re: A Charles McClendon Omen

Two years ago, 2 couples asked if they could join our tailgating party prior to the Florida game. After having a great 30 minute visit with these very nice people, they told me they lived in Florida but were avid LSU fans. Then one of the guys asked me if I remembered the name of our quarterback in the early 70's. I said, of course, that's easy since I attended LSU from 1970-1974- It was Bert Jones. Then he asked if I remembered the name of our head coach. I said of course, that was Charlie Mac. He then shocked me when he said how happy he was that I would rememeber him so fondly because Charlie McClendon was his dad. What a great family and legacy they have left at LSU. I told Charlie's son he and his family were welcome to join us anytime. I hope he helps us celebrate a home victory over the Gators this year as well.

In 1965 I was a U.S Marine in Vietnam when LSU played Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl. I wrote to Coach Mac and told him how the Louisiana guys were pulling for the team. He wrote me back a personal note and asked me to come by for a visit when I returned home. This is a story with a happy ending all the way around--Tigers won the bowl game, I made it home and married the prettiest girl in Church Point, and we visited the coach who gave us two game tickets to a game and thanked me for my service. Salute to Coach Mac and to the memory of a good man.

This eems apt for this thread from the before mention book

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Will the damn thing never come?" I yelled one day, loud enough for everyone to hear."What thing?" Coach Mac asked."Saturday. I want it to be Saturday.""Only trying to make you better."
He sat in the shade of his golf cart, watching from the middle of the field, so we had to run around him and waste more energy."Only doing this because we love you. Don't think about yourself. Think about the people of the great state of Louisiana. They're counting on you. Every last one of them is counting on you."The governor was counting on me. The rednecks in the northern part of the state were counting on me. The Cajuns in the south were counting on me. The black people and the Creoles were counting on me. The Asians and the Hispanics were counting on me. The Catholics and the Baptists and the Jews and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Hare Krishnas -- even the nondenominationalists were counting on me. Under the stars in Tiger Stadium on Saturday night, we were all the same."Can't let the people down, buddy. Can … not … let … them … down …"


Wednesdays were okay. On Wednesday the coaches let up a little. Thursdays we went out in shorts, shoulder pads, and helmets, and the lighter load made everyone feel better. Our legs felt new, and when the days began to cool, we felt downright frisky. On Thursday there was no conditioning, not a single gasser to run until next Monday, four days away, and this made me inestimably happy and pleased with the world. I reunited with my helmet, my pads, and my blisters. I forgave them for what they'd done to me, and they forgave me for hating them.At the end of practice on Thursday, Mac called us around him and instructed us to take a knee. "They put their jockey shorts on the same way we do, fellas," he said. "One leg at a time, fellas. One leg at a time."We nodded to show we were listening.


Sweat ran down our faces, drained down our necks, and tickled our rib cages, settling in our arse cracks and our cleats. In the cold, steam rose from our bodies like smoke from a barbecue pit. When we were heavily favored, Mac's tone was cautionary: "Don't take them lightly. Don't let them slip up behind you and take what you've worked so hard for. Nothing sneaky, fellas."We roared, lifted our helmets high, and punched holes in the sky.


As soon as the noise stopped, Mac extracted a folded sheet of paper from his shorts and read the list of films playing at the local cinemas. This too was tradition. On Fridays we always went as a team to a movie. "Okay, who wants the Burt Reynolds?" His lips moved as he counted the show of hands. "And now, who wants the Clint Eastwood? And the Charles Bronson? Anybody want the Charles Bronson?"James Bond movies were the most popular; they outscored even shark and bikini flicks. Movies with fast cars were big too. Only once did we watch the same movie two weeks in a row. That was Walking Tall, where a good man facing long odds beat his opponents senseless with a stick.


This was how we saw ourselves -- as underdogs -- even when we were ranked in the Top 20 and beating hell out of teams week after week.We did not attend romantic comedies or love stories, and we always avoided any movie that critics had touted as worthy of Oscar consideration. "This fellow says this is one of the greatest movies ever made," Mac said.He held out the newspaper ad for everyone to see."Got anything better, Coach?"


We traveled to the movie in a pair of Continental Trailways buses. Team captains passed around shoeboxes filled with fudge made by an elderly Baton Rouge woman, a friend of the football program. According to legend, she had been supplying candy to the team since Coach Mac replaced Paul Dietzel as coach, and either tradition or superstition had kept her as part of the team's Friday routine ever since. "Everybody has a role to play," Mac reminded us. "The big and the small, those who get the attention and those who don't. What is your role?" He pointed to a player, selected at random. "What about yours? And yours? And yours? Will you be the difference come Saturday night? Or will it be you? Or you? Or you … ?"


We never doubted what the fudge lady's role was.Fifty varsity players filed into the theater and plopped into seats in a roped-off section. Fellow moviegoers cheered when we entered the room, all dressed in slacks and identical white polo shirts with tiger emblems. At times they stood and applauded, whistled and shouted for victory. We never got tired of it. We never stopped believing that they were right to love us. When we were on the road, the movie crowds didn't boo us, but they did make their allegiances known, yelling out, "Roll Tide" and "Go Dawgs" and "Gator Bait." No one seemed to mind.


It was Friday before the game, and the cracks of our teeth were black with fudge, and the show was about to start.My senior year, we went to a movie about Adolph Hitler, hardly the kind of film we typically attended. Players voted to see it after one of our trainers, Dell Flair, campaigned for us to go. Dell was Broussard Hall's resident intellectual. I never knew if he was having a joke at our expense, but so many players fell asleep that patrons in the theater complained to the manager about the snoring.



And then suddenly Mac's hand was on my shoulder, nudging me awake. I blinked to consciousness, and there he stood, his big moon face looming inches away. "Are you sure you're ready to show the world what you're made of, buddy?"I loved Fridays. But I loved Saturdays even more.

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I see many parralels between Mac and Miles.

I think Miles is a better recruiter, but I think era and environment have alot to do with that.

Both nice and class guys relative to their peers. Both like to run the ball, both are a bit challenged in the public speaking department and had their share of curious quotes.

Both took over for national title winning coaches and for some their shadow will never fade.

Both experienced early success some credit to their predecessor (see shadow).

Of course the eras offer intangeables that can exaggerate some differences, but alot in common on the whole.

Is Coach Mac from Stephens,AR? Cause the"bear" was from Fordyce,AR,just up the road from Stephens. Might explain their relationship,a little.

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Coach Mac was a great coach, an even finer gentleman and ALWAYS a true LSU Tiger.

It still saddens me to remember how he was treated in his last days at LSU.

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+1,000,000

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Who is his great nephew, my son is related to him,

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shoot me an email, lsu_cash@yahoo.com

Appreciate the picture and like the story - thanks for posting that and the Charlie Mac son story - what a fine thread