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Brodhead found out it’s not easy firing “one of us.”
Posted on 10/2/17 at 5:54 am
Posted on 10/2/17 at 5:54 am
Flashback to 1983 when he fired Stovall for going 0-6 in the SEC.
When the season ended on November 24, LSU's record was a miserable 4-7. For the first time in history, the Tigers had failed to win a single conference game, finishing 0-6 in the SEC.
I recommended to the Chancellor that Stovall be fired immediately and that the Athletic Department get on with its business. To my surprise, he didn't agree. Seems he'd changed his mind in the five weeks since our meeting after the Kentucky game, when he wanted Stovall's scalp.
The Chancellor's new strategy called for me to wait until December 2, the date of the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Supervisors, where I would be required to make a formal recommendation to fire Stovall.
It was a beautiful maneuver that turned what should have been an open-and-shut matter into a public debate, complete with the shredding of Bob Brodhead by the media and the powerful Stovall backers who were set to lobby the Board on the Coach's behalf.
*****************************************
As the date of the board meeting approached, there was a beehive of activity around town. Tiger Rag, the self-appointed Bible of LSU sports, published a special Pro/Con edition which, rather than presenting both sides of the issue, presented what amounted to a pro-Stovall/anti-Brodhead dissertation. I was later told that Tiger Rag publisher Steve Meyers had attended and participated in sessions held by Stovall backers to mount a "Save Jerry's Job" campaign. So much for journalistic objectivity.
**********************
The Good Old Boy Club, no doubt, had heard of Arnsparger, but its members weren't happy that he was about to become LSU's next football coach. For the first time in 30 years, the Athletic Director would have his man as coach, and that meant the perks would dry up.
***************************
Big John McKeithen, former governor of Louisiana and prominent member of the Board of Supervisors, had already stated his intention to battle my recommendation to fire Stovall. He thought the Coach had the right to finish out the "one little old year left" on his contract. That was, he reasoned, the honorable way all things in this state were done.
I found my seat in this foreign land and could almost see where the lines had been drawn. I suddenly realized that I was scared to death. I felt like little Dorothy who had dared to come in before the Wizard to ask for a new brain for the strawman football program.
I had barely uttered my final syllable when McKeithen,the Wizard, began to bellow, and I stood at the podium in respectful silence, for the duration of his forty-eight-minute rampage. Huey Long would have been proud of Big John's filibuster. He certainly didn't disappoint any of the room's 200-plus occupants who had come looking for fireworks.
He admonished me that firing Stovall could easily cost LSU tax dollars in the Louisiana Legislature at appropriation time. I wondered if he also feared that firing Stovall would cause a drop in the price of oil?
He warned me that firing Stovall could drive a wedge between the university and its alumni, resulting in the cessation of donations and support to the school.
He cautioned me that Warren Rabb, an ex-LSU quarterback standing wild-eyed at the back of the room, wanted to beat me up.
Then out of the clear blue sky, John McKeithen asked me, "Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?" Obviously, he wasn't aware of the police protection my family and I had been under for the past week and a half. Otherwise, he surely wouldn't have uttered perhsaps the most stupid statement ever uttered in a public forum.
from Sacked by Bob Brodhead, pp. 57-63.
This post was edited on 10/2/17 at 5:56 am
4
Posted on 10/2/17 at 5:57 am to timlan2057
DR Marty Broussard led the way. Thanks assholes. Broadhead was a great AD. In fact the best one LSU ever had. That's not saying much minus Bertman but Bertman didn't do the coaching search I thought he would have done to replace Saban. Broadhead brought LSU Skip Bertman, Pat Henry, the late great Sue Gunter, and Bill Arnsparger Bottom-line Bob just called it like he saw and didn't let the BOS play political frick games like they were allowed to do with Joe Dean and now Alleva.
Side note: Refresh my memory of what took place for LSU to go winless in the SEC in 83'. LSU opened up the season with a very close game but lost to Florida State. and LSU beat the crap out #9 Washington 40-14 in what at the time was the largest ever crowd in TS history. No network picked up the game. It was on Tigervision. That was my 1st game ever that I attended in Tiger stadium with the first ones in the dome vs the greenie weenies. I was 6 years old. If the same thing commences with this O cluster frick, I will write TAF to terminate my donation and instead I will send it to the LSU foundation and bump my LSU alumni membership tier so I can eat and hang out with Alex Bregman. I also bought LSU season tickets for basketball. Finally excited again for LSU hoops.
