Interview with Greg Lafleur

Good evening. Good evening. Good evening is 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of count time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman white. Thank you for joining us today.

LD:

 

Welcome everyone to Count Time. Another edition of Count Time. We have a young man visiting with us again today. Dear friend, a teammate, we go back a long ways. You’ve been on the show before and it would be glad to have him back. We got here the great, awesome tight end LSU and St. Louis Cardinals, the Mr. Greg Lafluer.

Greg:

 

Thanks again, LD for having me on the show.

LD:

 

You know, it’s a pleasure, my friend, uh, a partner, we go back a long ways over 40 years thought We would be saying that one day?

Greg:

 

No, no, not forty years. And matter of fact, it’s almost forty-five years.

LD:

 

Man, man Where have time gone. Right. But let everyone know. He’s still looking great in great health, physically, spiritually, mentally, you look great. You look wonderful. Thank you for coming back today. Cause last time we had a more intellectual discussion, I guess, right? We discussed the book by Charles deGravelles something like that on Billy Cannon, a long, long run. And we had a discussion about that book and it went well. And I appreciate you coming in for that purpose. Cause you sent me the book to read and I decided that we would have discussion about it, but we didn’t get a chance to have a discussion about your time nor my time at LSU together. So this was this, uh, conversation going to be about. We’re going to have a discussion about your experience at LSU and uh, beyond in our experience together, you got there, you arrived to LSU a year before I got it. Let’s see. Tell me, how you end up at LSU.

Greg:

 

I got to LSU in 1976, as you know, I grew up in Ville, Platte, Louisiana.

LD:

 

Oh, let me send a shout out to my dear friend and mayor of Ville Platte Mayor, Jennifer vitrine. I can’t leave you out . Right? She was in school with us at LSU. She was

Greg:

 

So, you know, not, uh, LD growing up in the sixties, uh, LSU was not an option, so I never even considered going to LSU because it was not possible. And then my freshman year in high school, LSU had its first black player, Mike Williams and LoRa Hinton. But it didn’t phase me that much. Cause it was just two of them and only one really played. That was my William because Laura Hinton I think

Greg:

 

Had some injury problems. Yeah.

Greg:

 

So the only person we saw on TV was Mike Williams.

LD:

 

He was an awesome defensive bank. Right.

Greg:

 

So I didn’t have any interest in going to LSU.

LD:

 

Nor did I. None, zero, zero

Greg:

 

With me too. Because when I was growing up and if you saw a black person with an LSU shirt on, you knew that mothers worked at some white folks home and that was some hand-me-down clothes. So that that’s all that LSU meant to me. So it just didn’t because it was not an option. It’s not like I didn’t like LSU. It was just not an option. My junior year in high school, we were at spring practice and this white fella came out on the field and he was standing there watching practice. And my head coach came up to me and he said, Hey, you see that guy standing on the track? I said, yeah. He said, that’s the coach from LSU. And he’s here to watch you practice. What, what position you played? And I was a quarterback in high school and the coach was coach McCarthy, the offensive line coach.

Greg:

 

And he was there watching me practice. I still had no interest in going to LSU. So I go into my senior year in high school and now it’s time to take our visits, you know, and I get the LSU on my official visit. I just took the visit because they offered me to come and take a visit at LSU. I’m not gonna turn down a free trip to Baton Rouge to go watch LSU play Alabama. So I came to the game and I was just shocked when I walked into that stadium. And at the time the stadium on the hill, 65,000 people, they didn’t have the upper deck

LD:

 

Only 65,000

Greg:

 

At that time. And I was just in awe of the, of the crowd and what threw me off and Lyman coming from Ville Platte. When we walked back into the locker room, after the game, everybody kept their jerseys. I’m like, what? Y’all get to keep your jerseys. Could you already had those tearaway jurors at that time, y’all get to keep your journeys. And so all that stuff was happening around and I’m like, wow. So then I went home and told folks what I experienced at LSU. And that’s when I started to get interest on attending LSU after my official visit. But before my official visit, it was not on my radar at all. You also played basketball

LD:

 

Yes. In high school. And you had another visit from LSU.

