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Looks like someone put Tom Al-Betar’s sideline pass to good use.
(A Star is Born)
Sadly though, I’ve been told Alabama football legend Harvey Updyke didn’t see the field last night.
Though if I had Mal Moore fetching me chicken fingers and spiked cheerwine all night, I’d wouldn’t bother to leave President Witt’s suite either.
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Early Friday morning longtime Alabama media personality Paul Finebaum appeared on FOX 6 in Birmingham to set the scene in New Orleans on the weekend before LSU and Alabama meet on Monday at the SuperDome.
(Trent Richardson at New Orleans Casino Saturday night)
During his visit with FOX 6 news anchor Janice Rogers, Finebaum reported that Alabama and LSU football players were spending their off-field time visiting Bourbon Street and patronizing Harrah’s Casino.
We saw reams of Alabama and LSU players, they had a midnight curfew, and, surprise suprise they split their time between Bourbon Street, and I know fans of LSU and Alabama are going to be thrilled to hear this, Bourbon Street and Harrah’s Casino.
About a quarter ’til twelve we went in there (Harrah’s Casino), I saw mainly LSU players, one very prominent one I might add but I’ll keep his name out of it. I hope he’s an adult although I think he is based on his alleged criminal activity of a few months ago.
I was a little surprised to see football players gambling, in a legal casino I might add, but it still surprised me. I guess I’m getting old.
Rogers then asked Finebaum, “I did hear that the curfews were midnight. Maybe one (team) had a one o’clock curfew, will that not start tightening up now today?”
Yes, it’s interesting I saw Trent Richardson out on, I think it was Bourbon Street, and he ran into one of his coaches and they were talking and, Trent really is a very nice kid, and he said, ‘coach I hate to do this but I’ve got curfew in ten minutes, I’ve got to run.’
Speaking of Richardson, the Alabama star running back was seen the evening after Finebaum’s comments at Harrah’s Casino around 11pm local time.
(Trent Richardson at New Orleans Casino Saturday night)
Richardson was also photographed visiting the New Orleans gambling parlor Saturday night around 11:30pm local time.
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Thanks to Michael Casagrande of the DECATUR (AL) DAILY and DailyBamaBlog - via Clay Travis at OutKickTheCoverage.com - for this tip from The Hat to an Alabama fan Saturday before the Heisman Trophy ceremony:
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During a radio interview with PORTLAND OREGONIAN columnist John Canzano of 750 the Game in Portland Tuesday, Houston-based recruiting services operator Willie Lyles said, “I know Les Miles and he knows me.”
Lyles’ claim to Canzano jibes with a March 14 report by Jim Kleinpeter of the NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAUYUNE in which LSU senior associate athletic director Herb Vincent confirmed that the school had three months earlier paid Lyles for recruiting services.
In a story first reported by FOXsports.com senior writer Thayer Evans, Vincent said the money was paid to Lyles business in December, and was one of several recruitng services LSU used. LSU no longer employs Complete Scouting Services.
LSU paid $6,000 for the JUCO Per State Package which includes game films from California and Kansas Junior Colleges and costs $3,000 per state.
But three weeks after Vincent confirmed LSU football’s formal connection to Lyles, Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com reported on April 9, 2011, “LSU coach Les Miles told CBSSports.com Friday he didn’t know who Willie Lyles was until he saw him in December at the college football awards show in Orlando, Fla.”
Stranger yet, thanks to the LSU football coach’s association with an ill-fated entertainment venture attempted by Lyles’ former employer, MSL Sports & Entertainment, Miles was presented as a longtime friend of Lyles.
On April 1, 2008, the following story was published on ESPN.com via the ASSOCIATED PRESS: Read more…
The man at the center of an NCAA investigation into football recruiting impropriety by the University of Oregon, Houston-based recruiting service operator Willie Lyles, appeared on Portland radio on Tuesday to talk about his role with the Ducks while providing new information to host and PORTLAND OREGONIAN columnist John Canzano about his relationship to the LSU, Cal and Texas A&M football programs.
(Audio of Canzano’s Lyles interview is below)
During an hour-long interview with Canzano on 750 The Game in Portland, Lyles talked at length about his ties to Oregon and head football coach Chip Kelly. But when Canzano broached his role with LSU, for which Lyles has confirmed he was most-recently paid $6,000 by the Tigers, Lyles at first refused to divulge any details of his now-documented connection to the Tigers. Read more…
Seriously.
