An invitation for LSU fans to show some love to the Cajuns (albeit unrequited)

quote:

---

Don't get sucked into the hatred. Be above the fray. Crushing them on the field is the answer to any nastiness they have towards us. But in the meantime, offer a Cajun fan a beer and some food at your tailgate, congratulate them on making the Super Regional, and be a good neighbor. Being a good fan to the Cajun fans I know has served me and them some good and even converted a few.

---

Well stated, sir.

And know that not all of us Cajun fans hate LSU. I probably have the same attitude that a good number of Tiger fans have for us. If they win, congrats. If they lose, I'm indifferent. A good number of my fellow Cajun fans feel the same way.

Their women do not compare to LSU women

You do realize most fans do this already right?

Post less

quote:

---

Since I started attending LSU in the mid 90s, I have felt that we LSU fans need to try to be the better fans in the LSU v. UL pseudo feud.

---

No.

I say this as a lifelong LSU fan and USL alumnus. Maybe it's simply the big fish small pond mentality that has always permeated Lafayette (I still live here and love it btw) but there IS a difference between fan bases despite essentially being cut from the same cloth.

During my time at USL (Late 80's early 90's) I witnessed first hand how shitty USL sports fans are. They had NO interest in supporting their teams then. Despite myself being a Tiger fan, I was a sports fan in general and enjoyed attended games. You mention three games...games against huge opponents that drew people wanting to be seen. The rest? Ghost towns. Same with basketball and baseball. Some of those teams were tremendously fun to watch. Men's basketball was particular fun during the Aaron Mitchell, Kevin Mitchell, Sidney Grider days under Marty Fletcher. Grider was one of the best pure three pointer shooters I've ever seen.

And yet, some of my most locked in memories of attenidng those games was my ability to show up 30 minutes before tip-off, walk right into a nearly empty Cajun Dome, site two rows behind the opposing team's bench and hear the echos of shoes bounce off the rafters. Inevitably, the largest swell in noise would occur when the house announcer would mention scores and if LSU was losing there would be a cheer. LSU's score across the state or across the country was more important then the score in the building...to the 1500 people there.

Unless UCONN was playing the Cajuns...then packed. Gotta be seen, right?

Honestly...feel free to root for those tools all you'd like. Just keep in mind that the hard core jackasses whose biggest interest in attending those games back then to cheer loudest when an LSU score was announced are now the base fans driving the resentment to the more passive ones that have jumped on board with the rise in success. There is no core of good willed Cajun fans when it comes to LSU.

But the truth of the matter is much simpler...if it was not for the fact that I live and work in Lafayette, I'd never think about USL...just like how I no longer think about Tulane now that I don't live in the River Parishes. My interest in LSU is simply not dependent on USL...and unlike the vast majority of USL "fans" I've known over the last nearly 30 years my "fandom" is not seen through the prism of success of another program...especially one which the team I pull for almost never engages.

Let me add this bit...

In the late 90's I had a working relationship with Joey Durel. Now the outgoing City/Parish President of Lafayette but then just a business owner whose office was was upstairs at his Johnston Street Pet shop.

I happened to be in his office when word came down that the name change had gone through. The guy was almost pissing himself in excitement, and yet every other word was about LSU. He was asking if I was excited and I just shrugged and told him I didn't see why it mattered all that much. He ranted on and on about how it was all about perception...that simply changing the name would give the appearance of being larger and more successful.

I countered with..."Why not simply get better? Why not attract locals and alumni by actually working to put a better product on the field?"

The inability to do that was all LSU's fault, btw.

Then I REALLY pissed him off and told him, "Joey...I'm a USL alumnus and I can;t wait to get LSU football season tickets. I grew up an LSU fan and nothing about attending USL games while at school turned my into a Cajun fan. If anything, it turned me off. Conversations like this turned me off."

Then I was the problem...not that USL had done nothing to grab and keep me as a fan, just that I didn't blindly support sports programs that had virtually no interest in even trying to get better and fans who DID bother to attend concerned more with the program 50 miles down I-10 they basically never played than with their own.

So...I never call them by that name not because I fear that it will have the affect guys like Durel seemed to think it would...but because they admitted it was nothing but symbolism over substance. It was s shell game. It was Jon Lovitz changing his name to Brad Pitt in the hopes of sneaking into Jennifer Anniston' room...

Ok...all done.

I was at the last Bourbon Bowl and I was rooting for LSULL(?) at it.

We can do dis alllll night longggg.......

If I'm reading the OP correctly, we should just tell the NCAA that the two teams tied in the BR Super Regional and send them together as an amalgamated squad to Omaha?

Everybody get a trophy!

ULL has a chance to earn respect. May the better team win.

I have always pulled for ULL...since the USL days I have lots of friends there.

It's been getting increasingly difficult though, there is a segment of tards in their fans that are militant anti-LSU. It's old.