BATON ROUGE – LSU student-athletes kicked off the 2010-11 academic year with the Back to School Bash Sunday at the Carl Maddox Field House.
Football’s Russell Shepard and soccer’s Mo Isom emceed the event, which featured food and games.
Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Joe Alleva began the evening by welcoming everyone back to campus and reminding them that being an LSU student-athlete is both an opportunity and responsibility. General R.G. Richard, CEO of the Tiger Athletic Foundation, then introduced himself and other TAF staff members to the crowd.
“It’s nice to get everyone back together after the long summer,” Alleva said. “The point of this is for all of our student-athletes to get together with each other, because they live in their own little environments sometimes. They don’t get out and see members of other teams. This event is just to welcome everybody back and try to develop esprit de corps of all of our teams.”
After hearing from the speakers, student-athletes were broken up into teams consisting of athletes from different sports. Each team then participated in games, which included stacking apples and completing a puzzle.
“We had to pull a bunch of tissues out of the tissue box the fastest and put pieces of a puzzle together,” swimmer Brooke Barnett said. “Each team was made up of athletes from different sports, so it was a great way to get to know the athletes from other teams.”
When not participating in games, student-athletes enjoyed catching up with teammates and friends and getting to know people from other sports. Some former Tigers even attended the event to reconnect with former teammates and other student-athletes.
“It is nice to see all the teams together,” said former track student-athlete Armanti Hayes. “When school starts, we’re not together all the time because everybody has different class and practice schedules. I think this event is good to connect all of LSU’s athletes.”