Paparazzi spotted the quintet of SEC ballers touring the ancient Italian city and encouraged them to go into a restaurant where Jersey Shore cast members Jenni “JWoWW” Farley and Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi were having lunch. The LSU hoops players entered the establishment with the group soon moving outside for an obligatory photo-op.
Good thing that chance encounter didn’t involve student-athletes from a certain other SEC school - before May 19.
Last Thursday TMZ.com reported the University of Florida had previously threatened UF students studying in Italy with expulsion from the school-sponsored abroad studies program if they were seen on video with cast members of the same MTV reality show.
An email sent to applicable UF students stated that if those students, “agree to participate in the filming of the show, or who signs a waiver or legal agreement of any sort with MTV, will be dismissed from the program immediately.”
Apparently embarrassed by the TMZ report, UF officials subsequently backed down from their threat, with a school spokeswoman later telling the website, “Generally speaking, students may participate in activities outside their Study Abroad program as long as they meet the academic and living requirements of that program. This is a reversal of the UF administrator’s position.”
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Here’s some photos of Les Miles taken a couple summers ago on an LSU booster’s yacht.
Miles is with his family on a $700,000, 60-foot Bertram yacht called “Tiger Bait.”
The impressive vessel, which is up for sale, currently docks just outside Pensacola in Orange Beach, Alabama. Read more…
Yesterday I broke the news that a life-size statue of Shaquille O’Neal commissioned by representatives of LSU’s athletic interests - inside and outside the university - had been completed.
In July, 2010, the LSU athletic department made a formal request of the university to erect the now-completed statue outside the LSU basketball practice facility. Today I was told that the request was subsequently granted by the school.
Monday I reported that O’Neal, who has anonymously donated millions to LSU over the years after obtaining his degree from the school in 2000, did not want LSU to celebrate him with a statue on campus.
But since my story was published Monday morning, that’s changed. Read more…
Today the official Facebook page of Louisiana State University posted this ominous photo of the Mississippi River:
(Mappage of spillways north of Baton Rouge)
The photo was taken atop the Baton Rouge levee, just a few hundred feet from the LSU campus and less than a mile from Tiger Stadium.
WWL-AM in New Orleans reports that to reduce possible flooding in the heavily populated areas around the Mississippi River, the Army Corps of Engineers will soon open the Morganza flood control structure, which is 39 miles north of Baton Rouge.
From WWL:
The governor said the river flow is barely below the threshold to open the Morganza structure now, and will hit it this weekend.
“We are expected to reach that trigger on Saturday or Sunday, based on the volume of water,” said (Governor Bobby) Jindal.“What that means is, that it now looks like they will reach that trigger, it is likely we’ll get that decision from the corps, sometime between Saturday and Tuesday.”
He said during Tuesday’s briefing that once the spillway is open, floodwater could be flowing around Morgan City and into the Gulf of Mexico in three days. He said and estimated 2,500 people live in the flood plain, but thousands more could be affected by backwater flooding.
Above is another image from the Army Corps of Engineers that details the expected Louisiana flood plain from the Mississippi River in the coming days.
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On July 8, 2010, the LSU Athletic Department formally, though quietly, proposed to the university that a “life-size” statue of Shaquille O’Neal be erected outside the school’s new basketball practice facility.
At the time, the practice facility was the latest construction project that O’Neal had donated significant funds to. Over the years O’Neal, who completed his LSU degree in 2000, has given multiple millions to the school for the construction of an academic center and on-campus hotel, all the while directing the school not to put his name on any of the new facilities. (He eventually allowed the school to dedicate the hotel pool as the “Shaquille O’Neal family pool” with a small sign.)
But with the construction of the new hoops practice facility, named after the late, great Pete Maravich, a LSU university source recently told me that representatives of LSU’s athletic interests - inside and outside of the university - hatched a plan some time ago to erect four statues outside the building.
The statues would be of Maravich, O’Neal, LSU great and basketball Hall of Famer Bob Petit and former LSU women’s basketball star Seimone Augustus.
While it would seem that Maravich would naturally be the first to gain such an honor, I’ve been told that at least two LSU Board of Supervisors members have demanded that an O’Neal statue go up first, because of his profound financial contributions to the school - which were accompanied by requests for anonymity. Read more…
