Countdown to Showdown: 20 Days
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MEMORABLE MOMENTS FROM 2007
‘Mike VI takes the field’
May 18th was a heavy-hearted time in Tigertown, and not because LSU baseball was not in the field for the SEC baseball tournament for the first time in umpteen years.
Mike V died, the Bengal tiger that ruled the campus during a run of college sports glory.
There were the five baseball national championships, the march to countless NCAA track titles, to the 2003 football season’s national championship, and LSU became one of very few schools to send its basketball teams to the men’s and women’s national Final Four tournaments in the same season.
And Mike V was the first to occupy the new $3 million home built with contributions from alumni and fans.
Mike V was a 4-month-old cub when he became the campus’ living symbol in 1990. Now, he was gone and fans wondered aloud if there was going to be a Mike VI.
Veterinarian David Baker spent the summer trying to find a tiger with the right “personality” to make the jump from zoo animal to the exalted position the animal would hold at LSU.
A 2-year-old Bengal-Siberian mix was found in Indiana; a 300-pound-plus specimen that came with the promise of growing to 700 pounds, the biggest-ever Mike.
“Roscoe,” the new mascot’s given name, was on campus the week before the Tigers kicked off the season against Mississippi State. With some fanfare, he was dubbed Mike VI.
His first Tiger Stadium appearance was set for Sept. 22, the South Carolina game, but Baker feared the new mascot hadn’t made enough of an adjustment to south Louisiana climes. There was the matter of all those fans, too.
Two weeks later, minutes before LSU’s hard-won 28-24 win over Florida, Mike VI was paraded before the largest-ever Tiger Stadium crowd — 92, 910 — most of whom celebrated the win and gave the new mascot an open-arms welcome.
Vote for the most memorable moment of 2007
Advocate sportswriters have selected 20 memorable moments from LSU’s march to the BCS Championship Game, from the 45-0 win over Mississippi State through the 21-14 SEC Championship Game victory over Tennessee. This series will run through Jan. 1 when readers will be able to go to The Advocate’s Web site — http://www.2theadvocate.com — and vote on their most memorable moment of the season. The voting results will be run in Jan. 7 Advocate Sports’ BCS Game Day Special.
The list so far:
2theadvocate.com's Countdown to the Showdown Archive
BCS TRIVIA
TODAY’S QUESTION: In nine years of BCS games, which conference has the lowest winning percentage?
SUNDAY’S QUESTION: Which conference has the most BCS victories and the highest winning percentage? SEC 9-4, .692 wining percentage; The Pac-10 is second, 7-4, .636
TIGERS’ SCHEDULE
Today: Practice, graduation
Wednesday: Practice
BUCKEYES’ SCHEDULE
Today: Practice.
Wednesday: Practice.
NOTEBOOK
What’s in a mascot
Way back in the infancy of intercollegiate athletics, it was more fad than form for fans to give a nickname to their school’s team.
Ferocious animals were the rage then. Hence, tigers, bulldogs, wildcats, lions even alligators and a wild hog fit and stuck.
State universities were more prone to carry nicknames their states had picked up over the years. Hence, Sooners in Oklahoma, Jayhawks in Kansas and Buckeyes in Ohio.
LSU is the rare combination of the two.
Fighting Tigers
By the time Allen Jeardeau’s 1896 LSU football ended its season with a 6-0 record, his team had its nickname — Tigers.
A feared animal to be sure, but there was a bit of living history behind the name.
Legend has it that during the Civil War, Confederate officer Roberdeau Wheat commanded a battalion of Louisiana infantry — New Orleans Zouaves and cannoneers from Donaldsonville — and he named his unit the Louisiana Tigers.
The unit developed an unsavory reputation in the Army of Northern Virginia, but it held the line against a heavy Union attack at the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas and was a key element in 1962 in the Shenandoah Valley campaign led by Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
The legend continues: After seeing the Louisianans fight, Jackson said, “Those Louisiana men fight like tigers.”
The name stuck: In 1955, the official nickname became Fighting Tigers.
There have been six live Bengal tiger mascots — all with the name “Mike” so named, when, in 1936, the first live Bengal tiger was brought to the campus and named for LSU’s athletic trainer Mike Chambers.
Sources: LSU Football Media Guide; “Stonewall Jackson”
THE BUCKEYE
A small, shiny, dark brown nut with a light tan patch that comes from the official state tree of Ohio, the buckeye tree.
The nut looks like a whitetail deer and, as Ohio folklore has it, carrying a buckeye, the nut, brings good luck.
“Buckeyes” has been the official Ohio State nickname since 1950, but the name is steeped in oral and written history.
Records show the first use of “Buckeye” when referring to an Ohioan was in 1788, about 15 years before Ohio became a state.
Col. Ebenezer Sproat, described as a man of “large girth and swashbuckling mannerisms,” led the first court session of the Northwest Territory in Marietta.
Native Americans called him “Hetuck, Hetuck,” their word for buckeye, because, according to legend, they were impressed by his stature and manner. Sproat carried the Buckeye nickname for the rest of his life. The legend continues that the nickname spread to his companions and to other local settlers.
By the 1830s, writers commonly referred to locals as “Buckeyes.”
The school’s costumed mascot is called “Brutus Buckeye.”
Source: The Ohio State University
BREAKING DOWN THE SHOWDOWN
Weakside linebacker
6-1, 223, Sr.
Miami
Second team AP All-America … First team All-SEC … CBSsportsline.com All-America … three-year starter … All SEC second team in 2006 … second in tackles (86) this season … three 2007 games with 10 or more tackles: South Carolina (10), Auburn (11), Arkansas (19) … started 37 games in career … played in 12 games, started 2 in true freshman season.
“It’s a determination to go out there and just take over the game and give your offense the most opportunities.”
-- Ali Highsmith
MARCUS FREEMAN
6-2, 236, Jr.
Huber Heights, Ohio
Enrolled at OSU early, worked in 2004 spring practice and then played in 13 games as a freshman … redshirted in 2005 after injury in first game … started 11 games in 2006 and had 15 tackles in BCS Championship Game … started 12 games this year … made Butkus Award list … second leading tackler with 95 stops, 1 1/2 sacks, broke up 5 passes and forced 1 fumble … second-team All-Big Ten.
“He may get overshadowed by bigger names, but nobody plays and prepares harder.”
-- Luke Fickell, linebackers coach
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