Tiger by the fail
Jeff Landry’s tiger stunt is a rare unifying move by Louisiana’s governor and a humiliation for LSU’s cowardly leaders
I’ve always considered Gov. Jeff Landry a divisive figure, but I’m forced to admit I was wrong. We must all recognize his newfound skills as a uniter.
According to an (unscientific) poll of 1,500 readers conducted by the Baton Rouge Advocate, 90 percent of LSU fans surveyed believe Landry’s stunt of importing a live tiger to LSU’s Tiger Stadium last Saturday for the Alabama game was a terrible idea.
Has Louisiana ever been so unified around an opinion? I guess you’d have found more people in Baton Rouge rooting for Alabama than for abusing a tiger to amuse Landry and his chums.
Let’s set aside, for now, the genuine and concerning question of whether Landry and LSU endangered a captive tiger on Saturday. (PETA and other experts think they did.) The abuse of the tiger named Omar Bradley is at the heart of many LSU fans’ disgust over Landry’s stunt.
There are other concerns about this episode.
Landry is not an LSU graduate. He’s never shown much interest in what happens at LSU beyond trying to force LSU to fire me in 2019.
He’s been governor for about ten months, and the only notable times he’s tried to influence policy at LSU have been:
Attacking the women’s basketball team for not appearing courtside for the national anthem.
Trying to coerce the football team to leave the locker room for the national anthem.
Trying to force LSU to start dragging the team mascot, Mike, around the field before football games.
In each case, LSU Athletics rebuffed him.
Women’s basketball Coach Kim Mulkey and LSU Athletic Department officials said no thanks. LSU football officials said the same thing. And LSU’s Veterinary School declined to produce Mike.
It has not been overlooked that Landry only seems to care about dictating to LSU Athletics and that LSU Athletics is the only entity at LSU with the power and autonomy to tell Landry to pound sand.
In response to Landry’s request about Mike, Landry didn’t exactly pound sand. But he pounded his fists loudly enough that LSU officials finally caved. Someone came up with the idea of dragging a poor tiger from Florida for the Alabama game, and LSU went along.
Landry no doubt expected this story would end differently, but it turns out that abusing a distant cousin of your team’s mascot might be an effective way to anger the football gods.
Whether because of bad karma, bad coaching, or lousy playing, the Tigers’ offense purred but never roared in their contest with the Crimson Tide. They went down in an embarrassing defeat.
If Landry had hoped to receive some credit for inspiring LSU to a big victory (has he been reading my book Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU?), he now must realize that a not-insignificant percentage of LSU fans think he was partly responsible for LSU’s humiliation.
Speaking of humiliation, the people who run LSU — from President Bill Tate to Athletic Director Scott Woodward — should be ashamed of their roles in this sorry episode.
Nobody prominent but Landry begged for Mike or any other tiger to be paraded around the stadium. That’s because most of us have grown in our understanding of what it means to abuse an animal and why we have a special responsibility to not add to the suffering of any innocent creature.
Why Tate or Woodward would want to have animal abuse on their already-checkered records is beyond me. Up to then, they had wisely declined Landry’s attempt to run the Athletic Department.
I know that running a major university these days requires a school’s leaders to humiliate themselves in countless ways. But how could Tate and Woodward not have seen that this was one area where they could rebuff Landry, have clean consciences, and be supported by the LSU fan base?
And, as we now know, it’s a fan base that has far more decency and common sense than any of them have fortitude.
LSU’s mascot may still be Mike the Tiger, but I have a suggestion for a special mascot of the LSU System Office:
I don't know whether the tiger was injured or sickened by his trip to Louisiana. What gets me is, Doesn't Jeff Landry have anything better to do than these stupid publicity stunts? Doesn't he have a state to actually govern?
It made my heart fill with pride to see the reaction of LSU students and fans if Mike the Tiger, who in my mind represents human compassion and decency.
Landry pushed so hard on this one he lost respect of whomever might have had any, along with LSU leadership.