BATON ROUGE — LSU led the nation in baseball attendance for the sixth straight season, according to the 2001 NCAA attendance survey released this week.
The Tigers’ 2001 home attendance of 276,622 was the second-highest total in NCAA history, trailing only the mark of 286,874 set by LSU in 2000.
LSU’s 2001 average attendance of 7,476 per game (37 games) established an NCAA mark, eclipsing the previous record of 7,355 (39 games) set by LSU in 2000.
Alabama finished No. 2 behind LSU in the 2001 attendance survey with 180,310 fans. The rest of the Top 10 included Texas (150,901), Texas A&M (147,400), South Carolina (145,616), Tulane (127,670), Miami (123,680), Fresno State (105,162), Rice (99,574) and Wichita State (96,158).
LSU’s 2002 baseball squad begins its four-week fall practice period on Saturday, Sept. 22. All intra-squad scrimmages during the fall will be open to the public.
The Tigers open the 2002 season Feb. 8 versus Birmingham Southern in Alex Box Stadium, beginning Smoke Laval‘s first season as LSU’s head coach.
Laval, a former LSU assistant and the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe from 1994-2000, takes over for legendary coach Skip Bertman, who directed the Tigers to five national championships and is now serving as LSU’s athletics director.