- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
re: For the Old Timers. What was it like living in Tiger Stadium?
Posted on 11/15/22 at 1:59 pm to justsaygeaux2
Posted on 11/15/22 at 1:59 pm to justsaygeaux2
This thread could be 500 pages and I would read every single post. I love this.
1
Posted on 11/15/22 at 2:48 pm to BleedPurpleGold
Damn some old guys on here. My brother played football for LSU but they were redoing the athletic dorm in 85-86 maybe and he had to live in stadium with a bunch of players. He hated it but manly it was so to water pressure or heat and lack of AC i think
Posted on 11/15/22 at 3:35 pm to Run DMC
My dad was a student in the late 60s. He said it was common for guys to give their game ticket to their date, and then sneak their way in to meet her. So they would have friends drop ropes from the dorm windows and be climbing up into the stadium.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 5:29 pm to Ben Hur
quote:
My dad was a student in the late 60s. He said it was common for guys to give their game ticket to their date, and then sneak their way in to meet her. So they would have friends drop ropes from the dorm windows and be climbing up into the stadium.
Damn, really? I was a freshman in '82 and we didn't even need tickets. Just show your ID at the gate and you were good. And it was general admission so people would be camping out outside of the stadium 3 or 4 days before the game. They'd bring couches and even tents if they had dates...
Posted on 11/15/22 at 6:39 pm to TutHillTiger
quote:
Damn some old guys on here. My brother played football for LSU but they were redoing the athletic dorm in 85-86 maybe and he had to live in stadium with a bunch of players. He hated it but manly it was so to water pressure or heat and lack of AC i think
This is mostly factual. They DID have AC, however. Window units. Froze their asses out. They took over the North Stadium dorm. I don't think anyone ever used that dorm again after that summer. That is when they started converting that space to AD use.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 7:00 pm to Run DMC
Luckily I didn’t have to live there. It was a dump. Kids who lived there had to move their cars on game day so parking lot was available for visitors
Posted on 11/15/22 at 7:22 pm to justsaygeaux2
quote:
Damn, really? I was a freshman in '82 and we didn't even need tickets. Just show your ID at the gate and you were good.
Yes, but not every date was a student. Like if she went to USL, for example.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 7:59 pm to Run DMC
I moved into North Stadium 4th floor in August of 1975. A first semester freshman, I had a flimsy imitation steamer trunk with all my belongings in the back of a green Ford Pinto. Also had a box fan. Roomed with a stranger from Bogalousa. A kid from Malaysia majoring in “sugar engineering” was next door. He had stereo speakers bigger than he was, and blared “Strawberry Fields” over and over for days at a time. Game days it was like living in a bass drum but I got to look down on Mike’s habitat. Pot smoke was ubiquitous. I made a 1.5 gpa that semester.
This post was edited on 11/25/22 at 3:50 pm
Posted on 11/15/22 at 8:11 pm to Run DMC
I lived in Johnson Hall and Hatcher Hall freshman and sophmore years (65/66 & 66/67). It was hot, as all dorms were back then and rooms were on both sides of the hallways limiting air circulation. I chose to move to South Stadium Dorm in my Junior & Senior years primarily because there were rooms only on the outside edge of the stadium. Except for where the hall bathrooms were on the opposite side of the hall, there were large windows in the hallway looking underneath the S. Stadium seating. This provided great cooler draft type breezes especially if you left your dorm room door open to the hallway as well as your room window open facing South Stadium's small lawn area and parking lot. It also ended up providing quieter living conditions without dorm rooms being on the opposite side of the hallway. Rooms were pretty spartan but only 2 to a room was nice. Since I hated Hatcher cafeteria grub, having a room in S. Stad. dorm put you closer to your car parked in the S. Stad. parking lot and venturing out to Tiger Town or whereever one wanted for meals.
I went to all the home football games, so it was fun watching fans coming in for the games and having fun at their expense sometimes and I really never met anyone who stayed in their room during games to hear what the experience was like.
Overall, regardless of which dorm I lived in it was a great experience meeting, sharing, cutting up, and making friends with students of all walks of life compared to old home town life growing up where everyone was typically like yourself in economic status, school life, social life, religious life, and overall interests.
I really hated seeing So. Stadium dorms getting torned down for the S. Stadium upper deck expansion!
I went to all the home football games, so it was fun watching fans coming in for the games and having fun at their expense sometimes and I really never met anyone who stayed in their room during games to hear what the experience was like.
