January 22, 2004
TO: Fans, Friends, and Supporters of LSU Athletics
FROM: Skip Bertman, LSU Athletics Director
This Week:
As we prepare for our big celebration of the football national championship this Saturday, we hope you are preparing to spend the day with the LSU Tigers.
Saturday’s celebration events will begin with the Parade of Champions in downtown Baton Rouge starting at noon. Both the LSU and Southern University football teams will participate in the parade and a ceremony at the State Capitol.
We invite you to tailgate on the LSU campus, take shuttle buses or carpool with friends to the parade, then return to Tiger Stadium for the National Championship Celebration. Parking lots, including Touchdown Village, will open at 5 p.m. on Friday for tailgating. Shuttles will run from North Stadium Drive next to Tiger Stadium to downtown Baton Rouge beginning at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
The stadium celebration begins at 3:30 p.m. and gates open at 1 p.m. Be sure to visit our tent city — Celebration Central — in the west stadium parking lot (Lot A) before the event. At Celebration Central you’ll enjoy live entertainment, food and drink, plus giveaways and the opportunity to purchase official LSU national championship merchandise.
The National Championship Celebration at Tiger Stadium will include the presentation of bowl game and championship trophies to the LSU football team, video highlights of the football season, performances by the Golden Band from Tigerland and comments from University officials, head coach Nick Saban and Tiger players.
When you come to campus, you’ll see that we’re keeping our promise to improve LSU’s athletics facilities.
Repairs to the roof of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center began late last year and should be completed by May. We hope you have enjoyed the new sound system on the concourse of the Maravich Center, and soon you’ll begin seeing other improvements to that area as we continue with Phase One of improvements to this 30 year old arena.
The renovation of the west upper deck of Tiger Stadium, a project that has been undertaken by the Tiger Athletic Foundation, began this week as contractors began driving test pilings. The renovation is scheduled for completion by the opening game of the 2005 season.
This renovation will give LSU approximately 3,200 club seats and a new press box. The TAF began pre-sales of the club seats last September and all seats were sold out by mid- October. Revenue from club seating will fund future projects for our athletics program.
Construction on the support structure will continue throughout the 2004 calendar year, but demolition of the west upper deck will not begin until at least December of 2004, meaning that seating in the stadium will not be affected for the coming football season.
A construction fence has been installed around the west side of the stadium, which will affect parking and entry to the stadium for the 2004 season. We are currently developing plans for handling the changes to parking and entry to Tiger Stadium that will result from this construction, and those plans will be communicated to you later this year.
The design of the new football operations center is nearly complete and construction on that facility should begin in the spring.
For those of you who have been coming to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for men’s and women’s basketball games, you seen some great action from two very talented teams. But there’s a lot more to come as the Tigers and Lady Tigers get into the heart of conference play in the coming weeks.
We hope you’ll follow our teams in post-season play. The Lady Tigers will play in the 2004 SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament in Nashville from March 4-7, and the men’s team will play in the 2004 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament in Atlanta from March 11-14. Tickets are available through the LSU Athletics Ticket Office at $75 for the Women’s SEC Tournament and $200 for the Men’s SEC Tournament.
Don’t forget that March Madness comes to Baton Rouge this year when LSU hosts the 2004 NCAA Women’s Basketball First and Second Rounds in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, March 20 and 22. Buy your tickets at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office or on www.LSUsports.net for $15 for adults and $10 for students college age and younger.
Congratulations to our spirit groups who represented LSU with pride in their recent national competition at Orlando, Fla. The LSU Cheerleaders finished No. 5 in the nation among college cheerleading squads and the Tiger Girls Dance Team brought home a No. 2 national finish in the “hip-hop” category.
We welcome your feedback, so write to us at LSUvision@etigers.net and tell us how we can make LSU Athletics better for you. I cannot promise a response to every letter we receive, but I can promise that each one will be read.
Thank you for your support of Tiger Athletics.