June 5, 2003
TO: Fans, Friends, and Supporters of LSU Athletics
FROM: Skip Bertman, LSU Director of Athletics
This week:
This is the fifth in a series of “Cyber-side Chats” intended to keep you informed about your athletics program and abreast of plans for the future of Tiger Athletics.
Last weekend, you once again had reason to be proud of your athletics program.
The LSU baseball team advanced through a very competitive regional tournament to reach this weekend’s Super Regional to be held at Alex Box Stadium. I can’t express how proud I am of this team and coaching staff for their accomplishments this year under very trying circumstances, including injuries to eight players.
I’m even more proud of our Tiger baseball fans. If you were in Alex Box Stadium on Sunday afternoon, you experienced what intercollegiate athletics is really all about. It was a battle of two highly competitive and keenly motivated teams playing in a championship setting. But more importantly, the sportsmanship displayed by our fans, and the reaction of the players on the field, was a sight to behold.
Numerous UNC-Wilmington players and coaches said it was the greatest experience they had ever had in a college baseball atmosphere. I received an e-mail from the father of one UNCW player who said his son “could not believe the support before and after the games with the LSU fans. All of the UNCW family is pulling for the Tigers.”
You can be proud of your track and field teams, who participated in regional competition in Columbus, Ohio. Our women’s team won the regional meet, and our men’s team took third. In all, LSU qualified 15 individuals and four relay teams at the regional meet for the NCAA National Championships to be held in Sacramento, Calif., June 11-14.
You can also be proud of the academic successes we experienced in the last year. The Bo Campbell Auditorium in the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes was home to five classes this spring for students from across the campus, giving the athletics program another opportunity to be a major contributor to the University mission.
And let me take this opportunity to outline some of the accomplishments of our student-athletes in the classroom during the spring semester:
- 45 percent of all student-athletes had a grade point average of 3.0 or higher
- 95 student-athletes were named to the dean’s list of their respective colleges
- 25 student-athletes recorded perfect GPA’s of 4.0
- 5 sports had a team grade point average of 3.0 or higher
- Volleyball recorded the highest overall team GPA with 3.43
- Men’s Golf had the highest GPA among men’s teams with 3.12
- Men’s Basketball had the most improved GPA from the Spring of 2002 to the Spring of 2003, improving from 2.33 to 2.70
Let me close this week’s letter by repeating some information in last week’s report from Destin. We have been notified of three football games that will be televised this fall: Arizona on Saturday, September 6, at 7 p.m. Pacific time on TBS; Auburn on Saturday, October 25 at 6:45 p.m. on ESPN, and Arkansas on Friday, November 28 at 1:30 p.m. on CBS. Anything else you hear is just a rumor at this time. The South Carolina game will NOT be moved to Thursday for television.
As members of the SEC, we must participate in the television contracts negotiated by the league office. If CBS requests an LSU game from the SEC, we must oblige. We can cajole, lobby, encourage or discourage a network regarding our games, but ultimately the TV networks control the starting times of games in the SEC.
Whether we play eight games on TV or no games at all, we still share in the SEC television package. Naturally, in those years when we are projected to have one of the best teams, we will play on TV more often. In years when we weren’t so successful, we didn’t have as many games on TV. Yet we still shared in the league TV revenue.
We’re not unique in our dislike for some starting times. Some schools around the conference have traditionally played afternoon games for many years. When they are forced to move a game to a night kickoff, they howl as much as we do about moving from night to day.
Regarding JP Sports, remember that we’ve had to move only one home game in the last five years to a morning start, in part because LSU has always lobbied hard against home morning games. The rule that says a team only has to move one game per year from night to day for JP Sports is often called “the LSU rule” because LSU fought so hard for that provision in the contract.
But, in the end, LSU must participate in the SEC television package with the other 11 schools, and that means we must play in our fair share of TV games.
Next week I’ll be attending the College World Series in Omaha as a member of the Division I NCAA Baseball Committee. I’m hopeful the Tigers will be there, too. In my place next week, Senior Associate Athletics Director Dan Radakovich will write to you about football scheduling and the intricacies of that important facet of our business.
I encourage you to send your feedback to LSUvision@etigers.net. Please know that all e-mails will be read. Thank you for your continued support of Tiger Athletics.
(This letter has been sent by e-mail to every Tiger fan in our database. If you know of someone who would like to receive these updates, forward this letter or send their e-mail addresses to LSUvision@etigers.net.)