Side note: Refresh my memory of what took place for LSU to go winless in the SEC in 83'. LSU opened up the season with a very close game but lost to Florida State. and LSU beat the crap out #9 Washington 40-14 in what at the time was the largest ever crowd in TS history. No network picked up the game. It was on Tigervision. That was my 1st game ever that I attended in Tiger stadium with the first ones in the dome vs the greenie weenies. I was 6 years old. If the same thing commences with this O cluster frick, I will write TAF to terminate my donation and instead I will send it to the LSU foundation and bump my LSU alumni membership tier so I can eat and hang out with Alex Bregman. I also bought LSU season tickets for basketball. Finally excited again for LSU hoops.
This post was edited on 10/2/17 at 6:16 am
Posted on 10/2/17 at 6:15 am to timlan2057
quote:
Warren Rabb,
His Linebackers Restaurant on Essen sucked miserably. I like Warren but I didn't realize he was part of the Louisiana good ole boy shite show that got Broadhead fired. Good share. I need to get the book. My dad probably has it in his study.
Posted on 10/2/17 at 6:31 am to timlan2057
I just don't know many people that are behind O. In that article, it says a lot of alumni would be mad if Stovall was fired. I don't know of any alumni that actually wanted O, it was everyone else. Not only that, it's a different time too. I know our politicians are still dirty as hell and all that, but with the cash cow that LSU football has become, the stadium being empty for awhile will be the undoing. Well, that and the product on field.
Posted on 10/2/17 at 6:58 am to saint tiger225
Stovall also had a very yoing team that year, and had stockpiled a roster of talent through redshirting. Arnsparger used that talent to good advantage, and one thing that stands out about him as a coach was his reputation as a hardass. He didn't care whether his players (or assistants or fans) liked him or not. He ran things with a tight fist around the neck of the team and the program. And then left us with that idiot Archer and took Stevie Superior with him to UF.
Posted on 10/2/17 at 7:57 am to timlan2057
While "Master Bob" thought a lot of himself - he was actually on local radio at one point, not long before he died - he was an excellent AD. His marquis hires were Arnsparger, Gunter and Bertman.
Consider the "success" of his successor, Joe "I did okay at Converse" Dean, who hired Archer AND Hallman. He was the AD when Saban was hired, but should get no credit for this as the decision-making was taken from him when he faltered during negotiations trying to lowball (sound familiar?).
So, Dean gets "credit" for Bertman and Saban, hires he had nothing or little to do with. Those of us who know definitely point out his failings with Archer and Hallman, his policies signaled the beginning of the end of the LSU tailgating and gameday experience of old - although Skip did little to reverse that, and ultimately, he was an "inside" guy (BBall alumnus) who gets a pass from the ole boys' network because he was "one of us." Unfortunately, that's going to hurt Verge's candidacy who, while I'm not a huge fan, would be better than either Dean or Alleva, IMHO.
Unless the good ole boys' network has now taken over fully? O should have ended that for a long time.
Consider the "success" of his successor, Joe "I did okay at Converse" Dean, who hired Archer AND Hallman. He was the AD when Saban was hired, but should get no credit for this as the decision-making was taken from him when he faltered during negotiations trying to lowball (sound familiar?).
So, Dean gets "credit" for Bertman and Saban, hires he had nothing or little to do with. Those of us who know definitely point out his failings with Archer and Hallman, his policies signaled the beginning of the end of the LSU tailgating and gameday experience of old - although Skip did little to reverse that, and ultimately, he was an "inside" guy (BBall alumnus) who gets a pass from the ole boys' network because he was "one of us." Unfortunately, that's going to hurt Verge's candidacy who, while I'm not a huge fan, would be better than either Dean or Alleva, IMHO.
Unless the good ole boys' network has now taken over fully? O should have ended that for a long time.
This post was edited on 10/2/17 at 7:59 am
Posted on 10/2/17 at 8:00 am to sheek
quote:wrong warren bro......
His Linebackers Restaurant on Essen sucked miserably. I like Warren but I didn't realize he was part of the Louisiana good ole boy shite show that got Broadhead fired. Good share. I need to get the book. My dad probably has it in his study.
Posted on 10/2/17 at 8:08 am to Ace Midnight
Not much to add here. I am tired of the good ole boys network in Louisiana politics. It's a shame that Louisiana cannot be better when it comes to education. LSU should get rid of Joe Alleva and Coach O but I think they are both around for at least two more years unfortunately.
Posted on 10/21/17 at 12:10 pm to sheek
Warren Capone
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