Have you ever wondered who pens the voice of Mike the Tiger on social media? Meet Ginger Guttner.

She thinks back to that time when CBS Sports had come to town.

Was it for a football game? Yeah, probably so. It doesn't matter now, because the most important thing was what Ginger Guttner took away from that meeting.

"I learned that I have to hide until the media shows up," she said.

If she doesn't, Mike won't put on a show. And he always steals the spotlight when Guttner is around.

"So, when I was meeting CBS that day, I got to his habitat early, and he was practically tap dancing," she said. "But by the time CBS got there, he was done. He'd already laid down and gone to sleep."

CBS pleaded with her. Could she coax him back to the bars separating him from his caretakers? She tried.

"I called his name, but he just looked back over his shoulder once, then went back to sleep," she said. "He was done."

And so was CBS.

Then again, the network may not have realized that its true prize was its interview with Guttner, because there was a time when she wouldn't have met with them.

Guttner is the communications manager for the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine.

"Mike's awesome, but he doesn't have a mission, and he doesn't have an agenda," Guttner said. "I had no problem speaking on behalf of the vet school, but I wasn't Mike the Tiger, and I didn't know how he felt about things."

That was the dilemma she faced when given charge of what was then the late Mike VI's social media accounts in 2010. It was something to think about.

That is, until the day Guttner was in a hurry and asked Mike's social media followers about his stripes.

"I wasn't saying anything in first person in the beginning," she said. "I would word it like, 'Staying inside today for yard work,' but again, I wasn't saying 'I'm staying inside.' I thought no one could dispute that. It was a fact, not an opinion, because he was inside. But the first time I ever finally let go of the facts, I couldn't think what to post."

Guttner was in a hurry and frustrated over her writer's block.

"I remember thinking I just had to get this post out, and I have all these things going on," she said. "And the picture that day was him from the side, so I posted, 'Do these stripes make me look fat?'"

Well, that post broke the dam.

Mike's followers responded to his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts in droves, some with funny responses, others with fun fact questions about his weight, nutrition needs and stripes.

"I just thought, 'I don't care,' and I just did it," Guttner said. "I wish I could tell you the exact day it happened, but I didn't pay attention, and I had so much to do. So, I didn't look at Mike's social media accounts the rest of the day."

Later when she checked Mike's social media account, Mike had more comments than he'd ever had.

"It was just a silly comment, but it started an entire thread about his weight and diet," she said.

This experience gave Guttner an opportunity to talk to and educate Mike's followers about his daily care.

"It was the most interaction I'd ever had," she said.

She was in her fifth year as the Vet Med's communications manager when she noticed that someone had created a Facebook page for Mike VI.

"It was late 2009," Guttner said. "I know people think social media is the wild, wild west now, but it isn't as bad as what it was then. If you wanted to say that you were the LSU Chemistry Department and created a Facebook page for it, you could. Then you could say anything you wanted. As I recall, there were no checks on that (then)."

But an anonymously-run account for Mike VI bothered Guttner. It wasn't set up as a business but as a personal page, and this didn't seem right. After all, Mike belonged to the university, and the Vet Med was responsible for his care.

It still is.

So, Guttner began calling around the Vet Med and LSU Athletic Department. No one claimed the page. Finally, she submitted a friend request to the page, which received no response.

"Remember, this is 2009, and LSU had just hired its first social media coordinator," Guttner said. "I sent another friend request, and this time I contacted LSU Communications, where I spoke to the social media coordinator. We dug and dug and still could find no one who is claiming this (page)."

Finally, the university sent a notification to the page, asking that it be taken down. Since it had no affiliation with the school, LSU could not endorse it.

The page came down, but pages on other social media sites began popping up. It was at that moment Guttner realized the school would have to create an official presence for its live tiger mascot.

The social media manager created Mike's pages, then handed them over to Guttner.

"I was like, 'Wait, what?'" Guttner said, laughing. "What am I going to do with it?"

Well, what started out with a list of facts morphed into "Do these stripes make me look fat?" After Mike VI's death in 2016, she became the social media voice for Mike VII.

Today, he has 279,000 Facebook followers; more than 67,700 followers on Twitter, now X; and 145,000 followers on Instagram.

However, if you try to call up Mike VII's page right now, it won't be there. It was hacked, and LSU had to take it down to work out the bugs.

But his X and Instagram pages are up and running. His X handle is @mikethetiger, and his Instagram page is @mikethetiger_lsu.

Now, though Mike VII knows Guttner by sight, and even dances when she shows up at his cage, she doesn't handle all of his social media duties by herself. The vet school has two student caretakers who visit Mike's cage daily, and they take photos and videos for the posts.

Posts for Mike VI started out at five days a week and increased to seven days a week after the tiger was diagnosed with cancer. Fans wanted to keep up with his condition and treatment, and social media provided them with daily reports.

When Mike VII made his appearance in the habitat, posts went back to five days a week. Then COVID-19 hit, and fans were looking for things to do outside.

"So, we went back to seven days," Guttner said. "One reason for that was proof of life, like we did for Mike VI. We knew tigers were susceptible to this virus, so we wanted to let everyone know he was OK. The other reason was to let people who were looking for an outdoor activity know they could come see Mike. He was out, and there were barricades around his habitat to keep them at a distance. But they could still come to see him."

Back to Mike VI, Guttner developed working relationships with caretakers of the 56 other universities' live mascots while voicing his social media. The schools also sent their condolences after Mike VI was euthanized.

Some sent bouquets of silk flowers, which were repurposed for LSU Vet Med events. Others sent cards, many of which are stacked on one of her bookshelves.

The cards eventually will be donated to the LSU Archives and Special Collections in Hill Memorial Library. 

Guttner picks up one of the cards. It's from the University of Georgia's live bulldog mascot. The heartfelt compassion from each of the schools still makes her eyes misty.

For a while, she wouldn't let anyone photograph her, saying she needed to stand behind Mike's persona.

But then LSU asked her to do a TED talk as "The Tiger's Roar," and she realized she could no longer hide. The university put up a billboard along I-10 with her photo.

Though most people wouldn't recognize her as Mike's voice, it doesn't matter, because Mike knows her.

Stripes and all.