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LSU Historical Walking Tour

Tiger Stadium, pg. 3

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Tiger Stadium Dorms
Some of the students on campus have heard the legend of Tiger Stadium once having student dorms. Well, that legend is true!

Tiger Stadium was once home to thousands of students who lived underneath the bleachers thanks to a clever idea from one of the graduate students who worked for Coach Russ Cohen, Skipper Heard, who proposed they used a preliminary plan created by university officials in 1925 to simultaneously expand the stadium and build dormitories for students.[1]

The first side to be built was the East Side Dorm in 1932, costing $200,000 for expanded seating and the east-side dorms. According to the Times-Picayune of June 25, 1932, the Tiger Stadium had a capacity of 13,000 before the expansion. The expansion would result in 10,000 additional seats as well as 120 dorm rooms with 4 students in each room.[2]

With difficulty in successfully receiving funding from federal relief agencies (Hoover’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation and Roosevelt’s additional agencies), Senator Huey P. Long (also the president of LSU’s Building Committee and former Governor of Louisiana) decided to use LSU’s revenue from the corporate franchise tax and a million-dollar loan from the State Board of Liquidation to build a plethora of new buildings for the year of 1935, including the construction of the West Side Dorms.[3]

Once Huey Long was assassinated, the state of Louisiana benefited from the new stream of revenue coming from the federal government that was inaccessible to the state under Long’s reign. The new governor of Louisiana, Gov. Richard Leche, bucked his Longite roots, assuaging the federal government by promising that he would kill the deceased Long’s “Share our Wealth” societies and vigorously support President Roosevelt’s re-election campaign of 1936. In exchange, the federal government would call off its IRS investigations of key Longites and allow Louisiana’s participation in Roosevelt’s generous relief programs of the Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration.[4]

The result of this was the construction of the northern part of Tiger Stadium and dormitories built underneath it. The WPA expansion of Tiger Stadium in 1936 doubled the capacity of the stadium to 48,000 and included over 1,200 to 1,500 students that would live in the North Side Dorms.[5]

According to a Reveille article written in 2005, “Death Valley Dorms” by Julie Ginther, many of the former residents had unique experiences living in the dorms. The dorms were renovated throughout the years, but they did not have any modern luxuries. Gary Baker, who lived in the south stadium dormitories during 1978-1979 school year (built in 1953), complained of the lack of elevators and air conditioning. Bobby Matherne, who lived in the North Stadium dorms from 1958 to 1961, complained of the scarcity of telephones. Matherne noted, “The only phone was the pay phone. Imagine no cell-phone, no phones in the room, no internet…Long distance calls were outrageous. It would seem expensive today at 30 to 40 cents a minute.”[6]

The dorms were home to many LSU alum, but one of the most significant would have to be the first African American undergraduate to be accepted to LSU, A.P. Tureaud Jr., in 1954.

While Tureaud’s entrance to LSU was a breakthrough moment in the history of LSU, the victory, held in the middle of an era full of racial animosity, was short-lived. A.P. Tureaud Jr. was only an LSU student for fifty-five days, and this fact was due to a court forcing LSU to admit him. Once the court ruled to throw the lawsuit away, Tureaud was forced to leave LSU, and chose to attend the historically black Xavier University in New Orleans.[7]

Tureaud’s experience was unimaginable for many of us today. He experienced countless instances of racial discrimination coming from many students and teachers. One unforgettable experience was his welcome as a freshman to his dorm room in the stadium dormitories.[8]

Tureaud was escorted from the president’s office to his dorm room, where a crowd of students lined up outside. He was about to get an experience other freshmen received. It was tradition to get every student to get a haircut from fellow students. While Tureaud did get his haircut, he did so in an unusual manner. The other students gave him the haircut but did not acknowledge his presence. While Tureaud was asking the other students questions about life and themselves, he never got a response from them. Tureaud stated, “After I thought about it, I realized they were not talking to me, they were talking about me. It was like I was an inanimate object [laughs] that they were performing this ritual on.”