Greg:

 

Well, my first letter that I received, my first college letter I received was from Dale Brown,

LD:

 

The Great Dale Brown. LSU coach. And I

Greg:

 

Still have that letter today, but I knew I was not a very good basketball player. I was tall and can jump and all, but my coach wouldn’t let me dribble the ball. And I knew six, four. Wasn’t tall enough to try to play college basketball without dribbling. So the coach brown kept hounding me. He kept saying, why don’t you come to LSU and play basketball? And even after I got to LSU, when I’d run into him on campus, he said, Hey, you could you’ll come out for the basketball team because I was not playing very much. And I’m sure we could talk about that a little bit once we get into. So

LD:

 

When you got to LSU, ya’ll was considered the largest class of African descent players. How many of y’all the had?

Greg:

 

Yeah, we had eight. It was only four on the team when we got there only for the team. And when I got that, it was eight of us. The ride in the Royal twin from baker high school. We’ll go stands, bear from, uh, McKinley high school. Uh,

LD:

 

And Wilbon is deceased in the roars deceased. Yes.

Greg:

 

And, uh, Sterling Sterling, Vizio

LD:

 

From an Edgard,

Greg:

 

Willie Teal from Texarkana, Texas. My roommate, Carlos Carson. You’ll have you spoke to Carlos a year ago. Okay. From time to time, we, we, we try to talk at

Greg:

 

Least once a year. I have not seen, I spoke with it doing very well

Greg:

 

In Kansas city. He owns a McDonald’s in Kansas city. So that’s seven. Yes seven. And then, uh,

LD:

 

Uh, 600 [inaudible] Sterling.

Greg:

 

Carlos Carson.

LD:

 

And you

LD:

 

It, did we mention when the Tio, oh, you know what? The other one, his name was hill. A guy named hill signed with LSU. When he didn’t show up, he went to Yale and played at Yale. His name was hill and I’m good friends with his brother, Ernest hill, who was an author. You sent me a book called satisfied, but nothing is here years ago, years ago when his brother signed with us, but never showed up and went to Yale.

LD:

 

That is interesting. You sit near a book years later, that was 27 years ago.

LD:

 

Aloma books.

LD:

 

I that one of the best books I enjoyed

Greg:

 

Ernest hill wrote that book. Well, his brother hill went to Yale, got drafted in the second round with the New York giants and played about 10 years with the giants. So he didn’t show up. They were from Oak Grove, Louisiana. Right,

LD:

 

Right. Ernest Hill. I haven’t heard that name in a year, wrote a book, title, satisfied with nothing. And he wrote several other books after that. I don’t remember the name of that book was very, I would encourage someone to look to pick up the book and read it because it’s a very good book. Uh, it is. It takes you to a journey in, in, in, in end up in a place you didn’t think he was gonna end up as a, I thought it was a very, very good book. So in your class you had six, seven of you. All my class came the next year had eight of us eco include me, Marcus queen, uh, will it Turner with disease to meet William? My roommate whose disease? They, the swallow was deceased. Chris Williams. Who else? I can’t remember now. Okay. Well, is that everybody that I’m still missing?

LD:

 

The three of Tracy Porter who Tracy roommate, Danny and trace was roommates, linear wireless wide receiver. And there’s one other guy we go take up. And it was, he was able to, we had the largest class of freshmen. So we had seven. We had a interest by one next year. They increased it by word and it brought a little bit different deport linebackers. You know why I received when I received two to Carson, Trey, but Tracy and Wallace was to learn. It was a wide receivers, but also the year I got to use you, they had, they didn’t know what to do with you. They had you played,

Greg:

 

I was a quarterback in high school and they were honest with it upfront when they were recruiting me. They’re like, you know, we’re going to make a tight end out of you. Cause I was six, four and I could run, you know? And they said, well, you know, we’ll put you in the weight room, have you get bigger? So we could move. You’re either tied in wide receiver and tight end or whatever. So when I got to LSU in 76 and you know that the freshmen didn’t play only two guys on our sign-in class played John Adams and Willie till they were the only two freshmen that played. So the rest of us, we didn’t even, you know, you have to practice everyday and you lost that year of eligibility, but we had freshmen games. So I didn’t get to play as a freshman. Then I come back my sophomore year and you hit you at LSU at that time.

