Tiger Pride

In many ways, LSU football is the culmination of summer in Baton Rouge. After three months of oppressive heat and humidity, the purple and gold masses will shuffle into Tiger Stadium on Sept. 1 to come alive.

With the Tigers ranked #1 in the preseason USA Today Coaches Poll for the first time since 1959, 225 is delivering three more editions of Tiger Pride: The Passion and Pageantry of LSU Football—now through the November issue.

We want to tell your story. Send your tailgating photos and favorite game-day memories to [email protected].

Our August issue was just the beginning. It’s time to ROAR SOME MORE…

The football team isn’t the only squad ranked in the Top 10 this year. The Huffington Post has named the “Golden Band from Tigerland” among its list of Best Marching Bands for 2011-12.

LSU’s acclaimed group “dazzles audiences with their consistent talent and their ‘Golden Girls,’” notes The Huffington Post writer Anna Susman. Other SEC bands honored were those from the University of Tennessee and Texas A&M.

Installed in the summer of 2008 by Daktronics, the company that has outfitted the stadiums of the Pittsburgh Steelers—their Heinz Field scoreboard featured prominently in this summer’s The Dark Knight Rises—and the Cincinnati Reds, the “jumbotron” video board at the north end of Tiger Stadium measures 27-feet tall and 80-feet wide. Here are a few more stats:

35,000 The video board’s weight in pounds

178,000 Watts of power used at peak capacity

—BENJAMIN LEGER

Even the little Tigers get fired up for football. Sports merchandise producer Tiger District recently teamed with the Boys and Girls Club of Baton Rouge to host an LSU T-shirt design contest for children. Eleven year-old Christopher Harris of Greenbrier Elementary School was the lucky winner with his design of a tough Mike the Tiger proclaiming, “The Tigerz will mess you up.”

The online contest called for children to send in their ideal LSU spirit T-shirt design, with the winner receiving his or her very own shirt sporting the design, plus $250 for their club and a portion of the T-shirt sales. Here are Harris’ original drawing and the final Tiger District design side by side. tigerdistrict.com —CHELSEA WALLACE