A reality check for LSU fans

LSU football fans are once again jubilant over the recent influx of top notch players committing to LSU.  Coach Les Miles is also excited promising a college championship win for the Tigers.  Too bad these same fans don’t take as much interest in the academic conditions plaguing LSU, Louisiana’s flagship university.

Not only does LSU continue to slip in national academic rankings but now it’s being reported that many of its buildings are in such disrepair that plastic sheeting has to be deployed in several to prevent water damage to their contents.  Conditions in some of the buildings even resemble those that existed in many of the inner city schools in New Orleans before Katrina.

While LSU has recently added some  new facilities at its Baton Rouge campus, it has neglected over $510 million in improvement projects to bring its older buildings up to date.  Such projects include roof replacements, air conditioning and heating unit repairs, upgrades for accessibility for the disabled, repair of crumbling ceilings and floors, mold abatement, and termite damage repairs. 

I bet if the athletic training facilities suffered from these same conditions, the public outcry would be second only to the crowd noise during an Alabama game in Death Valley.  Yet the silence concerning the deplorable conditions of some of the academic training facilities is deafening among LSU rooters.  One might expect that the LSU alumni might be able to help with some of this, but a recent survey found that LSU alumni contributors, unlike the LSU football team’s performance on the field, are dead last among the SEC schools in opening their wallets. 

LSU is the largest and oldest public campus in the state, and it has the most expensive and longest list of necessary repairs.  The media reports that the Baton Rouge campus alone has a deferred maintenance list larger than for all 12 universities under the Southern University and University of Louisiana systems combined.

All this mess occurred under the watchful eye of our present Baton Rouge legislators, many of whom are LSU alumni, and I suspect, avid LSU Tiger football fans.  For the last 8 years the state has provided no adequate funding for deferred maintenance at LSU.  If this continues it will result in the closure of some buildings which will further impact the instructional programs as is already the case due to draconian funding cuts by the Baton Rouge folks.

It’s important that as LSU Tiger fans celebrate the prospects of yet another successful football season, they look beyond LSU football and grasp what is happening academically to Louisiana’s flagship university.  The future of America as a leader in the free world rests upon its ability to be technologically superior.  The central purpose of our trade schools, junior colleges, colleges, and universities is to provide the academic scaffolding to accomplish this.  This is the true worth of LSU.  It’s not just all about football.

To all those Tiger fans whose obsession centers only on LSU being ranked number one in football polls, just remember, without a premier LSU, premier Tiger football will cease to exist.