Greg:

 

Right? And you remember this, but you probably wouldn’t pay any attention to me because you want defense. And most people that that’s not familiar with football, don’t realize it’s almost like two teams. You guys rode a different bus. Your roommates would all defense. Our meetings were always separated. The only time we came together was when the head coach spoke to the whole team. Other than that, we were never together right at my rest, right? So we went to Indiana and played Indiana the first game of the season and Carlos and I alternated every other play. So neither one of those nailed down the starting position. Your sophomore year, my sophomore year, then we came back to Baton Rouge for the second game, rice rice we’ll call. Those, went into the game first and they threw them a pass and he went 80 yards for a touchdown. So the next time we get the ball, they call a run in play. And then I have to run out the game. Carlos ran in the game and they called another pass play. He went to 65 yards, but touchdown. So the next time we get the ball, I go in and they caught a run in place. Then I run out, call those runs in and they call the past plate

Greg:

 

And it threw them a fan. There was another touchdown. Three consecutive. Now the next time we got the ball, they put me in Colin’s goals in the game. They called another pass. Touchdown. Next time we get the ball, Carlos, go. Then they call another pass plate, touch that. So he caught five consecutive touchdown passes in that day. Then the next week we played Florida. They caught a pass play early in the game and equals, but another touchdown. He caught six consecutive touchdown passes, no pass in between every pass. He caught his first six passes with touchdown. So the NC two-way record today and it still stands. Now there’s Bryant who played for the Cowboys, had a game where he had seven touchdown passes. But the difference with him and Carlos Carlos passes with consecutive six consecutive touchdown peasants. Well there’s Brian called seven, but they were not consecutive. Well, I never played another douse that year. So I only played three plays. So, so now at the end of the season, and I’m like, okay, I didn’t play as a freshman. Last year of eligibility played three plays my sophomore year. And I knew Carlos was a great wide receiver. He was fast. Yeah. So I, so I went in to see coach Mack about moving to tied in. So coach Mac moved me to tie it in. And once, once spring started, we had a shortage of flamenco. So they made me play flanker. And I played a little bit of tied

LD:

 

In with Della.

Greg:

 

Oh, you remember that people were telling, I

Greg:

 

Knew I wouldn’t want to play before Mike and tell her whether I was better than him

Speaker 4:

 

Or not. What are you seeing your weight? Unless you go play, you wouldn’t understand. But I was not going to beat Mike Montell out

Greg:

 

Acquisition. It was an uphill battle. And I was a team player. I played those different positions because they asked me to so we can finish spraying, but you know, I want it to be a tight in, well, we’ve finished that spring. And then we come back the next year. So this is my junior year. So we went through two a days and I played tight end doing two days that Monday before the first game, my phone rang in my room at six 30 in the morning. I don’t think I ever shared that with you. My phone rang at six 30 in the morning and the secretary said, coach Mac wanted to see you. So I walked down and went to coach Mack’s office at six 30 in the morning that Monday before the first game, you know, he sat me across his desk. He said, uh, Greg, the reason I called you in this morning, uh, we decided we’re going to red shirt.

Greg:

 

You and I’m a junior. Like I already been here two years and hadn’t touched the field three plays. And now you telling me I’m not gonna even play this year. And something told me, don’t lose your composure. This is something just right about this. And you go red shooter junior. I’ve never heard of it. I still hadn’t heard of that today. Unless you heard you get redshirted as a junior. So something told me not to lose my composure and just take it. And I said to coach Mack, I said, well, coach Mac, I’m in good standing academically. I’m on, on pace to graduate. And uh, by you giving me an extra year, it’ll make it much easier for me to go ahead on and finish school. I can pace myself a little bit better. And I said also, I’m, uh, I’ll go, go to the weight room and get bigger, strong and fast.

