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

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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.

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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.