As Tureaud ventured outside his dorm room and into the main campus, he still felt being “othered”. Professors and students alike treated him like he did not exist. He mentioned his math professor saying “This is the first time I ever taught a n*gra.”[9] And other students in that same class would deliberately sit away from him as much as possible. He stated, “If I sat in the corner, they would move to the opposite side of the room. If I sat in the middle, they would move to the sides. I never sat in the same place or whatever.”

Even though Tureaud suffered during his fifty-five days stay at LSU, there were unforgettable moments that lifted up his spirits, and by extension, hopefully, us as well. One morning, Tureaud was walking outside his stadium dorm. In the parking lot, he saw a working-class black man with his son going to the entrance of the stadium dorm. With a big smile on his face, the man asked him if he was A.P. Tureaud Jr. When Tureaud said yes, he told him that he brought his son to meet him because he wanted to show his young boy that going to a school like LSU was possible.[10]

And the black employees on campus quietly rooted for him, giving him small gestures of confidence with a smile or a wink, according to Tureaud.[11]

The Stadium Dorms were a special place for many, but the story of A.P. Tureaud Jr. is an often-overlooked story that needs to be highlighted. While his story shows the turbulent history of LSU, his story is true and representative of the experiences many people of color experienced at the time.

[1] Mann, Robert. Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU. p. 129. LSU Press, 2023.
[2] The Times-Picayune. “L.S.U. Planning Expenditure of Additional Funds,” June 25, 1932. https://infoweb-newsbank-com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/apps/news/document-view?p=WORLDNEWS&t=pubname%3A1223BCE5B718A166%21Times-Picayune/year%3A1932%211932/mody%3A0625%21June%2B25&action=browse&year=1932&format=image&docref=image/v2%3A1223BCE5B718A166%40EANX-12908CDB22120E88%402426884-12903F9AE8F4BCA6%400.
[3] Ruffin, Thomas R., Jo Jackson, and Mary J. Hebert. Under Stately Oaks : A Pictorial History of LSU. p. 70-71. Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
[4] Ruffin, Thomas R., Jo Jackson, and Mary J. Hebert. Under Stately Oaks : A Pictorial History of LSU. p. 74-75. Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
[5] [5] Ruffin, Thomas R., Jo Jackson, and Mary J. Hebert. Under Stately Oaks : A Pictorial History of LSU. p. 77. Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
[6] Ginther, Julie. “Death Valley Dorms,” April 27, 2005. https://www.lsureveille.com/death-valley-dorms/article_1ac0fa31-e203-50a4-aa6b-73ece032c835.html.
[7] Rdaad, Youssef. “As LSU’s First Black Undergraduate, He Was Forced off Campus. Now He Helps Those Who Came after Him.” The Advocate, October 23, 2020. https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/as-lsus-first-black-undergraduate-he-was-forced-off-campus-now-he-helps-those-who/article_39ad27fe-157d-11eb-9afd-1f72409a7442.html.
[8] Jr. Tureaud, A.P. Alexander Pierre Tureaud Jr. oral history interview. Interview by Rachel Emanuel-Wallace. pg. 6. Transcript, April 25, 1993. Louisiana Digital Library. https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsu-thwcoh-lsuhistory%3A21.

[9] Jr. Tureaud, A.P. Alexander Pierre Tureaud Jr. oral history interview. Interview by Rachel Emanuel-Wallace. pg. 9. Transcript, April 25, 1993. Louisiana Digital Library. https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsu-thwcoh-lsuhistory%3A21.
[10] Jr. Tureaud, A.P. Alexander Pierre Tureaud Jr. oral history interview. Interview by Rachel Emanuel-Wallace. pg. 18. Transcript, April 25, 1993. Louisiana Digital Library. https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsu-thwcoh-lsuhistory%3A21.
[11] Jr. Tureaud, A.P. Alexander Pierre Tureaud Jr. oral history interview. Interview by Rachel Emanuel-Wallace. pg. 17. Transcript, April 25, 1993. Louisiana Digital Library. https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsu-thwcoh-lsuhistory%3A21.