A gift for a life-long Tiger fan

I never thought I would be posting this type of topic on TD. This is one of those things that you see happen to others, but never think will happen to your family.

My father was diagnosed on Tuesday with pancreatic cancer at 63 years old.

The man has been an LSU fan since he was old enough to remember. He fondly recalls memories of listening to games on the radio with his father when he was young.

He grew up in New Orleans and attended De La Salle before heading to LSU, where he met my mother.

He's been a huge supporter of the school, both academically and athletically. I came home from college one weekend, and found a Billy Cannon autographed jersey on his desk that the business school had sent him as a thank you for his years of giving back to the school.

After I was born in Baton Rouge, my family moved to D.C. and eventually Atlanta, where me and my two older brothers grew up. Louisiana never left my genes, and I become an LSU fan on the day they upset Arkansas in their final game of 1999 (a great time to start being a Tigers fan, to say the least!). I was twelve years old at the time.

I wanted to follow in my parents footsteps to attend LSU, but realized I would be helping my parents much more to attend UGA since I would have HOPE (similar to TOPS).

Through the jeers and snide comments at UGA, I never gave up being an LSU fan (except when they play UGA ). While I was away at UGA, me and my Dad began a tradition of checking in with each other during LSU games, especially after scores, and giving each other our expert analyses at halftime.

I'll never forget spending the entire 2nd half of the 2009 LSU-Florida game talking with him on the phone and discussing the game in real-time.

I'll never forget his uncanny ability to predict an interception, or the countless times he would say "I hope Georgia wins one half, and LSU wins the other half, but that LSU scores more points" whenever our two teams would match. I'll never forget giving him two tickets to the 2013 UGA-LSU game as a birthday gift, and him wanting me to go with him.

Give'em hell on Saturday Tigers, and give this life-long Tiger fan a much-needed respite from the suffering he's gone through over the past few days.