 

 

Greg:

 

And, and w I’m going to be the best tight end when I leave here LD, he stared at me and he jumped up out of his chair that nobody ever responded like that when they got redshirted. Now, he, that was not an endearment comment. When he said that it was like, you shut the hell out of me because in my opinion, I don’t know this for sure, but it seemed like they wanted me to overreact and they wanted me to quit, quit and take my scholarship because nothing made sense about me getting redshirted my junior year. So I’m like, okay, well, I better take advantage of this. I’m here. I’m on course. I’m on pace to graduate on time. Now I got an extra year. So I just started taking 12 hours a semester, just coasting my way outta here. So that’s the approach I took.

Greg:

 

And then when that freshmen class came and we had two guys from your heart from your high school were in that class, Greg Bowser and Mike Johnson. So, and that year was the first year you could reassure a freshman. Cause see, we lost our freshman year and we only had three years of eligibility to play. But when that class came, they had showed it just about that whole class. And man, they were upset. They were all upset because they knew they were not gonna play. You know, because they were all, all stars coming out of high school. So, because I

Greg:

 

Was ran shirted, I’m a junior I’m with all these freshmen. I remember that that was a hurting thing, but I had to deal with it, you know?

LD:

 

Yeah. Would it with the class, do you really?

Greg:

 

Yeah, because the football thing was starting to fade away in my mind, you know, because I’m like, I’m like, I better handle this school thing. I better make sure I graduated from this place because I can’t come here and waste my time. Because at that time, a lot of athletes, particularly football players when I graduated. So I’m like, I better take this school thing seriously. So anyway, that freshmen class comes in and they all complaining about being reassured because we go to practice for like 15 minutes before you guys would come out because we couldn’t ride the bus with you guys. We had to walk to the practice

Greg:

 

Unless you play it. You wouldn’t understand it’s making LD laugh because he know he never had to walk, always took the bus to practice. Well, we had to walk your practice and I’m a junior and I’m walking with all this freshmen to practice. So we get to the practice field.

Greg:

 

And we waiting for you guys to come to practice because we are the dummies for you guys. You know, we, the scout team and we were just sitting there waiting and they were just whining about being redshirted. And I just stood up and I’m like, shut the hell up.

Greg:

 

Yeah. I said, I’m a junior and I’m here with you guys.

Greg:

 

I said, listen, you guys are so lucky because chances are, none of you guys would have played as a freshmen, but you didn’t lose

Greg:

 

That eligibility. You still have four years.

Greg:

 

You can play. I said, I came here in 76 and didn’t play and lost that year of eligibility. I said, not the best thing you guys can do is take advantage of this year. Make sure you get your schoolwork done because you have five years to graduate. And this is a blessing for you. So you got need to take advantage of this. And one of your, uh, the guy, one of your guys from your hometown, he didn’t accept that Mike Johnson Mike would accept. He wouldn’t accept that at all. And he went to see the coaches and he was upset about being redshirted and he quit. He didn’t even stay on the team, lost the scholarship. And all he had to do is just not play that that year. And he would have had four years of a scholarship after that. So you would have five years of a scholarship. So, but anyway, I told that freshman class that I’m like, man, listen, don’t complain. Just, just, just take advantage of this extra year because we lost that year. Now, this is where the story gets interesting. So now I’m trying to be a tight in now. You know, I couldn’t be a wide receiver. Carlos caught six consecutive touchdown passes. I’m trying to move to tidy and that’s spraying. They signed the

Greg:

 

Best tight in, in America, Malcolm Scott. I’m like, ah, nah, I got to deal with this guy. Now here I am. I never played tiny. And they bring in the best tight end in the country.

Greg:

 

Oh man. So now I go into my junior year, which is yeah, which is my fourth year, but it’s, but it’s my junior scholarship year. So, but this is my fourth year. And you know, Malcolm was a good tight in, so Malcolm played and there was a young man from Clinton, Louisiana. Was it Clinton? Centerville,

LD:

 

Robert big Robert Lee is another big tight end. Yeah. Another big tidy.

