This may end up a little long winded, and nobody may care, but here goes…

As a 30-year-old basketball fan, it’s been a deflating few days that has completely shifted my priorities. While I obviously enjoyed witnessing LSU football’s national titles and the Saints Super Bowl victory, my favorite Louisiana sports moment was Garrett Temple making JJ Redick cry as we pulled off the impossible Duke upset. And though I was a student with 3 years of football season tickets including the almost-perfect 2011 season, my favorite LSU atmosphere was undoubtedly the basketball season finale blowout against Vanderbilt.

As a student, I attended every basketball game that I could between school and work even though LSU, and to a larger extent the entire SEC, was such an abysmal product it could hardly be called basketball at times. After I graduated, me and my buddy got season tickets starting the 2014-2015 season. It was hard to watch, but it was still basketball even as apathetic as Trent Johnson and Johnny Jones were on the sidelines. Our tickets were in the upper bowl, but the event staff would always ask us to move down to the lowers so the stands wouldn’t look so pathetic on TV. LSU basketball was so freaking bad that I distinctly remember a prominent former player and friend of my buddy sitting across the aisle from us, turn to us, say “I can’t watch this s*** anymore”, and exit the arena after the first media timeout in the second half of a game in Jones’ last season. Few people cared about LSU basketball and even the passionate basketball could hardly stand to watch it.

Then came the Will Wade era. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like he was a perfect coach or that he wasn’t sloppy in what he did. But, he was a darn good coach with a very promising future here that LSU was lucky to have. I strongly believe he was on track to becoming an elite coach as he had figured out how to construct elite offensive and defensive teams and was learning to balance his roster in future seasons. Beyond that, he brought a sustained energy to the program that made even the most casual family members and friends of ours actually start following and attending games. Shoot, he turned my then-fiancé into a basketball fan who could name each player on the team and knew their strengths and weaknesses

. And when I thought we would have to give our season tickets up to pay for wedding expenses, house, etc., she surprised me with ticket renewals as part of her wedding gift to me/us. Finally, we had a consistently successful and exciting basketball team to follow in this state for the first time in my lifetime. I’d gone from digging my face into my palms watching a tuba player try to be a D1 center to now being excited for how far this program could climb and what arena upgrades we would make to compete with the arena atmosphere of the big dogs.

The thing that stings is not that the Will Wade era ended, but how it ended. I’m not going to sit here and debate it because you’re not going to change my mind and I’m not going to change yours. But this is The Rant, so I’m going to rant and get it off my chest. At the end of the day, Will Wade’s biggest crime was paying teenagers to play basketball. That’s it. Everyone knows every program does this, they just do it “cleaner.” People are more upset at the method and paper trail he left than the actual crime itself. Yeah, it was stupid, but forgive me for not being very upset that he paid college athletes to play a sport – something everyone knows was happening anyway just probably from backdoor methods instead. Antiquated beliefs from the NCAA and the media have long created this negative perception about paying athletes that has conditioned public opinion to be up in arms about this, yet here we are in 2022 when what Wade did is essentially completely legal as head coaches choose who they want to pay and have companies fund the roster. If Wade stole money from some kind of foundation or something to pay players, ok yeah, I’d be mad, but he didn’t. Again, when people are more upset about the method than the crime itself, we are living in a stranger than fiction world.

I reflect on the bigger picture where the NCAA, LSU/Woodward, and media will hand out penalties and firings in the name of “upholding the integrity of the sport and university.” Is Verge Ausberry still being employed by LSU after covering up rape living up to that billing? Why has the media pushed harder on Will Wade than Gonzaga and Mark Few after he was only suspended one game for putting other peoples’ lives at danger by driving under the influence? I honestly don’t care what Bruce Pearl did, but he’s not treated the same way as Wade was despite committing penalties at two different SEC programs and spare me the “oh it was the assistant so it’s different” nonsense pretending that the way the NCAA and media spins that is ok. And Pat Forde can get away with absolutely despicable takes about how Wade is a racist coach because he cost people jobs and money by beating them in a “cheating” manner when those coaches do the same thing and ignore that Wade directly paid black athletes, gave them opportunities, and developed many of them into professionals. It took hard work from the individual athletes, but it also took Wade and his staff’s development of Skylar Mays, Javonte Smart, Trendon Watford, and Tremont Waters into NBA players. He identified and developed Tari Eason as an under the radar transfer to a potential NBA lottery pick. Very oppressive of Will Wade. Again, the guy paid teenagers to play basketball and is a devil, but covering up rape and driving under the influence of alcohol is quickly forgiven and forgotten. The punishment doesn’t match the crime.

I’m well aware that these are my opinions and you all can find faults in them one way or another, but for someone who has invested money, a lot of time, and emotion into a program for it to all come crashing down this way just will never sit right with me. These last couple of days have taught me a lot and I simply can’t bring myself to care any longer about this program. I’ve tolerated a lot of the unfair practices because basketball was a fun outlet for me, but when the realities of an inconsistent and corrupt world trickle into it, it’s no longer a fun hobby for me. It sucks because there’s a lot of memories with my wife and friends in the PMAC, and maybe we will eventually return to introduce a future kid to my favorite sport if we are still living in this state, but this is no longer for me, and my wife will probably be happier because I give the refs, opposing players, and Nate Oats more hell watching on TV than Will Wade did on the sidelines.

There are too many other blessings and memories to take hold of than to invest in this.

Thanks for attending my Ted Talk and thank you to tGeneral for the memories and creating so many new followers of a once-dead program. It was fun debating and sharing basketball experiences with you all.