Joseph Schiefelbein for Jan. 31, 2009

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jan 31, 2009 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:30 a.m.

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As LSU celebrates the program’s 100th anniversary all weekend, take note that a significant portion of that tale walks the sideline when the Tigers play Arkansas today.

There, you’ll find Trent Johnson, the first permanent black head coach in any men’s sport in LSU’s history.

Johnson can be reluctant to discuss the subject, and that’s fair enough. Some of that is his nature, always preferring a focus on his team. Some of that is just the natural difficulty of a rock asked to comment about the ripples flowing from impact.

“It’s something we on the outside recognize,” former LSU star forward Rudy Macklin said. “There’s a historical significance for the school itself. … This shows how far LSU, the administration, has come.”

Johnson, who at first throws up the shield of “it’s not about me,” is nonetheless aware of the significance.

“It does make me feel good in a little corner of my little heart in that (the players) feel good about that significant part of it,” Johnson said. “But it’s a different era, a different time. The reason I’m able to coach here is because a lot of other people who paved the way.”

On Johnson’s team is an eloquent senior guard in Garrett Temple, who stands as witness to the program’s two most important groundbreakers in this realm.

Temple’s father is Collis Temple Jr., the first black player to play basketball at LSU, from 1971-74.

Garrett knows his dad “went through a lot of stuff” — like name-calling and death threats — at LSU just as much as at road games. That kind of reality is “stuff” Garrett never has to endure as he plays in a world that would have been only a dream all those years ago.

“He did a lot,” said Temple, who already graduated in business administration in May. “For his father to be denied the opportunity to come to school at LSU and then send his sons here. …

“He was real strong. He paved the way for me and these guys to come and play, and the people before us. … I’m just soaking it all up. I’m blessed to have a father like that and lucky enough to play under coach Johnson.”

And so Collis Temple Jr. cried as he sat in the audience when Johnson was introduced on campus at LSU.

“It was a tremendous moment for me to see things, inside of 40 years, to go so far as they relate to racial issues,” Temple Jr. said.