Paul Lukas ESPN Uni-Watch - LSU Connection

Not sure how many of you know of Paul Lukas, who does a recurring thing on ESPN.com called Uni Watch (as well as now on his own website). On both sites, he discusses announcements, happenings, changes, etc. relating to uniforms, logos, team colors and nicknames, etc. I'm kind of into that, so I was aware of him.

Well, in 2009, he became aware of me. He found out (from a sportslogo board that I frequent) that I have a tradition/ritual of matching my LSU tailgate menu to the opposition, in keeping with the cheer of "eat 'em up tigers, eat 'em up". I match the grilled meats the closest or most appropriate way I can (Florida Gators = gator sausage, Bulldogs = hot dogs, Texas A&M = smoked Texas brisket, any bird team = chicken) and make a dessert using opposing team team colors (Oreo crumbles or Oreo pie crust come in handy when the opposing team has BLACK in their color scheme).

So in 2009, he got in touch with me, and said he wanted to do a story on my tailgating deal. I said sure, why not. So he flew from New York down to New Orleans, came to my house, rode with me and a friend to Baton Rouge and tailgated with our crew (and incidentally, also saw his 1st ever college football game). He turned out to be a pretty cool guy, and had a blast (Being LSU/southern Louisiana folk we showed him a good time and almost literally drank him under the table). A week or so later the story (with videos and pics) was up on ESPN.com.

Anyway, the reason I'm sharing this is because he and ESPN are splitting ways and he will focus on his own website exclusively. I'm not sure how much longer the story will remain on ESPN.com, so I figured I'd put it out there for anyone interested to see.

Link: Grilling Up The Competition

(Incidentally, my whole tailgating schtick was the Alex Trebek conversation piece when I was on Jeopardy! a few years later.)