TO: Fans, Friends, and Supporters of LSU Athletics
FROM: Skip Bertman, Athletics Director
It was another banner year for LSU Athletics as eight varsity sports finished in the nation’s top 10 and a total of 12 teams finished in the top 25. Any time teams perform at these levels, they are in contention for conference, regional and national championships, so LSU teams certainly made their mark on the national stage this year.
Special congratulations to the LSU Track & Field program for placing four teams in the nation’s top 10 and for winning several individual titles en route to a most successful year under coach Dennis Shaver.
Here are LSU’s top national finishers:
Women’s Outdoor Track & Field, No. 2
Men’s Outdoor Track & Field, No. 2
Women’s Indoor Track & Field, No. 2
Football, No. 3
Women’s Basketball, No. 4
Gymnastics, No. 7
Softball, No. 8
Men’s Indoor Track & Field, No. 10
Men’s Tennis, No. 15
Volleyball, No. 16
Women’s Swimming & Diving, No. 17
Men’s Swimming & Diving, No. 23
Our continued goal at LSU is to give our student-athletes every opportunity to compete for championships and to graduate. Having seen 60 of our student-athletes take home diplomas this spring while performing at such a high level of competition, you can be proud of the coaches and student-athletes who represent LSU.
BASEBALL AND SOFTBALL UPDATES
Construction has begun on LSU’s new baseball stadium on the corner of Nicholson Drive and Gourrier Lane and the softball stadium project is being re-bid in order to bring down the cost of the facility, with construction projected to begin in early fall. Both stadiums are scheduled to open in the spring of 2009.
FOOTBALL TICKETS
The deadline for season ticket holders to renew their football tickets for the 2007 season was May 31. Nearly 99 percent of ticket holders renewed their tickets, and the remaining tickets will be made available to the waiting list to ensure that we will sell out of season tickets once again this year.
May 31 was also the date for season ticket holders to request tickets to LSU road games in 2007. It is apparent that all of LSU’s tickets to road games will sell out this year. The only game for which tickets will be available is the Tigers’ game against Tulane in the Superdome on September 29.
We have a very unique ticket agreement with Tulane for this game. For the 10-year LSU-Tulane agreement, LSU pays a guarantee to Tulane when the Green Wave comes to Tiger Stadium. But when LSU plays at the Superdome, we receive 40,000 tickets and keep all revenue from the sale of those tickets.
Season ticket holders requested about half of LSU’s available tickets to the Tulane game, and the remainder will go on sale to the general public later this month.
Tickets for the remaining road games will be distributed based on the LSU Priority Point System. Fans who have requested road game tickets should be notified by the first week of July if they have qualified for tickets.
TIGERS ON TV
During our recent SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, network television executives clued us in the TV schedule for the 2007 football season. The networks annually announce their selections for the first three weeks of the season, and then remaining games are selected 12 days prior to each game.
LSU will open the season on national television at 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 30, at Mississippi State on ESPN. This game will receive tremendous exposure because it will be the first game of the college football season. ESPN plans 25 hours of college football coverage leading up to the game, making this contest even more significant on a national scale.
ESPN will also be on hand for our home opener against Virginia Tech on September 8. Kickoff has been moved to 8:15 p.m. The Orlando Sentinel has called this game the most intriguing non-conference game of the college football season.
Perhaps the most exciting news we heard in Destin is that CBS plans to show a national primetime game on October 6. CBS came up short of saying that this nationally televised night game will be the LSU-Florida game in Tiger Stadium, but it certainly puts us into position to be selected for this prestigious event. If chosen by CBS, this will be the first over-the-air nationally televised primetime game in Tiger Stadium since LSU played Alabama to open the 1981 season.
LSU will also play on one of the ESPN networks at a time to be announced against Tulane on September 29, and on CBS for our traditional Friday-after-Thanksgiving game against Arkansas on November 23.