re: Will Wade’s Relationship with the Students

This is from an article written before his first season at LSU.

quote:

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There to greet him is administrative assistant Brittany Carvalhido, the first visitor of the morning. She and Wade begin finalizing his fall speaking schedule, which has been almost presidential in its nature since his hire in the spring. Wade hasn’t turned down many speaking opportunities, if any. Fraternities, sororities, men’s clubs, alumni events, sports administration classes, work safety programs: all, and more, have been stops on his one-man offseason tour to promote a program in dire need of promotion.

But November is around the corner, and Wade’s schedule is congested with practices, film sessions, workouts, recruiting, and other program-building tasks, leaving less time for public appearances. He’s going to have to start saying no, he knows. “You’ve still got a lot of people who want to hear you,” Carvalhido says. “Just wait’ll we lose a couple games,” Wade cracks back.

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He was begging any and everyone to show up for that first season. The next year they win the SEC and received the highest (or lowest depending on how you want to classify it) seed in the NCAAT in nearly 40 years

This year the students got t shirts before the Miss. St. game. They got Geaux reward bonus points for attending the Florida game. They were given sausage biscuits before the Ole Miss game. The ones of age (and I'm sure many that aren't) are able to buy beer at the games for the first time EVER. Other than paying the students to show up to the games I'm not quite sure what the HC/AD can do to get them there.