Greg:

 

So they played those two tight ends before me. So I was the third tide is over freshness

Greg:

 

Of a freshmen. I was behind two freshmen, tied in

Greg:

 

Tight is, and so I’m like, man, I never get to play. So I’d play. I had 80 plays that whole year. Not, you know, 80 for one game. I had 80 plays the whole season,

Greg:

 

My junior year 80.

Greg:

 

I only had 80 plays. So what was interesting about midway through the season? After a game, I walked out of the locker room. Cause my parents came to every game. Although they didn’t see me play

Greg:

 

Because I didn’t play. But they came to every game. So after

Greg:

 

Midway through the season, I walked out of the locker room after one of the games and my father said, son, I’m going to come pick you up Tuesday and take you to lunch. He said, yeah, Sonoma, meet me in front of your dormitory. Tuesday at 12, I’ll come get you to take you to lunch. So that Tuesday came and he came around that circle. I got in the car and he took me to a restaurant called Mike and Tony’s. So we get into the restaurant and I’m like, why is my father taking me to lunch? That was just out of nowhere. He drove from Ville. Platte picked me up, took me to the restaurant. He said, son, you know why I brought you here? I said, no. He said, well, when you came out of the locker room Saturday night, I noticed your wings were broken as well.

Greg:

 

Dad, I’ve been here four years and I’m not playing. He said, son, I understand. He said, well, let me tell you something. He said, listen, you save and mama and I about $60,000 because you on a football scholarship. I said that that would have cost us about $60,000 for you to go to college. And you saving us that money by being on scholarship. Now there’s no other job in America that you can work for two hours a day and get all your school paid for. That’s not another job that you could do that you Meg now, no matter where you go, you’re not going to only work just two hours to get all your school paid for. Now, this is what you need to do. You need to go to practice and give it all you got for those two hours. And don’t give that coach any reason to say one bad thing about you because he has your future in his hands.

Greg:

 

So if you build that culture hard time, anybody that’s going to try to hire you in the future, going to call that COFA reference. And the, that course say you hard to deal with, or you have an attitude or whatever. You never know why you won’t get a job. So you just go out there and give it your best for them two hours, you can do two hours. You can give it your best for two hours. And he said, and if you’re good enough, they’re going to find, he said, if you want to play in the NFL, they’ll find you you’re good enough. So, and that when the conversation he drove me back to the dormitory, dropped me off and left.

LD:

 

How powerful was that does even think about that this point in time in your life that Joel fought. He had a father, a man to come show up who saw his son, heard him. So he saw a sign in a bad place, became the uplift. You that’s correct. Let you know that you can do this and you never looked back and you didn’t quit. No.

Greg:

 

So, uh, and, and, and you know, you on defense. So I was on the same field as you, you know, when we, we just scout team the offensive scout team. No, no, that was the year before that. But anyway, so yeah, so I came back and at, and I was giving it all I had then at the end of the year, they fired coach Mac. Wow. You know, so, uh, but now, but it’s after my junior year and when they brought in this new coach, I’m like, well, let me hit the books harder because I know I’m not going to play with this new coach. I’m going into my senior year. You know? So they had this new coach and we were gone for, to the break, go

LD:

 

For a break. And let’s talk about that. Cause the milk’s supposed to be, don’t know how that happened. But we was, I was a junior. You go into your senior going into my senior year. We both were going a thousand years, but I had been four years. That was your third year. No, we both was juniors. Cause it’s the spring. Now it was the spring.

Greg:

 

It was the end of the fall going into the spring.

