At the Corner of Highland Road and Humanity

The legacy of the 2019 LSU Tigers will live beyond awards and record books

Author’s note: I promised y’all an issue on winter cocktails this week, and you’ll still get it this Friday. But I felt the need to change it up a little. Thanks in advance for not yelling at me.

Today’s issue of the Gulf Coastal is a little different than the first few, as it does not include much food talk in the traditional sense. I purposely described this newsletter as a “food and culture” one, because sometimes you need to give yourself an out when you feel the need to write about something else. I feel like “and culture” gives me enough of an out to deviate every once in a while, so I’m taking that opportunity, as events from this weekend stretching into Monday evening (when I’m writing this) warrant it.

First, there was this (photo credit to Hilary Scheinuk of The Advocate):

Chances are you’ve heard Joe’s story by now, but if you haven’t, Scott Rabalais over at the Advocate has you covered. If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that I’m an LSU alum and partisan. Never did I ever think I’d see an LSU quarterback hoisting the Heisman Trophy. If you would have somehow been able to take the pulse of the entire fanbase after the Spring Game in April when we got to see the first iteration of the overhauled offense installed by wunderkind Joe Brady, you probably would have gotten several “cautious, but optimistic” responses.

The ending to the 2019 LSU Fighting Tigers football team’s season remains unwritten, but it has storybook potential. By traditional definitions, it’s been an unexpected, yet resounding success and one that will live in the record books for years to come. 13-0. SEC Champions for the first time since 2011. Hopefully a national championship. We’ll see!

Aside from the thirteen wins, the 2019 Tigers have won a bevy of awards, with Joe Burrow like being the most surprising Heisman winner ever. If you haven’t watched Joe’s Heisman acceptance speech yet, I recommend you take the time to do so. In it, he uses his once far-fetched platform (as of September 2019, anyway) to describe Athens County, where he grew up and has become a local hero-turned-legend for his play at LSU the last two years:

Coming from southeast Ohio, it’s a very impoverished area and the poverty rate is almost two times the national average. There’s so many people there that don’t have a lot and I’m up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school. You guys can be up here, too.

Using a stage few are granted — 85 people in the history of organized college football, to be exact — Joe called attention to food insecurity and poverty issues in his hometown. Per Brooks Kubena of the Advocate, Burrow actually understated the issues in Athens County:

According to a report the Ohio Development Services Agency released in February, 30.2% of the population in Athens County lives in poverty — the highest rate in the state and nearly three times higher than the national average (emphasis added), 11.8%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Will Drabold, a resident of Athens, took Burrow’s speech as a call to action to confront the issues facing its people. He started a Facebook fundraiser that had 10,991 unique supporters raising approximately $386,000 for the Athens Food Pantry at print time. Much like one of LSU’s talented receivers, Drabold took a figurative pass from Burrow the distance, raising enough money to supply approximately 772,000 meals (assuming a rate of approximately $0.50 per meal as quoted in Brooks’ piece) for food-insecure families in Athens County. It’s a response that is multiples of the largest prior donations to the food pantry that’s likely growing as you read this, reaching for its stretch goal of $400,000. For reference, the largest prior donation was roughly $20,000.

In addition, LSU fan Matt Porter placed a $50 bet at 200-to-1 for Burrow to win the Heisman with an estimated payout of $10,000. After resisting a few offers from the casino to buy him out, Porter’s bet paid off. He celebrated by donating $3,228 of his post-tax winnings to LSU superfan Colton Moore’s family to aid in their purchase of a handicap-accessible van, as Colton is wheelchair-bound, pushing their fundraiser $1 beyond the stated goal of $15,000. He has never met the Moore family and only knows of his story through reporting in the news. The fundraiser is now approaching $17,000.

These stories have the common nexus of LSU football, specifically the 2019 iteration, more specifically this team’s Spongebob Squarepants-loving, Skyline Chili-hating quarterback. Moreover, they push the Tigers’ dreamlike season into something bigger than wins and losses, bigger than individual awards, bigger than championships. By an unlikely combination of circumstance and on-field play, the 2019 Tigers have inspired charity and solidarity for the people of Athens County and the Moore Family that no one could have expected. They have served as a rallying point for thousands to help people they have not met, and may never meet.

I try not to editorialize much, but I believe in the transformative power of sports to unite people of disparate backgrounds, turn strangers into friends, and community-build like few other things. As thrilling as this season has been for me and countless others, this LSU team has affirmed my belief that people can rally behind common causes and come together to benefit a greater good beyond sports. And as improbable as this season has been for LSU, as improbable as Burrow’s Heisman win was a few months ago, this team keeps testing the depths of improbability and surprising us in ways few would expect.

I don’t know how this journey ends. No one does. The Tigers’ No. 1 ranking certainly implies that they are the odds-on favorite to win a national championship, to hoist the glorified vape that is the College Football Playoff trophy (bring back the Coaches Trophy you cowards), and live in the annals of sports history as one of the greatest on-field teams of all time. Regardless of that, this team will always be great, not necessarily because of wins and losses, but because of the number of people they’ve touched by the generosity they helped create, and by leaving a tangible legacy that, in a year full of unlikelihoods coming to pass, manages to be bigger than football.

Geaux Tigers.

Thank you for reading the Gulf Coastal. If you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, feel free to send them to me at rauzachary@gmail.com. To donate to the Athens Food Pantry Fundraiser on Facebook, click here. To donate to the Moore Family Van Fundraiser, click here. And if you like the newsletter please tell anyone you can, any way you can. You can even share using the button below. I’ll see y’all again on Friday.