Geaux Tigers!

The folks over in my home state of Louisiana can now return to life as it was before the college championship football game played last night between LSU and Ohio State. LSU spotted the Buckeyes 10 very fast points but came back to dominate the game winning by a score of 38 to 24. Winning this game means LSU is officially the national champion of college football for 2007 and it brings a sense of accomplishment and pride to a majority of Louisiana citizens.

I was over there visiting my folks a couple of weeks ago and I can tell you this game was on everybody's radar screen. There's something about LSU and Louisiana that makes it The School whether you went there or not. I know folks who graduated from Northwestern in Nachitoches, La., and from McNeese in Lake Charles, La., and they were just as fired up about this game as the LSU alumni. This is the way it has always been in Louisiana.

I know we received one photo card from a niece and her family for Christmas and the Santa was dressed in purple and gold LSU colors and the entire family was also wearing LSU apparel. The greeting said Merry Christmas and Geaux Tigers. Our niece graduated college in Monroe, La., and her husband who is a lawyer may have attended LSU but I'm not sure about that because it wouldn't really matter. In Louisiana people are LSU fans, period, end of story.

Therefore, today will be a good day for most of the folks in the state. I know when we moved to Texas back in 1969 I brought with me this devotion to LSU. I can remember calling in to KWKH in Shreveport to give them my predictions regarding the first ever game between Notre Dame and LSU. The signal was really weak and I had to put the radio up into the window to hear the show but I was very emphatic about my support of the Tigers.

I would suppose there's this mixture of heritage, home state pride, and a sense of identity that goes into this fervor for a sports team. I thought it was interesting last night on the first kick off the LSU player singled out for making the tackle was identified as being from Houston, Texas. I find sports affiliation to be interesting because many teams, especially professional teams, rarely are made up of natives. This is because of recruiting and all the business stuff behind it all but it does make the basic premise interesting since you have an entire city or state going wild over a team made up of folks from a variety of places.

I know we all want to be winners and it seems we can fuel some good vibes as we vicariously join ourselves to those who compete and bring home victory. I enjoy a well played game and I pay attention to some of it from time to time. But it's no longer a passion of mine even though I enjoy seeing others enjoy it and it reminds us all that we are connected even in artificial ways like support of 'our' team. Wouldn't it really be something if we exerted even a fraction of our fervor for things like sports and focused it into making a difference in areas that count for time and eternity. Just a thought! Congratulations to all those in Louisiana and elsewhere who will have a good day because their beloved Tigers are the National Champs! ...... More later.