BLUEBENGAL
Senior Member
http://www.theadvocate.com/sports/schiefelbein.asp?StoryID=18986
Joe Schiefelbein
JAG has bold plans for SU
How about this? If LSU and the Tiger Athletic Foundation have bold plans to build, re-build and renovate almost every athletic facility anyway, how about there be a campus swap?
Southern can badly use the first-class facilities already at LSU. And because LSU plays the high-stakes game of one-upsmanship with Florida and Notre Dame and Tennessee and that ilk, the Tigers are always, justifiably, eyeing ways to build anew and get the best.
So why not start from scratch instead of foregoing Alex Box Stadium, good enough for five NCAA baseball titles, and Bernie Moore Stadium, good enough for this year's NCAA Outdoors Track and Field Championships?
That's not going to happen, though. The Southsiders love their Indian Mounds and hulking, historic Tiger Stadium and rightly so. The Northsiders crave the view from the Bluff and the stadium named for the legendary A.W. Mumford and justly so.
What needs to happen at Southern and what's starting to happen, though, is for a small group to share some of the ideas that have helped make LSU so successful, tapping into an extensive fanbase like the TAF does.
Enter the Jaguar Athletic Group.
The grass-roots effort is being undertaken to change the grass roots. Literally and figuratively.
Literally, in that the JAG's first project is the renovation of A.W. Mumford Stadium's field.
Figuratively, in that JAG President/CEO Henry Thurman III and Co. are bending ears, getting the word out about the need for fans to join their organization, at memberships starting at $50, and also fund support projects like the "Field Keepers," with tax-deductible donations of $100.
"The biggest process we need to do is education," Thurman said. "We need to learn how to give. Going to a football game is good. But we need that extra dollar or extra three dollars."
The plan is to have the Field Keepers project, with a pricetag nearing $600,000, begin May 11 and finish by early July so the grass can take by the the home opener in mid-September.
The money for the improvement and the group is not going to come solely from Thurman or the JAG's 10-person board. Though Thurman has the fancy Roman numerals with his name, he's not a blue-blood tycoon like Ben Hill Griffin, Florida's No. 1 donor.
He and all the JAG members are just everyday fans. What he and all at Southern are counting on is the numbers generated by all the other everyday fans in the Jaguar Nation.
"Do us a favor: Let your friends know," Southern Chancellor Edward Jackson said. "We believe in it. We know it's good for the university.
"If you care about Southern, this is an opportunity to walk the walk and do it in a way that will not cripple you financially. We've got to pull our strength in numbers."
The existence of the JAG doesn't take the administration off the hook in terms of twisting arms and finding ways to finance projects like the baseball stadium and a second tier to the East side of Mumford Stadium. The athletic department still has to elicit better, stronger corporate support.
But the fans and the alumni and the ex-players have got to help with their money, not just their gripes. That's what first-class programs require these days: fans who give.
All of the athletes, from Michael Hayes to Tremesha Colbert to the visiting schools, deserve the best facilities for them to achieve their best. They shouldn't have to play on muddy fields or rickety gym floors.
"People can't believe we have so huge a fanbase and so less of facilities," Southern football coach Pete Richardson said. "It's tough to recruit. Recruits don't understand what we're coming from. All they know is what's there.
"Our fans are second to none. They'll go anyhwere and do anything. We've got T-shirts, shoes, hats. Somebody's even got a record about the Jaguar Nation. ... The fans have to step forward to show the interest besides just the fanfare of the loyalty to the university."
Richardson recently lost offensive coordinator Mark Orlando, who had been on his staff for nine seasons, to conference foe Texas Southern, with nowhere near Southern's fanbase. One of his main reasons to leave? Facilities. Southern's offense meets in the men's basketball team's locker room, which is no deluxe clubhouse. The Jaguars dress in the F.G. Clark Activity Center and then cross a parking lot and two practice fields to get to Mumford Stadium for games.
"We've got the premier athletic program for black colleges right here," JAG President Elect Donald Shelmire said. "But when you look at the facilities, we're nowhere close.
