LSU announced Wednesday that it will not change its pregame routine to have its teams be on the field/court/playing surface, contrary to a request/edict/demand from Gov. Jeff Landry earlier this year.
An act of defiance by LSU? Or an exercise in soft power?
Knowing what a politically savvy operator LSU athletic director Scott Woodward is, I opt to call it the latter. I suspect there have been talks behind the scenes with the Landry administration about this very issue.
I could be proven wrong by the governor, who has been known to up the political ante for no reasons other than his own desires. But I suspect Landry has figured that out since he criticized LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey and her program for not taking the court for the national anthem during the NCAA tournament (the team has an in-locker room pregame prayer instead) that this issue was a losing proposition. Again, I could be proven wrong, but I suspect he will let it quietly fade away.
Would I prefer that teams be on the court or field for the national anthem? In a perfect world, I would say yes. But is it worth changing LSU football’s decades-old pregame routine of the band playing “Hold that Tiger,” then the anthem, then forming a “tunnel” for the team to run through onto the field in Tiger Stadium? No. Not if Army, of all teams, chose to come out of its locker room when it played at LSU last year after the Tigers did, again well after the national anthem was played. If Army’s football team wasn’t at attention during the anthem, then it’s pretty much a non-issue, isn’t it?
That said, Landry should still apologize to Mulkey for putting her through what he did this spring. The entire episode bothered her deeply. You don’t have to be a Kim Mulkey or LSU fan, but you have to recognize what an important figure she is in her sport, in this state, and how much she has done for LSU in the three short years she has been here.
I don’t think that will happen, either. Again, I believe this whole issue will be allowed to fade into the night, just like the last note of the national anthem when it is played by the LSU band next Saturday before kickoff of the Tigers’ home opener against Nicholls State.