Huey Long so loved LSU football, his last words were, “I wonder what’s going to happen to my poor boys at LSU.”
Long was perhaps the greatest fan and greatest meddler in our University’s history. Most of LSU has heard the stories about Long’s commitment to our university and football team.
Of course, there is the infamous “dipping” incident in 1934 when Long manipulated the Barnum and Bailey Circus with an obscure animal disease law so the Circus would move the date of their performance so it wouldn’t conflict with LSU’s game against Southern Methodist.
He also threatened to increase state assessment of the Illinois Central Railroad from $100,000 to $4 million if the company didn’t reduce its fare for LSU students so they could afford to go to a game in Tennessee. Once the trains reached their destination, Long, who lent many students money for the reduced fare, flamboyantly led LSU’s band up and down the streets of Nashville.
Always a colossal character, Long handpicked coaches, recruited players, gave sideline and locker room pep talks, directed the band, co-wrote “Touchdown for LSU” and “Fight for LSU,” attempted to make a football player a senator, opened the governor’s mansion to injured football players, and more and more and more.
Often dubbed the “Messiah of the Rednecks,” Huey Long was a man of the people, and he chose LSU football to be the people’s sport.
Passing it off as a dormitory, Long conned the legislature for the funds necessary to build Tiger Stadium. Eerily similar to the Roman Colosseum, in Tiger Stadium every Tiger athlete was a gladiator and every Tiger fan was a king, or a Caesar in Long’s eyes.
As The Advocate writer Scott Rabalais put it, “This is a populist state, has been since Huey Long lavished money on LSU facilities – and people – making the school a shining city on the hill and making good on a promise that all of Louisiana’s sons and daughters could afford to be educated there. It is that same populism that permeates attitudes toward LSU athletics, an attitude that says Louisiana’s sons and daughters have an inalienable right to life, liberty and an affordable seat in Tiger Stadium.”
But a few years ago, LSU’s administration and the athletic department, with a little help from the Tiger Athletic Foundation, effectively defecated on Huey Long’s populist vision of LSU football. Now they are plotting to do it again.
In 2000, TAF construction was completed on the $50 million east side expansion of Tiger Stadium, including 70 posh “Tiger Den” suites, which go for $34,000 to $95,000 per anum under a five year lease. The revenue from the suites goes directly to the TAF.
A variety of perks comes along with a suite rental, such as reserved parking, catered meals and game programs. This is understandable, as the saying goes, the more you pay for, the more you get – but should money buy exemptions to an alcohol policy the University normally takes very seriously?
For Tiger Suite holders, the alcohol runs more freely than Joseph Addai.
When I picked up my student season tickets a few weeks ago, a white piece of paper outlying what I could and could not do in Tiger Stadium was attached. Rule No. 2 was no alcohol. Because I hold tickets of the hoi-poli, I am subject to spot searches where officials are allowed to rummage through my personal belongings in order to find alcohol. Basically, my Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures (after all LSU is a branch of the government) is suspended, while those who can afford expensive suites are exempt from the rule that my search is meant to enforce. Hypocrisy!
If I wanted to be treated on the basis of how much money I do or do not have, I would have gone to Tulane or some other private school. I think Huey Long’s love for LSU and its football team originated from the idea that elitism has no place in public schools. How can our school, so fundamentally connected with this idea, abandon it?
Perhaps it is because salaries of a few high level administrators are augmented by the Tiger Athletic Foundation, an organization deeply shaded by the oaks of LSU.
That little white sheet said I could be arrested for bringing alcohol into Tiger Stadium. In “Civil Disobedience,” one of our country’s greatest philosophers Henry David Thoreau asserted, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.” If a law does not apply to all, it is inherently unjust.
I am aware many of you already bring contraband alcohol into Tiger Stadium. I encourage you to continue this practice. If you do not, I encourage you to do so. If our school creates rules that are unfair and hypocritical, it is our duty not to follow them. So when LSU takes on Western Illinois this week, raises one glass for Huey.