Inside Report for May 9, 2008

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 9, 2008 - Page: 9B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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A military man with a passion for LSU sports, Gen. Ron Richard knows he isn’t always the most popular man throughout the campus.

Richard, the Tiger Athletic Foundation CEO, acknowledged as much while recently meeting with the LSU Faculty Senate.

This moment came after one professor complained that sports officials don’t know “how the rest of us survive” in deteriorating academic facilities while sports stadiums continue to grow.

“We don’t live in a bubble. It is what it is,” Richard said. “If you want to take me on, take me on.”

Noting that sports and academics may “never mesh,” Richard said, “I realize there is somewhat of a distance between the world I deal with every day and the world you (faculty) deal with.

“We’re trying to bring those worlds closer and closer together,” he said.

But Richard, a retired U.S. Marine Corps major general, does not mince words either: “It’s important to win championships.”

Richard has helped build TAF — the private, nonprofit arm of athletics fundraising — into a powerful entity with an army of 37,000 members, which is up from fewer than 15,000 just five years ago.

“Less than one-tenth of 1 percent have given over $10,000,” he said. “It’s not a rich man’s club.”

At the end of 2007, TAF’s audit reported more than $200 million in total assets.

TAF has its hands in everything from stadium construction and campus beautification to coaching salaries and athlete scholarships.

This is all done without LSU athletics and TAF receiving state appropriations, student fees or alcohol revenue.

“I can’t wake up one morning and build the (Cox Communications) academic center … or the east side of Tiger Stadium,” Richard said. “There’s no money tree that allegedly sits outside of Tiger Stadium.”