In 1998, at 12, I wrote a letter to the Advocate defending Gerry Dinardo. ARTICLE FOUND

I'll never forget how excited I was to have made the paper. Letter to the Editor. Obviously, I just loved LSU. My premise was likely nonsense. But I was piss and vinegar at 12 and damn if I wasn't going to defend the coach. As if my voice was needed. They didn't ask your age.

In those days they published your address. Maybe also phone number.

Sam Nader reached out, thanked me and offered a tour if I was ever available to stop by and visit. Very nice thought though I never took him up on it.

I also got a handful of old school hate mail and voicemails.

My favorite was 12 year old me receiving a letter and reading out loud to the family that said "F*ck you dumbass bitch. You know nothing." scribbled on notebook paper. No name signed. Mom about had a coronary right there in the kitchen.

How mad do you have to be to mail a letter yelling at someone.

One guy left a VM threatening to fight me. 12 yr old me.

My dad forbid me from ever writing to the Advocate or anywhere ever again

Hopefully the Advocate no longer publishes addresses.

That day I learned I may not be right but some of yall out there are legit ridiculous.

*Update* Apparently I wrote it in 1999. Terrible all around.

Found the article. Oh its a beaut:


It's time for some housecleaning in Baton Rouge and around Louisiana concerning LSU football. It is usually called "spring cleaning," but in this case it's "fall cleaning."For some reason the last two years I have been hearing an ungrateful cry from so-called LSU fans. It goes something like this: "Them Tigers ain't no good, just like the Saints always losing. They need to fire all those coaches over at LSU and get some new ones. Especially coach Gerry DiNardo and that defensive coordinator LouTepper. They should have been out of here last year."These were the same LSU fans who were tearing down the goalpost at the Florida game two years ago. By the way, these are the same fans who were always talking about LSU saying, "How 'bout them Tigers?" Now you cannot hear one positive comment about LSU football. They are all negative right now, and I am sick and tired of it. People like that disgrace football as a whole. When their team starts losing, it seems that all the support goes away; and thenall of a sudden, the support reappears when they start winning. This happens with just about all teams, not just LSU.

Also, let me inform you on DiNardo and Tepper. DiNardo is trying all that he can to get LSU back on the right track. I give him all of my support in trying to rebuild this team from losing most of its important players to graduation. Concerning Lou Tepper, I believe that he can turn this defense around for LSU in three years, as he said.

Their defense has already improved vastly this year from a year ago. Give the man some credit. But I can feel it coming on, just as in the past. As usual, the people at LSU will not give them a chance. Four years and it's the boot. But if they do get a chance over the next year or two their skills in coaching will emerge as the new players who are coming in get used to the offense and/or defense.

They will emerge again into an SEC power. But when they do the so-called LSU fans will be jumping up and hollering saying, "Go LSU" and all the rest of the phrases. I guess they are just off-and-on fans. As I have said all this for one thing, maybe it's not the lack of talent or the coach's problem that is "killing" the team. Maybe it's the fans' attitude that is.