LD:

 

And they had just had coach Bo Ryan. Correct. And probably when he was home for about two weeks and they call all the players, tell us that, look, you need to get here on this day. I was like belong on Wednesday or Thursday and told us that coach ball, Ryan, you know, he, he wanted to meet his, his team. That’s correct. And he asked all of us to show up. So we showed up that day for a meeting. Do you remember? Well,

Greg:

 

Check this out. This is what happened in my recollection because I was back and I needed to go register that morning for class. And my alarm clock came on, which was the radio. And the news was on. And the news said, LSU coach is missing. I’m like what the coach is missing. And you know, we didn’t have CNN or anything to turn the TV on to see if I missed something. You know? So I had to wait a few more minutes for the news to come back home. And they talked about LSU coach is missing. Then they finally said his plane disappeared in the Atlantic ocean, the plane left Freeport, Louisiana. They were recruiting liquid Hoblit. They left leopard hobbled, his house. They were all Navy. They were flying back to Baton Rouge and something happened in the plane either. They lost the oxygen or whatever, right? The plane just drifted off and went all the way to the Atlantic ocean, hit the water. And they hadn’t found the coach or the plane today

LD:

 

Because we were supposed to be meeting with him that day. And he was, he would call a meeting for meet with his staff. And we was just so happy to meet, never transpired. Cause we went down there for a meeting, but he said, you know, nobody showed up. So we never had a chance. [inaudible] no.

Greg:

 

So all was the athletic director at the time. And he was in a bind because bull Ryan had hired his whole staff except for one spot. So the athletic director, Paul diesel had to come up with a new coach quick. And what he did was he hired one of his former players who had been an assistant coach for two years while I was there. He had, I don’t know how long he had been at LSU before I got there, but he was with me for two years. And then he got out of coaching and he got out of coaching and he started working with the tiger. It was called the varsity club back then. But that’s the tiger athletic foundation today? Well, he was with the varsity club and I guess, uh, Paul diesel was just in a bind and he needed to get a car. We know

LD:

 

That they say they hired Paul diesel to fire Charlie for Clinton. That was the whole body, brought him back in the first place because Charlie had too much stroke. He had a lot going on and they felt nobody could really call Maddix was there when we first got used to D uh, they, they, uh, all these, all these Paul, these are called me in me and hokey guys. See, I didn’t know that he called us. He called us in and he asked us what we thought about Jerry Stovall, really? And we kind of like, you know, compare by the lack codes, but we didn’t, we didn’t, which was kind of figure out where you’re going with it. But we didn’t know we wanted him to be our coach. Cause he still was, he had these tough rules and regulations that he was straight, that the players didn’t quite, you know, childhood cleanser. We can, you know, we can, we can sneak out everyday. Did you can sneak somebody up here,

Greg:

 

But we’re Stovall. We are locked out because we saw how he treated his running backs. So strict on the running back, you know, like man, he’s driving them guys to the ground, you know? So, so we was like,

LD:

 

We like coach, he’s a good guy, but I don’t know about the head coach, Paul. These are ex hokey guys out of that. Well, I didn’t know that because he saw us as being team leaders. And we Hogan at war team, captain of our senior year. He was offense. I was defense and he asks us to help to encourage the other players. Other words, we to create a campaign like that’s all rally behind Jared Stovall for the coats. And that’s really what we ended up doing.

LD:

 

I don’t know if I had no idea how, but we all, we all kind of, you all started rallying behind.

LD:

 

Cause it started talking about Jerry Stovall. They started interviewing it. Yeah, of course. It’ll all be good because after having their meeting with coach Paul diesel, he encouraged the foci that to help heal, you know, like pain, like get this thing going for Jerry Stovall. So that’s, that’s what he wanted. Yeah. Yeah. See, I

Greg:

 

Was going into my senior year and nobody talked to me.

