On the western edge of University Lake lies the Jack and Priscilla Andonie Museum, an unassuming building you might miss if it weren’t for the metal tiger guarding its entrance.

If you peek inside, you’d see an empty room, possibly some tables and chairs. However, hidden behind its locked doors lies one of the greatest collections of LSU sports history anywhere in the state.

The Andonie Museum was established in 2004 to house the collection of Dr. Jack Andonie, a New Orleans physician and LSU sports aficionado. Amongst its vast treasures are a plethora of event programs, shoes worn by greats like Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal, the trophy flag of the LSU-Tulane rivalry and much more.

However, the museum eventually faced hard times, the combined impacts of which led LSU Alumni Association President Joe Carvalhido to indefinitely shutter the museum. The loss of museum director and beloved LSU sports historian Bud Johnson in 2022 left a significant hole in operations that has yet to be filled.

Furthermore, years of neglect meant the building had fallen into significant disrepair.

“We stripped everything down. We redid the carpets, had to fix the leaky air conditioning unit, repainted everything,” Carvalhido said.

Significant progress has been made, but there is still a long way to go. Without a new curator, much of the collection remains dispersed and uncatalogued.

“[Johnson] had a very calculated system of everything that was catalogued, but over the years things were donated to different organizations, such as the ‘Slats’ Hardin medals, which were originally loaned to us by the family and are now in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. So some of the artifacts that were here became very transient,” Carvalhido said.

I think the loss of the Andonie Museum is a great tragedy for the students of LSU and the people of Louisiana as a whole, and represents a broader fundamental problem at LSU: it doesn’t celebrate its athletic history nearly as much as it should.

LSU has been trying to shift its image towards being an “everything” school for years. While many athletic programs are characterized by dominance in one particular sport, LSU has a staked-out reputation as a producer of champions in all regards. However, where on campus can you really immerse yourself in that history?

Beyond some lovely plaques around Tiger Stadium and some bronze statues by the PMAC, the Tiger legends who gave their all to bring glory to the university remain buried in obscurity. Even the display celebrating the NFL Hall of Famers remains consistently out of order, its screen usually showing an error message or login screen.

The Andonie Museum truly has the potential to be something amazing that could draw visitors from miles out. LSU already has an established portfolio of high-quality museum experiences like the Museum of Art and the Rural Life Museum.

Picture it: a sunny Saturday, a nice walk by the lake, and take a stop at the Andonie to see the hats of the Chinese Bandits, icons in LSU’s history of hard-nosed, tough defenses or glimpse at a real football held by Billy Cannon before you enter the stadium where he dominated.

Furthermore, the Andonie Museum will only grow in necessity in the years to come. As LSU sports enters into a renaissance period, with new successes in women’s gymnastics and basketball, along with fielding arguably the greatest football team of all time, having a repository on campus for artifacts relating to that history is increasingly important.

One day, I want to be able to see Joe Burrow’s helmet, Mondo’s pole, one of Flau’jae Johnson’s game balls or one of Haleigh Bryant’s sparkly leotards where they belong: at home.

The future for the museum is optimistic. The Alumni Association has put an immense amount of care and dedication into renovating the space, and Carvalhido confirmed that a vision exists for the museum to open in the next few years, though he was unable to confirm a specific timeline. However, they can only do so much, and shouldering management of a collection in the thousands while prioritizing their foremost duties is an immense task.

I feel that this is an area where the Tiger Athletic Foundation should step up. TAF has a long history of successful construction and renovation projects. The beautification projects near Tiger Stadium have contributed immensely to the game-day experience, and the displays dedicated to the university’s award winners shows that the TAF does care in at least some regard about celebrating the history of success at LSU.

The original cost of the museum was $375,000, roughly $659,361 in 2025. With most of the renovation work already completed by the Alumni Association, it wouldn’t take a massive investment to get the museum in a truly amazing state.

While the lack of a curator remains an issue, I believe that once the museum is in good working order and in the same status as institutions like the Shaw or Rural Life Museum, it will attract a number of candidates.

While so much effort has been put towards building a new brand identity that emphasizes the legends upon which LSU’s glory has been built, the real artifacts and treasures those legends left us now sit in storage.

In that, the people of Louisiana have been deprived of the ability to experience and share in that legacy of greatness. One day, I hope that the Andonie Museum may not only be a mecca for fans of the Tigers, but one of the premiere destinations on any SEC campus.