[Editor's Note: Visit theind.com throughout the day for Dan's updates.]
N.O. Bowl Update – Saturday, 12/17, 3:45 p.m.
NEW ORLEANS – All the way through Friday, it was easy to find UL football fans in the Crescent City. They were the ones in red, traveling in groups and taking part in the organized activities of the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.
Saturday was a different story.
They’re everywhere.
Before, it was at the New Orleans Marriott on Canal Street, or at Walk-On’s on Poydras, or maybe a couple of other designated locations. Now, there’s not a restaurant or bar that doesn’t have some type of UL influence, and the red blob appears to be growing. It’s like a constantly spreading amoeba, devouring whatever’s in its path.
You can’t walk 10 steps anywhere downtown without bumping into someone wearing “Ragin’ Cajun” or New Orleans Bowl apparel.
There’s still a big crowd at Walk-On’s, where the Sports Radio KPEL group gave way to the Hot 107.9 crew beginning at 2 p.m. For the first time this week, the beer taps there – they’ve got them built into each one of the sitting booths on a serve-yourself basis – were getting a severe workout.
And the lobby of the Marriott was still jammed and loud. Former Cajun running back Thomas Jackson, whose 35-carry, 175-yard rush outing in the mud of the 1983 Homecoming win over La. Tech still ranks among the Cajuns’ best-ever individual efforts, was looking for tickets a friend had
left.
Bobby Champagne, Acadiana native, former UL assistant basketball coach and now head coach at North Alabama, stood out in the crowd at the Marriott in his purple UNA warmup. His team plays UNO Monday night, but he came in early in support of UL coach Mark Hudspeth, who had huge success as head coach at UNA earlier in his career.
But now it’s not just at those locations. The Cajun Nation has taken over a lot of other places.
Acme Oyster House, just off Royal, had a line outside, and almost everyone in line wore UL jackets or sweatshirts (it’s cooler than most expected Saturday afternoon). A big group of Cajun supporters were on a balcony over Café Maspero on Decatur Street, throwing beads.
Even the Riverside Hilton – the headquarters hotel for the San Diego State Aztecs – was filled with Cajun fans. Luke Mandola, owner of the semi-world-famous Ragin’ Cajun restaurant in Houston, was holding court there. Long-time Cajun fan Gene Lognion was in the Hilton lobby, his laugh echoing off the walls. St. Thomas More athletic director Kim Broussard was sporting a “USL Ragin’ Cajuns” warmup top (“I’m old school,” he was laughing) while having lunch and hopefully some charbroiled oysters at Drago’s Restaurant inside the Hilton.
UL director of athletics Scott Farmer left the Marriott around 3 p.m. and headed for the Ragin’ Cajun Athletic Foundation (RCAF) tailgate party at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. He also had a list of a dozen different suites in the Superdome that are being used by the Cajun faithful tonight, and he planned to visit every one – and there are probably more that he doesn’t have on his list.
All the other tailgating and pre-game activities for the rest of the afternoon are in or near the ‘Dome, so it’s almost time to head that way. After all, it’s only four hours until kickoff.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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