Greg:

 

I only had three plays on the 80 players my junior year. And so I was, I was not a lot of the loop. I was totally out of the loop

Greg:

 

And I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on either. I’m like, I just need to go and

LD:

 

Finish. W w where was the mud? Our, both our junior year, our GCs and you wasn’t playing at all that year. Right. And, uh, we was getting ready for the Tangerine bowl. We got to tell a story. It was [inaudible] no, it’s not the Tangerine bowl. It was deliverable Liberty bowl year before the year before. So we’re getting ready for the red. That was my red shirt year. We get ready for the Liberty bowl. And, uh, coach Mack has given us the itinerary, this the hot thing it’s going to look like, what is, well, it was,

Greg:

 

You know, after practice, we all have to kneel down and he stands in the circle in the middle of the circle. And that was our last practice. Before we left to go to mentors for the Liberty bowl. And he was just making his last little comments and, and he made the comment that we could drive our own cars to Memphis. You know, we all got excited about that. And, and LD. You remember we had our interview about Villa cannon and the tickets. Well, because I was a junior, I was in the ticket business, like middle camp.

Greg:

 

So, you know, the football thing I told you, my mindset was totally different because I wasn’t playing. So

Greg:

 

My survival still kicked in, was red shirted. I raised my hand up cause I had a question. So coach Mack looked at me and he said, okay, look, look what you got. I said, well, coach, we all red shirted. We need to use a ticket to get in the game or will we dress out? And will we have all four of our tickets? Hmm. Good question. And he looked around at all the assistant coaches, coaches, what are we going to do? And everybody understood what was going on with those tickets. So the assistant coaches were like, oh, we’re going to get, we’re gonna let them, let them dress out so they can have all four of their tickets. Okay. Y’all want to dress out. And the floor, don’t you get in my infant weight

LD:

 

In front of them. And to this day we could figure out what that was about.

Greg:

 

Help me with this and overheard coach Mac swear? No that big. Have you ever heard Cosmax swear. After that day, nobody has ever heard coach Maxwell. And he called me out in front of the whole football team. Don’t you get in my F way?

LD:

 

What the hell? I mean, we all, like, we was like, what, what had happened? We thought you messed with his daughter or something.

Greg:

 

It didn’t make sense. And it still doesn’t make sense today. Why he did me like that in front of the whole

Greg:

 

Team when he never swore against anybody.

LD:

 

That was, that was interesting. That was very, but you also, you remember when, uh, when, when my first got the LSU you first got there, we, we, we, we used to the teams to vote on what movie we would go to. Right? So we, you know, you raise your hand. So this particular game, it was a home game at home game. We would, they would take us to a movie first. After the movie, we would come back to dormitory. He brings on a couple of buses and it was voting on this particular day on Richard Fry had come up with a movie what’s the bin, which way was up or something. And we all decided that, oh, we won’t go to see Richard prod. So we encouraged the white brothers. So Mo

LD:

 

You go down numbers. Yeah. We never went nothing. Yeah, because we didn’t have enough numbers. So where were we? They chose. But we had to go see, we didn’t care what

LD:

 

It was, but we knew they like Richard PRA. Uh, so, so we did a little campaign. We asked the guys to vote for Richard PRI. So now it’s dope. I mean, uh, Charlie McLendon, X, everybody raised their hand when they were moving here at Joe’s go to when I don’t know what it was. Then he said Richard Fry. So the people chose with the proud one. So he got mad. He said, would you put your hand on y’all can’t make up your mind. I choose a tea. I choose a movie. You remember that? Yeah. So he chose the movie for us because he figured we could not make up our mind with it caught him off guard that white players voted to see Richard Price. So we had a tough time. Let me bring up this story here too. I don’t know how well you might remember that he decided we was gone. LSU had never had a black queen, a queen homecoming for you remember, like it was yesterday. You remember that situation? I remember. So I had a brother by the name of the twins, Cedric and Mero must’ve been, which was Cedric said it was the one that deals with the politician. I believe Cedric came to me a queen. So, you know, we can have it y’all cause y’all can vote for a queen because at that time, tell them how it went. How did I get the queen?

Greg:

 

Well, at that time, the student body had to vote. No two players, the student body had to vote and narrow it down to 10. And when they got to 10, the football player had to pick from that 10. Now you can pick it from them. I thought it was my worse. No, no. The students pick the 10 and then we voted for the queen out of that 10.