Overall, regardless of which dorm I lived in it was a great experience meeting, sharing, cutting up, and making friends with students of all walks of life compared to old home town life growing up where everyone was typically like yourself in economic status, school life, social life, religious life, and overall interests.
I really hated seeing So. Stadium dorms getting torned down for the S. Stadium upper deck expansion!
Posted on 11/15/22 at 8:14 pm to Run DMC
My dad lived in the stadium said everyone would go to the game in their pajamas in the late 60s.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 8:25 pm to Run DMC
Had some friends living in North stadium on the ground floor. One box fan was blowing in, the other was blowing out. Someone threw handfuls of flour into the inward blowing fan. Because they we sweating all the flour stuck to them. Looked like ghosts in the hallway.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 8:33 pm to xGODz
We went to the 1st game in our freshman year in P.J.'s, shaved heads, and an LSU beanie type cap with the following written across the folded up bill of the cap.
Dog
Your Name
It was a part of freshman ROTC initiation.
Dog
Your Name
It was a part of freshman ROTC initiation.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 8:37 pm to Run DMC
Had friends there. It was hot and sticky( most dorms were not air conditioned at the time)but we were inside the stadium every game!
Posted on 11/15/22 at 8:53 pm to swampgrizzly
Hatcher was always air conditioned, right? Hodges was a sweat pit but the cafeteria was in the luxurious AC of Hatcher...
Posted on 11/15/22 at 9:01 pm to Run DMC
I lived in South Stadium my freshman year. First off, it was hot as balls! All we had was a ceiling fan to start off with. Over time you'd collect more and more fans. You'd get used to the heat after a week or so, though. You learned how to relax to sleep and just let it flow through you.
The bathrooms/showers varied. On the first floor, there were stalls with doors for the toilets. On the second floor, there were stalls, but no doors. On the third floor, there were toilets - no stalls. You got to know everyone more than you wanted to by the end of the semester. (Nothing like taking the morning dump and asking the guy sitting next to you for the sports section of the Morning Advocate.)
By the time November rolled around, things had cooled off and the rooms started to get a bit chilly since you had to rely on Physical Plant to get things up and running to start the radiators. Once they started up, though, you regretted it within about an hour. The rooms turned into saunas because, unless you were one of the very few lucky ones, there was no way to adjust the radiator. Fortunately for me, the valve on mine would actually turn and could be adjusted. Since the heat was pouring in from the rooms on either side of me, I generally left mine in the off position.
The beds were made of 3/4" plywood bolted to the wall with a plastic mattress tossed on top of them. If you had any sense and a little bit if cash, you'd go to Sears or someplace to purchase a better bed with a real mattress.
I don't know what it was like to be in the dorms during a game since I was in the band and spent most of Saturday warming up and performing. I can tell you that Friday afternoons after classes, the tailgating started in earnest.
We generally set a keg outside Ernie's window and dressed it up with a poncho and a Mexican sombrero to disguise it. (Supposedly, no alcohol was allowed in the dorms. But, you know LSU students. It wasn't really enforced, but we made a half-hearted effort to conceal it so LSU Police wouldn't feel the need to stop by.)
By Saturday morning, the party was going strong. Beer or liquor for breakfast around eight or nine o'clock wasn't unheard of. Ernie, Frank, or Joe would start up something food-wise by ten o'clock, and by noon we were all eating well.
For night games, I'd have to dress out in uniform and head to the band hall. Wayne trombone player from New Orleans) would meet me in the lobby and we'd head over. I had learned from Frank and Ernie asking me to sneak liquor into the game for them that the inside breast pockets of the band uniforms would hold a fifth of liquor. Band never got searched going into the stadium, so I carried a bottle of Seagram's 7 for Ernie and Frank, and a fifth of Johnny Red for me and a few of my fellow trumpet players. (I think I only marched one pre-game fully sober.)
-Cont'd-
The bathrooms/showers varied. On the first floor, there were stalls with doors for the toilets. On the second floor, there were stalls, but no doors. On the third floor, there were toilets - no stalls. You got to know everyone more than you wanted to by the end of the semester. (Nothing like taking the morning dump and asking the guy sitting next to you for the sports section of the Morning Advocate.)
By the time November rolled around, things had cooled off and the rooms started to get a bit chilly since you had to rely on Physical Plant to get things up and running to start the radiators. Once they started up, though, you regretted it within about an hour. The rooms turned into saunas because, unless you were one of the very few lucky ones, there was no way to adjust the radiator. Fortunately for me, the valve on mine would actually turn and could be adjusted. Since the heat was pouring in from the rooms on either side of me, I generally left mine in the off position.
