LSU and Tech fans began a shouting war.
And sometimes those rowdy tailgaters can get violent. We hear tales of fans slashing tires, busting windows and keying the cars of opposing teams’ fans. Even Athletics Director Skip Bertman knows how unruly the fans can get – that’s why he started urging respectful behavior in the public service announcements before games.
Countless examples of this kind of behavior are anything but funny.
We want to continue to have visitors such as ESPN and fans from other schools. We want to be known as spirited supporters, not as a group of thugs and barbarians who can’t control ourselves.
However, there are countless times that The Reveille has received letters from fans at other schools saying we couldn’t be any nicer to them while we visited their school or how they were thrilled someone invited them to join their tailgating party while they visited us.
Most of these letters admit Tiger Stadium is an intimidating and electrifying place to watch and play the game of football. The writers also say how they can’t wait until their next visit.
This is the way it should be. These people had a good time all while patronizing our local businesses, enjoying our University and filling our stadium. If we take it too far, opposing fans will not want to keep up our long-standing rivalries that we hold so dearly.
So, in light of our first conference match up … scare the hell out of them.
But make sure they have fun in the meantime.