LD:

 

Okay. And so when it came to, what we decided to do was that the years before lasted all the white brothers come campaign for their niece, their cousin, their, whoever, their girlfriends just said, brothers, sisters, today we’ll come campaign. And we didn’t get

LD:

 

Who won that’s correct, because it was never one of books.

LD:

 

So at that particular time, we decided to know the broad, the boy Cedric came to us. This is how we can do this. So he gave us the strategy, et cetera, uh, moronic, et cetera. I can’t remember the last name. So Cedric out of new Orleans, he gave us the, uh, concept for how to do it. So I took the concept. We equated, I took the concept to all the other players, all other brothers. You say, look, you got enough of us here. Well, we can do, we can ask every player, every player, all the Bronco

LD:

 

For all the sisters. We just want to, no, it was, it was three.

LD:

 

Oh, it was, it was no, it was more than two. Okay. That’s what I’m saying. It was more than three. Okay. It was, it was several of them there. So what happened is that when it came down to, we had to pick the top. I forgot the top five, something like that. Top five. When we got through with the process, we asked all the white brothers, it was like, he was exchanging votes. This one I’ll vote for that one. You vote for this one. I vote for that one. But we had decided if all our brothers vote for these ones,

Greg:

 

This particular one, give her the most vulnerable that they can win.

LD:

 

Yeah. So now we ask [inaudible] who you want me to. Okay. No problem. No problem. So when he started calling the names of the winners, it was the first time at LSU history. He had three sisters and two white girls. No, no, no. See, no, that was the team we had to vote for the top tier. So we had to vote for the top 10. Right? So when they got through, that was six sisters and four white girls. Now we know that was the first time that ever happened. That assistant going to have to win, come over there. Because if you, when you, when you vote that out, so you know

Greg:

 

The numbers for African-Americans to win Queens. So

LD:

 

It’s gonna be the first time that a queen with a system will win the queen. So now it goes back to the student body and the LSU administration decided the numbers ain’t going to work. It, they can’t stop the process. So the administrative side with no, I’ll tell you what, there’s too much confusion going on, blah, blah, blah. We gonna postpone the vote. Y’all gonna do the vote the following week. So the following week, come up, everybody getting ready to vote. No was still gonna be the same. So the says, I tell you what, since y’all, can’t come together, y’all can’t work together. We go to the queen,

Greg:

 

No LD that year. They decided not to have a queen. They honored everybody the same on it, everybody the same. And they didn’t name a queen that year because the numbers would have worked in our favor to have the first black queen. So that year they didn’t have a queen. That’s how I ended up here

LD:

 

Because it was going to be, it was, it was, it was going to be six. It’s going to be six to four something. My dumb number wouldn’t ended up. But we made that happen because we struck, we stuck together and we organize ourselves and we put it in a way where they could, nobody administrators would leave. The first time the student body had, had not voted for queen. Exactly. And I think they changed the rule ever since. I don’t think it’s about, I

Greg:

 

Don’t know, but that year they didn’t have a queen [inaudible] I didn’t pay much attention to after that. But I remember that year that didn’t have acquaintance, how I like it was yesterday.

LD:

 

So we came together and strategize. So that’s a little tidbit for, for the audience. And to let you know that we were strategizing back then, and it’s unfortunate, unfortunate. We had to strategize on everything we got, right? Because no one was just going to give it to you because it was the right thing to do. Right. You know, we had, they made things. If we figured out a way to do something, they changed the room and it kept happening, kept happening. And it was just unfortunate. Also, Greg and I, because when he moved to tighten that we had to play against each other at practice every

Greg:

 

Day I had to go up against each other. We’re all in one.

LD:

 

It was because of that, me, he made me better. And I have, I have the believer being heal better because we, everyday it was, it was a, it was a battle every day. He wouldn’t quit. I would go quit. So, you know, that was, that was a great experience, you know, going against you, playing against you and, and Malcolm, you know, we all became better, but guess what happened? It was because of your dad and talking head, which is that conversation when he came, pick you up and spend that time with you, that next year a bull ride was didn’t make it. And Jerry Stovall came on board. Things got a little bit better for it. And