The beds were made of 3/4" plywood bolted to the wall with a plastic mattress tossed on top of them. If you had any sense and a little bit if cash, you'd go to Sears or someplace to purchase a better bed with a real mattress.
I don't know what it was like to be in the dorms during a game since I was in the band and spent most of Saturday warming up and performing. I can tell you that Friday afternoons after classes, the tailgating started in earnest.
We generally set a keg outside Ernie's window and dressed it up with a poncho and a Mexican sombrero to disguise it. (Supposedly, no alcohol was allowed in the dorms. But, you know LSU students. It wasn't really enforced, but we made a half-hearted effort to conceal it so LSU Police wouldn't feel the need to stop by.)
By Saturday morning, the party was going strong. Beer or liquor for breakfast around eight or nine o'clock wasn't unheard of. Ernie, Frank, or Joe would start up something food-wise by ten o'clock, and by noon we were all eating well.
For night games, I'd have to dress out in uniform and head to the band hall. Wayne trombone player from New Orleans) would meet me in the lobby and we'd head over. I had learned from Frank and Ernie asking me to sneak liquor into the game for them that the inside breast pockets of the band uniforms would hold a fifth of liquor. Band never got searched going into the stadium, so I carried a bottle of Seagram's 7 for Ernie and Frank, and a fifth of Johnny Red for me and a few of my fellow trumpet players. (I think I only marched one pre-game fully sober.)
-Cont'd-
This post was edited on 11/15/22 at 9:47 pm
Posted on 11/15/22 at 9:21 pm to Swamp Angel
Pt 2-
In the 80's, we weren't always certain what time kickoff would be, or if the game would even be televised. We generally liked it if we saw an ESPN semi, or Jefferson-Pilot in the parking lot. That meant it was televised and going to be a night game. But if we saw that damned CBS truck in the parking lot by West Stadium on Wednesday, we knew it was gonna be a frickin' day game. (Bastards!)
On Friday mornings before a home game, LSU Police would drive by slowly and chirp their sirens at 6:00 AM and announce over the speaker that all students would have to relocate their cars from the parking lot 7:30AM to make room for the RV's who were already lined up and ready to set up their tailgates. I complained about the RV's until I started getting fed regularly on game days by one family I had met because they wanted a photo of their kids with a "real Tiber Band member." I still hear from the Landrys every year around Christmas, despite not having seen them tailgating at a game since 1988.
Great friends were made among the denizens of "The Cave," as we called it in South Stadium. North Stadium guys called it "The Rock." Ernie (his name was actually Pat, but he laughed like Ernie from Sesame Street, so...) - Ernie was from Norco. Joe was in Air Force Reserve and was a non-traditional student. He was from New Orleans. Frank, RA on the 2nd floor, was from New Orleans as well. (Frank was the one who would share the sports section from the paper with you during your morning constitution.) Druis was next door to me on the first floor. He was the first room on the left when you came into the lobby. He was from Houma. Wayne, the trombone player, was from Nine-Mile Point/Westwego. His was the first room on the right of the lobby. Dave F., was the senior RA and was from Columbiana, Ohio. David M., was a mechanical engineering major from Ville Platte. He taught me that grape jelly on scrambled eggs in the morning wasn't actually too bad. Yeah, he had a thick Cajun accent too. Phil was from Winnfield. He was studying journalism and wanted to be a sportscaster. I was the hillbilly from Kentucky with the gawd-awful accent that nobody could understand without me repeating things four or five times. Eventually, I got earnest about learning to speak properly without that east Kentucky twang, but it's still not completely defeated even today.
The last time I was in the stadium dorms, I was visiting Ernie. He had moved to the fifth floor of North Stadium. I'm glad he liked to cook because we missed dinner that evening when one of the "unofficial-guys-somewhat-associated" with the basketball team decided to take Mike IV hostage in an effort to get his visa extended. We had first row balcony seats for the whole ordeal from our vantage point in Ernie's room. I could go on and on about that, but I figure I've written enough already. I'll save that one for another day.
I hope that added something worthwhile to all the answers you've received so far about life in the stadium. I appreciate you asking it and allowing me to relive nearly forty-year-old memories of the best days of my life. Even more - I appreciate reading all the stories from those who lived there before me.
