NOLA "Les Miles's experience w/ Hurricane Katrina forged a bond w/ Louisiana"

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"He may be an Ohioan by way of Michigan, but he's a Louisianan at heart now," former LSU running back Justin Vincent, a member of the 2005 team. "He understands our culture and how people here love LSU and Louisiana. I think the Katrina (experience) had a lot to do with that."

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It was a profile in courage," then-LSU athletic director Skip Bertman said. "I can't emphasize enough, everything we asked of Les he did. He never said, 'But what about the game?' As he always does, he put the kids first and family first. "He did a wonderful job not just coaching the team but pulling them through this mother of all distractions. No coach in the history of college football has gone through this and could do it better than Les Miles handled it."

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I walked into the (PMAC) and saw doctors and nurses, our players and coaches with volunteer badges just busting it to do what they could," Miles said. "I remember one girl had a severed Achilles tendon because something had hit her underwater. Families were connecting. It was the first time I met Big Baby (LSU basketball player Glen Davis). He was holding up an IV bottle. It was special."

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"I think the strength of the state of Louisiana was never more evident than in how it handled that storm," he said. "I've always been that guy from Michigan, but when that happened, I enjoyed saying, 'I'm from Louisiana,' and I always will be."

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