Students wearing purple and gold dash across campus to their next classes. Stuffed tiger tails hang from car antennas; dusty, beat-up cars that barely hit 45 miles per hour nevertheless feature license plates carefully framed with shiny chrome tiger stripes. Freshman girls wear shorts with “LSU” emblazoned across their bums, and frat boys gather to watch the “big game” and hold belching contests. Tiger spirit permeates the campus. There’s just one teensy technicality. This isn’t LSU.
Our fictional university could be one of many, because regardless of whether those students are officially Colonels, Ragin’ Cajuns, or nuns training in a convent, they live in Louisiana and are therefore LSU Tiger fanatics. Tiger fever is one of the many requirements for living in our state; it falls somewhere between clogged arteries and not finishing one’s words when speaking. Not cheering for LSU would be like not eating king cake. You just can’t live like that. In football and baseball, the Tigers are Louisiana’s foremost college teams.
Yet it’s concerning to see some college students shunning their own alma maters to support another one. For example, let’s consider Nicholls, which is right here in the Terrebonne-Lafourche area. Many of its academics are arguably better than those at LSU. The university boasts the best nursing program in the state, and its professors treat the students like people rather than mere numbers. My brother’s friends transferred to LSU to finish their degrees; after a year there, both said they wish they could have brought their professors along with them to Baton Rouge. But academics don’t sell foam hands and beer kegs. Sports do. LSU features a fantastic athletics program and represents our state on the national level. It’s no wonder everyone cheers for them.
It’s also possible that Nicholls students wear more Tiger threads on their own campus than Colonel clothes. That’s where I take issue. I confess I’m an LSU fan, but I’m also proud to be a Colonel. I’m not going to wear another university’s colors on the Nicholls campus; imagine wearing a Crimson Tide t-shirt all day at LSU. However, I concede it is difficult to find decent Nicholls gear. Part of the deficiency can be attributed to marketing: a tiger is easier to sell than a soldier who vaguely resembles Soviet-era propaganda. Local stores don’t carry much NSU paraphernalia because it doesn’t fly off shelves like LSU merchandise. Tigers are cute, dangerous, and colorful; the NSU mascot is a gray corpse. Do you ever see parents dressing their children as Joseph Stalin for Halloween? Of course the university offers an alternative: a nondescript letter “N.” The athletics division is apparently sponsored by Sesame Street.
Regardless of state sports camaraderie, university marketing, or fashion choices, are any of these legitimate reasons for students to identify themselves with a university other than their own? Where is their sense of school spirit? There’s no reason for students at Nicholls, UL, UNO, or other colleges to pretend they’re Tigers. Rooting for LSU sports is one thing, but refusing to display pride for one’s own alma mater is beyond ridiculous: it’s disgusting. Our local mall should have just as many Nicholls shirts parading through Chick-fil-A as LSU football tees.
By all means, we should cheer LSU through its football season, yet we should also cheer our local universities and support the schools that are actually in our communities. You can indeed have your cake and eat it too; or in the case of Nicholls, have your Tigers and your colonel/letter “N.” Just show some school spirit.
©2011 Timothy Samaha. First published in PoV Magazine.