In the 80's, we weren't always certain what time kickoff would be, or if the game would even be televised. We generally liked it if we saw an ESPN semi, or Jefferson-Pilot in the parking lot. That meant it was televised and going to be a night game. But if we saw that damned CBS truck in the parking lot by West Stadium on Wednesday, we knew it was gonna be a frickin' day game. (Bastards!)
On Friday mornings before a home game, LSU Police would drive by slowly and chirp their sirens at 6:00 AM and announce over the speaker that all students would have to relocate their cars from the parking lot 7:30AM to make room for the RV's who were already lined up and ready to set up their tailgates. I complained about the RV's until I started getting fed regularly on game days by one family I had met because they wanted a photo of their kids with a "real Tiber Band member." I still hear from the Landrys every year around Christmas, despite not having seen them tailgating at a game since 1988.
Great friends were made among the denizens of "The Cave," as we called it in South Stadium. North Stadium guys called it "The Rock." Ernie (his name was actually Pat, but he laughed like Ernie from Sesame Street, so...) - Ernie was from Norco. Joe was in Air Force Reserve and was a non-traditional student. He was from New Orleans. Frank, RA on the 2nd floor, was from New Orleans as well. (Frank was the one who would share the sports section from the paper with you during your morning constitution.) Druis was next door to me on the first floor. He was the first room on the left when you came into the lobby. He was from Houma. Wayne, the trombone player, was from Nine-Mile Point/Westwego. His was the first room on the right of the lobby. Dave F., was the senior RA and was from Columbiana, Ohio. David M., was a mechanical engineering major from Ville Platte. He taught me that grape jelly on scrambled eggs in the morning wasn't actually too bad. Yeah, he had a thick Cajun accent too. Phil was from Winnfield. He was studying journalism and wanted to be a sportscaster. I was the hillbilly from Kentucky with the gawd-awful accent that nobody could understand without me repeating things four or five times. Eventually, I got earnest about learning to speak properly without that east Kentucky twang, but it's still not completely defeated even today.
The last time I was in the stadium dorms, I was visiting Ernie. He had moved to the fifth floor of North Stadium. I'm glad he liked to cook because we missed dinner that evening when one of the "unofficial-guys-somewhat-associated" with the basketball team decided to take Mike IV hostage in an effort to get his visa extended. We had first row balcony seats for the whole ordeal from our vantage point in Ernie's room. I could go on and on about that, but I figure I've written enough already. I'll save that one for another day.
I hope that added something worthwhile to all the answers you've received so far about life in the stadium. I appreciate you asking it and allowing me to relive nearly forty-year-old memories of the best days of my life. Even more - I appreciate reading all the stories from those who lived there before me.
This post was edited on 11/16/22 at 6:23 am
Posted on 11/15/22 at 9:22 pm to Swamp Angel
Just so you youngsters know, us "old timers" walked to and from class barefoot in the snow uphill both ways.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 9:45 pm to swampgrizzly
quote:
We went to the 1st game in our freshman year in P.J.'s, shaved heads, and an LSU beanie type cap with the following written across the folded up bill of the cap.
Dog
Your Name
It was a part of freshman ROTC initiation.
You were there in the golden years when ROTC was still a required course for freshmen (and sophomores too, I believe). My dad graduated in 1954. He had stayed with ROTC all four years and was Senior Cadet Colonel his senior year. The Corps of Cadets at the time was larger than A&M had, and was tops in the 4th Army District. Dad was one of five students who were to receive a Regular Army commission rather than a Reserve commission. Unfortunately, he detached the retina in his left eye and was declared 4-F because of it.
I'd sure love to hear some of your tales of The Ole War Skule in it's Hay Day!
This post was edited on 11/15/22 at 11:02 pm
Posted on 11/15/22 at 10:04 pm to TeeRoy
In 79, before the USC game, we we were waiting in line at the student section gate, when someone in the dorm room just above the entrance unrolled a giant condom that hung from the window sill! A sign on it said “Bust the Trojans! I laughed so hard I almost pissed on myself! Guys in those dorms were admired but not envied. I was in Kirby Smith as an RA.
Posted on 11/15/22 at 10:27 pm to ShermanTxTiger
I was the 6th floor RA at Kirby Smith and I loved it!! We were friends with Pentagon and Stadium RA’s and their stories were freaking hilarious! We were pansies compared to those guys. Went to a few keg parties in the stadium but loved returning to our air conditioned rooms.
Page 6 of 7
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News