The Night My Sister Got Pinned at LSU

LSU just defeated Auburn by a score of 31-10.  It is 2009 and it is a rarity for this game to end with a lopsided victory.  Most of the games against Auburn have nicknames (The Earthquake Game, The Penalty Game, The Interception Game, The Night the Barn Burned) and most of them are decided by three points or less.  Forty years ago, one LSU-Auburn game stood out as they met at Tiger Stadium.

It was 1969 and LSU fielded one of its best teams ever.  My family members were avid LSU fans.  Two sisters attending LSU, one a newly-wed to an LSU student; one a freshman attending the homecoming game; my father and mother attending; and my brother and I there for the big game against the Auburn Tigers lead by Pat Sullivan.  This game was before the LSU-Auburn Game became an annual event.  

They were not big rivals, though they were in the SEC.  Auburn was a strange opponent for this 14 year old fan.  Only 17 times before this day had these two SEC rivals met, the last time was in 1942.

It was a magical afternoon and the stadium was packed.  This would be The Pin Game, at least for my family.  Auburn was not highly ranked but were expected to win the game with their No. 1 defense in the nation.  

LSU, with Charlie Mac as coach, called for a half back pass on the first play.  This was highly unusual for Coach McClendon, but Jimmy Gilbert, a backup quarterback in as a halfback, threw to Andy Hamilton for a touchdown.

The game was close, as LSU scored its second touchdown right before the half to tie the game.  The Bengal Tigers went ahead in the third quarter by the score of 21-14.  Then over the P.A. system we heard.  "Will Charles Riddle please report to Campus Police?"  

I was named after my father who was Charles Riddle Jr.  The stunned look on me and my 12-year-old brother was a shock.  Then it was repeated, "Will Charles Riddle please report to Campus Police?"  We were stunned.  We did not want to leave the game but what could we do?  We finally decided to see what was happening.  

As we were leaving the game, we were told that we could not come back in.  What a decision we had to make.  We trekked to the station.  We got directions of where to go and ended up in the tiny building right outside the stadium North Side near where the PMAC is today. (In 1969, LSU basketball was played on the other side of campus.  There was no Assembly Center.)

We made it.  Our father was there and the infirmary had reported that our sister had a medical problem.  When they pinned the corsage on her to go to the game (they still did that in those days) the pin was sticking toward her body.  In the excitement of the game, the long pin worked its way to her lungs, eventually puncturing one of them.  She was OK and being cared for at the hospital. 

Now we wondered what to do.  We could not go back to the game, so we walked around.  We could hear the cheers and lulls of the rest of the game knowing we won by those sounds.  

It turned out that the balance of the game proved to be quite exciting.  Bill Thomason blocked a field goal effort by Auburn.  Later, Pat Sullivan led the Auburn Tigers to a seemingly tying touchdown.  The extra point was blocked by George Bevan, the small linebacker who packed a mighty punch.  The game ended 21-20 with LSU defeating Auburn in the first of many exciting Auburn-LSU games over the next 40 years.

As we walked around, the loudest cheer was reserved for that blocked extra point.  Perhaps that one point victory was a foretelling of the great games of the late '80s, nineties and most of this decade against Auburn.  Perhaps I should say, it was the greatest game that I never saw end.

LSU would lose only one game that year, to the dreaded Ole Miss Rebels and their Quarterback Archie Manning, by three points.  Charlie Mac figured we deserved the Cotton Bowl that year, which would have been one of the biggest games of that year.

As I remember it, Notre Dame lifted its Bowl attendance restrictions and accepted an invitation.  Mac and the team voted not to go to a lesser bowl, on principal not seen today in college football.

Allen Shorey, Mike Anderson, young Tommy Casanova, Eddie Ray, Art Cantrelle, Ronnie Estay, Craig Burns, Mike Hillman, Andy Hamilton and my favorite kicker ever, Mark Lumpkin (Lumpkin PAT Kick Good-the scoreboard would read- or was it Pat Mark, Lumpkin Kick Good) all players who would live etched in my mind as heroes because they played for my family's LSU team that year.

We would go to more games, and as I would get older, fewer with my father and even less with my brother, but none would match the intensity of hearing my name (alright, my Dad's) called by the public announcer of the night my sister got pinned.