Times Be Changin’

Welcome back to the Korner!

It’s almost spring, the flowers are in bloom (at least they were at Augusta National on my TV) and so many things are happening at the venues of LSU Athletics.

My office seems a little busier than normal because some fall sports are playing spring seasons this year. It has been kind of interesting to watch to be honest. Volleyball and soccer looking to finish with success which they did along with the spring sports that we’ve come to know at this time of year.

It has been nice to see some of the senior pictures that have been offered on social media as sports like beach volleyball, gymnastics and tennis for example have been able to honor their seniors at their final home events.

It doesn’t matter the sport and we will see it in a few weeks in baseball and softball and track and field to name a few, but that last home game or meet is always a special day. I’ve loved senior days in the sport I work with closely, basketball. We got to have ours a year ago when Skylar Mays and Marlon Taylor among others celebrated their final home game and then went out and beat Georgia by 30.

Hard to believe the season was soon to end. Some sports never got to celebrate with their seniors although most were given the opportunity to come back again this year and it still continues with some more sports and extensions of playing time.

There is one thing that has really changed over my many years here at LSU – well maybe it is more than one thing – but it deals with transfer portals and seniors, and does someone get two senior days, and is someone a second-year senior, a fifth-year senior and all the things that are happening in college sports. How many times has the word “waiver” been used in sports with players transferring.

They say there are over 1,000 players in the men’s basketball transfer portal. That’s what “they” say. I’m sure not counting them. But that may be where some of the players our fans will be cheering for will come for the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

It has taken me a while but I understand it now. Things aren’t always perfect where you decide to go to college and play a sport. Maybe being so far away from home weighs on your mind, maybe being so close to home also weighs on your mind, maybe this, maybe that. But the examples of players coming and going all over college sports shows exactly how it can work for the good. Now maybe the NCAA has created a nightmare scenario when just one sport had over a thousand transfers but let us see how it all plays out.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out how playing in four football games and still redshirting is exactly the perfect system. I just wouldn’t want to be the person having to keep track of all that.

A few personal observations of a couple of people and things I’ve seen along the way if you don’t mind:

I was so impressed with our sophomore golfer Ingrid Lindblad the last couple of weeks. Her performance on the national/international stage at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was so impressive. If you watched the men struggle on the greens at Augusta National especially in round one, it tells you exactly what the 30 players in the ANWA had to face.

Her T3 performance, one shot out of the playoff, in what in two playings has become one of the premier events in women’s amateur golf, was very special.

But then for her to come back and just three days later start play at the LSU Tiger Golf Classic and win the championship with three under par rounds was a true example of why she is the No. 4 amateur in the world. To play that well after all the pressure of Augusta and helping her team to the team title says everything why this team and this golfer are national contenders.

Is there any wonder both track and field teams are No. 1? Every time I read a story it is double figure titles at a meet here, there and everywhere. May and early June should be quite exciting. 

Finally, I can’t believe last Friday was Wanda Carrier’s last day at LSU after some 40 years on campus. Wanda started as Coach Dale Brown’s office assistant (she was more than a secretary) just a few months before I came to Baton Rouge and has always been a source of information and help in several different spots in the department. Enjoy retirement and I know we will see you around as we go forward.

If you have ideas for the Korner feel free to email me at clowe@lsu.edu. I’ve gotten a couple of good ideas for down the road. Thanks for stopping by!