"We go all over the country with our team. Now, it's time to show the money in Baton Rouge."
Joe Schiefelbein
JAG has bold plans for SU
How about this? If LSU and the Tiger Athletic Foundation have bold plans to build, re-build and renovate almost every athletic facility anyway, how about there be a campus swap?
Southern can badly use the first-class facilities already at LSU. And because LSU plays the high-stakes game of one-upsmanship with Florida and Notre Dame and Tennessee and that ilk, the Tigers are always, justifiably, eyeing ways to build anew and get the best.
So why not start from scratch instead of foregoing Alex Box Stadium, good enough for five NCAA baseball titles, and Bernie Moore Stadium, good enough for this year's NCAA Outdoors Track and Field Championships?
That's not going to happen, though. The Southsiders love their Indian Mounds and hulking, historic Tiger Stadium and rightly so. The Northsiders crave the view from the Bluff and the stadium named for the legendary A.W. Mumford and justly so.
What needs to happen at Southern and what's starting to happen, though, is for a small group to share some of the ideas that have helped make LSU so successful, tapping into an extensive fanbase like the TAF does.
Enter the Jaguar Athletic Group.
The grass-roots effort is being undertaken to change the grass roots. Literally and figuratively.
Literally, in that the JAG's first project is the renovation of A.W. Mumford Stadium's field.
Figuratively, in that JAG President/CEO Henry Thurman III and Co. are bending ears, getting the word out about the need for fans to join their organization, at memberships starting at $50, and also fund support projects like the "Field Keepers," with tax-deductible donations of $100.
"The biggest process we need to do is education," Thurman said. "We need to learn how to give. Going to a football game is good. But we need that extra dollar or extra three dollars."
The plan is to have the Field Keepers project, with a pricetag nearing $600,000, begin May 11 and finish by early July so the grass can take by the the home opener in mid-September.
The money for the improvement and the group is not going to come solely from Thurman or the JAG's 10-person board. Though Thurman has the fancy Roman numerals with his name, he's not a blue-blood tycoon like Ben Hill Griffin, Florida's No. 1 donor.
He and all the JAG members are just everyday fans. What he and all at Southern are counting on is the numbers generated by all the other everyday fans in the Jaguar Nation.
"Do us a favor: Let your friends know," Southern Chancellor Edward Jackson said. "We believe in it. We know it's good for the university.
"If you care about Southern, this is an opportunity to walk the walk and do it in a way that will not cripple you financially. We've got to pull our strength in numbers."
The existence of the JAG doesn't take the administration off the hook in terms of twisting arms and finding ways to finance projects like the baseball stadium and a second tier to the East side of Mumford Stadium. The athletic department still has to elicit better, stronger corporate support.
But the fans and the alumni and the ex-players have got to help with their money, not just their gripes. That's what first-class programs require these days: fans who give.
All of the athletes, from Michael Hayes to Tremesha Colbert to the visiting schools, deserve the best facilities for them to achieve their best. They shouldn't have to play on muddy fields or rickety gym floors.
"People can't believe we have so huge a fanbase and so less of facilities," Southern football coach Pete Richardson said. "It's tough to recruit. Recruits don't understand what we're coming from. All they know is what's there.
"Our fans are second to none. They'll go anyhwere and do anything. We've got T-shirts, shoes, hats. Somebody's even got a record about the Jaguar Nation. ... The fans have to step forward to show the interest besides just the fanfare of the loyalty to the university."
Richardson recently lost offensive coordinator Mark Orlando, who had been on his staff for nine seasons, to conference foe Texas Southern, with nowhere near Southern's fanbase. One of his main reasons to leave? Facilities. Southern's offense meets in the men's basketball team's locker room, which is no deluxe clubhouse. The Jaguars dress in the F.G. Clark Activity Center and then cross a parking lot and two practice fields to get to Mumford Stadium for games.
"We've got the premier athletic program for black colleges right here," JAG President Elect Donald Shelmire said. "But when you look at the facilities, we're nowhere close.
"We go all over the country with our team. Now, it's time to show the money in Baton Rouge."
