Thanks from Kansas State
Please allow me this opportunity to thank the students and staff at LSU for their amazing hospitality during a recent visit by members of Kansas State University. We were on your campus during finals week in December, and upon our return to Manhattan, have eagerly shared with our students and staff how wonderful you were to.
Not only were we welcomed and treated with utmost care and respect, we were briefed by a superbly knowledgeable housing department.
We are especially impressed with the new undergraduate apartment facilities, and look forward to seeing the plans for future graduate and family housing.
In addition to these meetings, we were able to explore your campus on our own, and when we found ourselves lost, a student was gracious enough to give members of our party a ride back to the Lod Cook Hotel.
The southern hospitality we have heard so much about came to life the minute we disembarked our plane in Baton Rouge, and extended throughout the duration of our stay. You have given us a wonderful example to follow as we begin our own apartment housing adventure.
Deborah Kohl
Staff Assistant
Jardine Apartments
Kansas State University
Sooner student angry with LSU fans
I thought I knew malicious fans. I’ve been refused by taxis in Columbus, Ohio because I was wearing maize and blue.
I’ve heard Wisconsin Badger fans when an opposing player gets injured chant, “shoot him like a horse!”
Surely Ohio State Buckeyes and Wisconsin Badgers are among the most despicable fans in college football.
Then I met the Louisiana State Tigers.
When we drove into Louisiana, signs greeted us: “The sooner we beat ya’ll, the sooner ya’ll can leave!”
I realized we were dealing with a clever breed with a fierce grasp on the 3rd-grade concept of homonyms.
I didn’t fear for my life until just before the game. In a restaurant packed with Oklahoma fans, a group of foul-mouthed 40-somethings singled me out.
Now I am a physically intimidating beast. I stand a menacing 5-foot, 3 34 inches tall and have a smile that takes up half my face, half the time. No wonder a man twice my age and size would think I’d “take it outside.”
But instead of trying to determine the outcome of a game several miles away with my own fists, I *gasp!* watched the game. Unsatisfied with their win, LSU fans tried their damnedest to “tiger-bait” us.
When my dad commented on their class and Southern charm for making us feel so welcome in Louisiana, an 18- or 19-year-old girl slapped my 54-year-old father 5 times across his face.
She then stumbled out to Bourbon Street to pick more fights. But not before she broke my younger brother’s nose by giving him an uppercut with a pint glass.
But who can blame her? After all, the outcome of a college football game is not official until you’ve slapped someone’s grandfather and demonstrated your boxing abilities with glassware.
I don’t want to generalize. I never generalize. I hate everyone who ever makes generalizations. But last weekend I learned the difference between two kinds of fans I previously lumped together as Just Plain Mean: devoted fans who get feisty in the name of a great game against a deeply historical rival (Buckeyes, Badgers, and, admittedly, Sooners); and “fans” who miss seeing their team win their first national championship in almost 50 years to threaten bodily harm to a young woman whose biggest crimes are having a killer touchdown dance and cheering for a team whose mascot they cannot identify. (Note to Louisiana educators: Reinstate the chapter on the Land Rush and consider cutting out the section on creative spellings of the word “go.”)
Geaux watch the game, super-fans.
Jennifer Bahner
medical student
University of Wisconsin-Madison