Coach Brian Kelly has little to say about a plan endorsed by Gov. Jeff Landry to bring a live tiger onto the field Saturday before LSU’s home football game against Alabama.
When asked about the tiger at a news conference Thursday evening, Kelly simply stated, “I’m a huge tiger fan.”
LSU discontinued the practice of bringing Mike, its live tiger mascot, onto the Tiger Stadium field in 2015. This football season, Landry began pressing the institution to revive that tradition, first privately and then publicly on Oct. 1, when he stated at a news conference that LSU had “an unbelievable opportunity” to bring the mascot back into the stadium.
Around that time, two university vice presidents, John Walters and Courtney Philips, met with Landry and informed him that the LSU veterinary school would now allow Mike VII to leave his enclosure and parade past Tiger Stadium. During negotiations with Landry, two state senators who are also veterinarians, Sen. Bill Wheat, R-Ponchatoula, and Rep. Wayne McMahen, R-Springhill, also opposed the notion.
“As you would expect, it would be extremely difficult to try to move Mike out of an area he has never left,” Landry said in an interview Thursday.
So Landry decided to usher a different live tiger around Tiger Stadium. LSU will bring one to the Alabama game, according to various sources on Thursday,is from Florida.
Animal rights advocates have vehemently protested proposals to bring a tiger to the stadium. PETA issued a statement Thursday condemning the “shameful” intention to reinstate the “idiotic, archaic practice” of doing so.
“Whether the tiger is confined to campus or shipped in from elsewhere,” the spokesperson said, “no reputable facility would subject a tiger to such chaos and stress, and PETA and nearly 50,000 of its supporters have already called on Landry to let up and leave big cats alone — and are now urging LSU to grow a spine and just say no.”
Mike VI died in 2016, and Mike VII became the LSU mascot in 2017. Mike VII’s predecessors were transported to the sidelines of home games on trailers, and some even travelled to away games.
In 1935, a group of LSU employees and students launched a fundraising effort to bring a genuine tiger to campus. It was led by athletic trainer Chellis “Mike” Chambers, athletic director TP Heard, swimming pool manager and intramural swimming coach William “Hickey” Higginbotham, and LSU law student Ed Laborde.
They earned $750 by collecting 25 cents from each kid and used the money to buy a one-year-old, 200-pound tiger from the Little Rock Zoo in Arkansas. He was renamed Mike in honour of Chambers.
An LSU athletics official sent queries Thursday to a university communications officer, who did not respond to requests for comment.
The home game between No. 15 LSU and No. 11 Alabama will begin at 6:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC.
The news was initially reported on Thursday by LouisianaSports.net.
