re: For the Old Timers. What was it like living in Tiger Stadium?

I stayed in the west stadium dorms 70-71. Never got ANY studying done. I was in a room with 2 bunk beds for 4 total people. After the first semester I had the room all to myself because everyone else had either flunked out or quit. Still could never study in there for all the crazy stuff that went on. Always had to go to the library if I wanted to study. One of the craziest things was guys would squirt lighter fluid under your closed door and set it on fire. I swear I’m not making this up. There were hardly any tiles on the floor so it was mainly scorched concrete. My section had water fountains with ice cold water which was great except you could never shower in the communal showers without unflinching vigilance because a favorite thing to do was to dump this this ice cold on someone in the shower. Man that was painful. Our dorm monitor was a grad student who was a nice enough guy but didn’t really seem to be too interested in maintaining order. Which was kind of “mission impossible” anyway. Great memories notwithstanding all the chaos and met a lot of “characters” including David Duke who came calling in my dorm room but in plain clothes not in his Nazi uniform that he sometimes wore on campus. He was visiting dorm rooms recruiting people to his cause, I guess. Game days were always great because I could look out the windows (my room was on the 3rd floor) and observe all the people congregating before the game without being noticed myself. I didn’t care if I got to the game too early because in those days all the frat boys got to the best seats early and if you tried to sit in their section they would have their “enforcers” literally toss you out of your seat. Anyway, all in all, was a very educational experience in human nature.

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How was the food

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I lived in Hodges in '85, pre-east side upper deck of course. Third floor. Our window overlooked the walkway between us and the Journalism building. Basically all of the commuter students who parked in front of the stadium walked under our window. We would scream out of the window at the 7am class people to go back to fricking bed. All-time record for getting the finger in return was 17 on a witch's tit ice cold random Wednesday. We would keep count on the concrete wall of the dorm room with a permanent marker. We had to repaint the wall when we moved out to get our deposit back. Also, its weird to think about it now, but the hill behind the Journalism building which is packed for the band coming down the hill these days was just a large wooded area with no access. The back of the actual building wasn't even visible. The band coming down the hill wasn't even a thing then and the players would just walk in small groups at random intervels from Broussard to the stadium

Every night we played pickup basketball in the field house or pickup football on the turf at Bernie Moore. There was also an ancient basketball hoop next to Tiger Stadium right outside the KLSU DJ booth. They had a barely average looking chick DJ doing the overnight broadcast and a buddy of mine had a thing for her. One night he got drunk, stripped naked and shot free throws while waving at her. She apparently lost it on the air laughing and they ended up going out a few times.

There was also a small bodega type store and a coin laundry inside the stadium at that same area. The guys name was Habib so we called it the Habib Shop. To this day, if I meet any of my old friends before a game, we always meet outside the Habib Shop.

During football season, the visiting teams equipment truck would usually roll in late on Thursday night and park right there against the stadium. The Florida one was basically just a large painted Ryder truck. Walking back after the bars closed that night, we opened the drivers side door with a coat hanger with the idea of hot wiring it but had no idea what the frick we were doing. We had grand plans to drive it to the french quarter. We left a dozen empty beer cans in the cab before relocking it.

But I digress. Like the Stadium dorms, our dining hall was in the basement of Hatcher. Nothing like today, it was straight up high school cafeteria food. The breakfasts were on par with a Denny's and was by far the best meal of the day. They did occasionally make gumbo and it was actually better than average and the homemade rolls were killer. Burgers were the safe bet and were somewhere between a stadium concession stand and Wendys. a friend of mine had a student job as a janitor there. He worked close to 80 hours a week the week before the semester and first week of classes then quit. He made the entire two weeks of pay last the entire semester. If I remember it was like $400 and he blew half of it the first week of school at Sports Illustrated and still had a few bucks left at the end.

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KLSU

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Habib Shop

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Oh man does that bring back memories (WPRG before we changed the call letters around 1984). To the OP: at the time 103 East Stadium was just a cramped place where LSU had stuffed the revived radio station, and also for a time was where the production offices of the Reveille were located down the hall. Even with an occasionally-working AC, the facilities were... challenging.

Did we find ways to sneak into the stadium? I cannot comment on that correct statement, but I can say that our audio cable that ran from the studios up to the press box lasted far-longer than I expected.

Roach’s everywhere! No air conditioning
Very rough living…

My dad lived in the dorms in Tiger Stadium. I have a pic of his room - pretty cool.

When my brother was at LSU he was in Shaq’s old room. Mom had to sew sheets together to fit the bed. He said one day there was a knock at the door and it was Shaq himself.

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SU had stuffed the revived radio station, and also for a time was where the production offices of the Reveille were located down the hall. Even with an occasionally-working AC, the facilities were... challenging.

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I was working as a student photographer in media relations at that time. There was a small dungeon type room off the NE stadium entrance dedicated to photographers. It had a small darkroom and a telex machine to send photos immediately out over the wire. The famous sports photographer Walter Iooss was shooting a game one night, gets his shot, rushes in and sends out his photo. As we walk out of the room together, Annie Liebowitz (another famous photographer) is standing there with a large format Hasselblad. She was along for the ride with him and had been taking stills of the stadium architecture. I would kill to see those slides.

Speaking of the Reveille in 1985, my best friend was selling advertising for them. It was commission sales and he absolutely killed it selling the page ads to the bars for their Thursday and Friday editions.

So, one of his accounts was the Texas Club on N. Donmoor. He convinces me to go over there to collect a check/drop off ad copy on a Wednesday which was their male stripper night. We go in as the show is starting and for two hours it is no dudes allowed. The manager is cool and laughs and tells us we can hang out at the bar. We are a couple of 18 year old freshman college kids and for the next two hours we were fish in a barrel. We were brutally hit on for two hours by all of these "ancient chicks" who were in their mid 30's. At one point we had a dozen free drinks in front of us. If I only knew then what I know now... An all time night that we still talk about.

My dad lived there one semester in the late 80s. Said he hated it

I worked at KLSU as a volunteer dj. I remember going to a LSU Tulane game and two girls in the stadium were yelling for the defense to shut down the green wave qb..."BREAK HIS LEGS!!! BREAK HIS LEGS!!!"

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We had a concession stand run by a completely blind guy, and it had a microwave. So you could buy something and heat it up. I have no idea how he could confirm what bill you gave him but he could. You gave him a $10 bill, dude would rub it for 5 minutes before he would accept it, lol.

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There was a Mr Falcon that did the same thing downtown BTR Courthouse.

I know this, if you had speakers hanging out the dorm, this song was played every day.

LINK

Power was THE dorm outside of Broussard Hall. All the freshman frat boys lived there before they earned their stripes to live at the frat house. Tough to go to class after they played hockey in the hall all night.

And dodging broken glass on the way to the showers from broken light bulbs, lol