Lifelong Tigers
In this part of the world, August is when the thoughts of everyone with a heartbeat turn to football. So it’s hard to admit this, but I am just not the world’s most massive football fan. I could blame this on growing up overseas or having a weak grasp of statistics or not being loved as a child. But probably it has more to do with being incompetent at team sports in school, and, as a result, just never really catching the bug.
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy watching a game, love a win, and can pack away beer and cochon de lait at a tailgate with the best of them. But my flimsy grasp of player statistics, inability to distinguish an I-formation from a single-back alignment, and failure to identify Brandon Harris at four hundred yards have betrayed my inch-deep commitment time and again. I like to think I’ve made up for this failing by fathering a child who does actually have a plausible claim to being LSU’s biggest football fan—my son Charles. From August through January, Charles sweats SEC football from every pore. At 11, he can reel off the rushing yards of every running back in the conference, which he’s been able to do since he was seven. His most prized article of clothing is a pair of purple-and-gold striped overalls. He has a lucky hat, a lucky shirt, and various talismans that he wears to every game. So Charles is fortunate indeed that his grandmother is a similarly maniacal fan and season ticket holder who has rarely missed a home game since she was a student here in the ‘sixties, leaving little doubt not only that football fandom is an inherited trait but also about which side of the family my son got his from.
In the past few years, Charles has gotten to escort his grandma to lots of LSU home games, which is a situation that suits both of them to a T (-formation). Still, maybe once a season I’ll manage to pry a ticket from her fingers and take him to a game. In 2014, that game was the LSU/Ole Miss nailbiter, which real fans will remember LSU won after safety Ronald Martin intercepted Bo Wallace’s pass on the one-yard line with two seconds on the clock.
That day, Charles went into Tiger Stadium clad head-to-toe in purple and gold, gauging the commitment of fellow fans by the percentage of purple and gold on their bodies. Total devotion, in Charles’s book, could only be demonstrated by wearing not a stitch of any color besides purple and gold. Face paint, nail polish, and a wig? All the better. This being an LSU/Ole Miss game, anything red was of course strictly verboten—all the way down to the underwear. So as we took our seats, Charles was aghast to see a tall, twenty-ish fellow coming up the steps through our section wearing a long-sleeved LSU shirt … with a red T-shirt over the top! For this indefensible act of sartorial treason, Charles leapt from his seat and demanded an explanation. “I’m from Saskatchewan,” the guy protested, pointing to the maple leaf on the pocket of his shirt. He explained that he and a buddy, both NFL fans, had hopped a cheap flight to New Orleans with the idea of catching the Saints/Packers game on Sunday, and someone on the plane had mentioned that there was a big college game up the road in Baton Rouge.
Having never been to Louisiana before, much less Baton Rouge, and without ever having attended a college game, they rented a car and drove into the middle of the largest, closest, most furiously tailgated home game of the year. And they were just agog. Looking out at the ninety-thousand-strong sea of purple-and-gold-clad worshipers, I could see why. Wherever you are on your journey to full-immersion football fandom, the experience makes for a pretty great introduction to fall in Louisiana. It had certainly made lifelong Tigers fans out of those two Canadians; and if Charles has anything to with it, it’ll make a die-hard out of me yet.