I walked into TIGER STADIUM forty-seven years ago!

I don’t think I will ever forget that afternoon! I was a sophomore in a High School that did not have a football team. I had never seen a football game. It was not something found on TV every weekend like it is today. Not back in 1953!

I had become interested in LSU Football because my dad listened to the games on the radio. But I remember how frustrating it was to him and to me as he tried to verbally give me a visual picture of a football game. Imagine, if you will, trying to explain what you mean by “gridiron” to someone who knows nothing about football! I understood the grid part, but to this day, I’m not sure I understand gridiron?

My dad must have decided my education was lacking because he soon bought tickets to an LSU game! The family was loaded into our car and we drove the 25 miles to Tiger Stadium. I believe at that time all games were played in the afternoon, as they did not have sufficient lighting in the stadium for night games.

We were soon ensconced in football game traffic and wound our way to one of the parking lots near TIGER STADIUM. Now I had seen the Stadium from the outside previously because we had visited the LSU campus several times including for my Mother’s graduation from the College of Education earlier that year. And, of course, I had visited "Mike" the Tiger, located in his cage, near the Football Stadium.

But nothing I had experienced before prepared me for the awe and thrill of entering TIGER STADIUM for the first time. I don’t even remember who LSU played that particular day, but I do remember that they won. I also remember they scored a touchdown right in front of our seats, which were located in the north end of the stadium. It was so thrilling to me. I probably acted like a country girl who had never been to town before, but I was lapping up this new experience like a stray puppy taking a free hand-out. I loved it!

We went to several more games that year and the next also. Then the following year, when I was a Senior, my school added football to their athletic program. So I was able to learn more about the game of football.

A few years later I would be back in TIGER STADIUM with my husband. At first I was working there, at LSU, then I became a student, and we bought season tickets. We went to several of the home games and listened to others on the radio. We had young children at this time. This was between 1958 and 1966. We were listening to the radio when Billy Cannon made his famous Halloween run! My Uncle and aunt were attending that particular game. They agreed that the ground shook from the force of the yells which erupted in TIGER STADIUM! Supposedly it registered on the seismograph in the Geology Department at LSU.

I was back in Tiger Stadium again in 70’s when the company he worked for at the time provided my husband with season tickets. We, accompanied by out two teen-aged sons, attended every home game for three or four years! We added our voices to turn TIGER STADIUM into DEAF VALLEY or DEATH VALLEY!

Since 1980 I have not been inside TIGER STADIUM, but I still thrill at the thought of being there when I hear the Tiger Band strike up the LSU fight song!

GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!!!!

I posted a similar article(I own the copyright to that article.) on Themestream Oct.20,2000.




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