I suppose I'm due to go back and do it right this time. I did go to one LSU game in the 80s. It was November 1986 as I recall, probably the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend or probably the weekend just before. They were playing Notre Dame. I was dating an LSU student long distance and we had arranged this weekend visit.
It'll be so fun...we'll go to the game and sit in the student section.... lot of drinking and partying... everyone will be there. So I got my friend Clint to go with me. I guess we drove from Houston but it may have been Austin. As can expect it is a LONG drive there.
So the game was Saturday night and I guess we got there Saturday. First thing was that since I was not an LSU student, I needed an LSU ID to go with a student ticket. I of course had neither. So the half-baked plan was that there was 1 student ticket and the other person would buy a regular ticket. Being the Nice Guy, I got the regular ticket. I was then supposed to walk into the student section by some complicated handoff/switcheroo. Then, everyone would be standing so there would be no seating issues. What a great time it would be!
This was of course long before the days of cell phones. So we immediately got separated, security was wise to the handoff/switcheroo trick, and I found myself on the outside looking into the student section. After realizing that I was stuck, I went to my lonely seat by myself. To make matters worse, I was surrounded by Notre Dame fans in the upper deck. I never watched a game that I enjoyed less. By the third quarter I'd had enough and left. I figured I'd go back to the apartment. Of course no one was there, so I had to wait outside.
When everyone got back ("What a great game!") I found out that Clint while driving my car had "hit something" which I later gathered was a curb and gashed the tire. So the donut spare was now on. That of course was not part of the planned weekend (note ironic reference). So the next day we had to look around for a replacement tire as close to the original as possible, so as not to tip to my father as to this mishap. Again, this was before the days of Discount Tire, Big O Tires and Goodyear stores, so we had to look around for a Shell station to get that kind of tire (and charge it on the my Shell card).
We got the tire, stayed through the weekend and then left on the long drive home. By this time, we literally had no money between the two of us. Not even McDonald's money. So we made it back on the trusty Shell card, so desperate that we had to eat a sandwich at the Shell station from the cooler. And we were happy to have it.
John and Paul had a much better experience. They stopped and got LSU t shirts on the way to fit it. They got invited to a tailgate party with lots of good food. The game was during the day and LSU won, keeping their #1 ranking. And they had a decent hotel to stay in. I'm guessing they even had cash in their pockets for the drive home.
I guess we have these experiences so we know what NOT to do in the future.
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