By Hunt Palmer
Saturday night’s slog of a victory over Louisiana Tech will soon fade into LSU football anonymity.
It was an uneventful game that featured few highlights and an unremarkable final score. The stadium emptied in the third quarter, and the outcome was never in doubt.
I’ll remember it forever, though.
Three generations of Palmers watched as the Tigers took the field.
My dad, who has made the trek down from Shreveport since the 60s, sipped on his Diet Coke. He brought me to my first game on October 30, 1993. I sat high on the west side with a blanket draped over my five-year-old knees. LSU edged Ole Miss.
Saturday night I was on the west side next to my dad again. My three-year-old, Myers, sat on my other side between my wife and me, eyes wide, a smile ear to ear covered in chocolate. It was his first game.
“When are they going to run into each other?” he asked my dad during warmups.
“We like the Tigers. We don’t like the red team,” he confidently stated.
“TOUCHDOWN!” he exclaimed as Caden Durham plunged into the north end zone.
“Can we get some more ice cream now?” came seconds later.
If he’s like his grandfather and dad, he’ll watch hundreds more games in Death Valley. The Tigers will light up his eyes and break his heart. It’s a bond I’ve shared with my dad for more than three decades.
I reflected on that as Myers watched the band run down Victory Hill while perched atop my dad’s shoulders.
Fans often talk about the plays, the wins and the losses when discussing college football. What may be neglected are the memories we make watching it all.
I talk to my dad at halftime of every game. That means I talk to him every Saturday. When an SEC opponent comes to Baton Rouge, so do my parents. That’s four guaranteed visits every fall. What a gift.
College football is so much more than wins and losses and NIL payments and conference realignment. In so many cases, it’s a family affair.
As I was hosting the pregame show Saturday, drenched in sweat from the sweltering South Louisiana sunlight, three close friends stopped by, all from different cities in the state, all with their oldest child in tow.
Photos and high fives followed, and one of the kids called Saturday the best day of his life. He’ll have plenty of great days like that on that campus.
Myers didn’t tell me it was the best day of his life. It was certainly one of mine. Same goes for his grandfather.
He made it through three and a half quarters, stunned his mom by eating two hot dogs, polished off a pair of ice creams and sunk into my chest when Mike the Tiger made his rounds.
“Too scary”.
Before I became a dad, I’d always said I was going to wait until my child asked to go to an LSU football game as opposed to hauling him or her just because I was going. Tiger Stadium is on the way to school for Myers, and he asked about it during the commute nearly every day this summer. We quickly circled the Louisiana Tech game as his first.
His smiles and laughter told the story of how much he enjoyed Saturday. Because of his age, he may not remember his first trip to Tiger Stadium. It’s burned into my brain, though.
As the clock wound down, I had to work, so Myers’s grandfather and mother ushered him out of the stadium. His LSU tattoo sticker survived the onslaught of concessions and mom’s cleanup jobs that followed. His little legs conquered the campus walks. He made it home and asked if he could go back tomorrow.
No, but we’ll do it again soon.
He’ll never have another first game. That’s a one-time thing. While a small part of me is sad that’s over, I quickly realize my opportunity to experience that joy again is just a couple of short years away.
His six-month-old brother sleeps one room away.
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