LSU Students’ Prank Proved Prophetic in 1949 Matchup vs. Tulane
21-0. Who knew?
Walter Abadie and a group of his friends did.
The LSU Tigers were coming off of a terrible 3-7 record and a humiliating 46-0 shutout by Tulane at the end of the 1948 season.
In 1949, Tulane was heavily favored in the battle for the Tiger Rag, and a week before the LSU and Tulane match-up, Abadie and a group of his friends decided to give the rivalry a whole new meaning.
“We were always pranksters, and the competition with Tulane was different than it is now,” Abadie said.
“LSU students and Tulane students used to exchange pranks. There was always something going on at the home team’s stadium prior to the game, and we thought this was a good idea.”
On a whim, Abadie and a group of his friends decided to purchase all of the ice cream salt they could find in the city of Baton Rouge. The group drove down to New Orleans to leave their mark on Tulane Stadium.
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| 1949 Senior Class Jeff Adams (87), Zollie Toth (36), Sam Lyle (83), Carrol Griffith (20), Charley Cusimano (72), Charley Pevey (23). |
“It was completely spontaneous, and our plan was very simple,” Abadie said. “We searched Baton Rouge and bought as much ice cream salt as we could find and drove down to New Orleans to the stadium.
“We had an easy entry into the stadium because it was shaped like a horseshoe, so we just walked through a gate at the open end.”
The devilish college students each had a specific job?some were to go to the field with the ice cream salt and some were to go to each of the portals with paint. On the field, they spelled out L-S-U in block letters, and a few painted LSU in the portals of the stadium. At the time, Abadie remembers, sign makers always signed their names on their creations, so the pranksters signed off on their masterpieces.
One of Abadie’s accomplices felt that leaving “LSU” in the stadium was just not enough and predicted that the score would be 21-0. The students went back to work, pouring the predicted score in ice cream salt on the field and painting it in the portals.
As the group completed their task, unassuming Tulane students were purchasing their tickets for the game at the ticket office that was located at the closed end of the stadium.
When the mission was complete, the friends delightfully drove around downtown New Orleans, only to be stopped by a policeman.
“Ironically, when we were driving down St. Charles Avenue, a police officer stopped us because he noticed all of the paint in the car,” said Abadie. “He didn’t question us though, and we went back to Baton Rouge without getting caught.”
The prank was soon discovered, and Tulane retaliated by painting “46-0” in various spots on LSU’s campus, calling to mind the shameful score from the previous season.
The heat was now on the Bayou Bengals to bring home a victory.
The Tigers took the field that November night in front of a then SEC-record crowd of 79,292. Safety Ken Konz returned a punt 92 yards in the first minutes of the game. It was over for Tulane after that, and the Green Wave never got in the game. Six players known as the “Cinderella” seniors led the Tigers to a win that brought the team to the program’s fourth Sugar Bowl appearance.
And the final score? 21-0.
“We felt like we accomplished something,” Abadie reminisced. “We were rather elated by the success of our prank and the victory.”