LSU (Louisiana State University) is a member of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and the Southeastern Conference. It fields teams in 14 varsity sports (5 men's, 7 women's, 2 coed). Its official team nickname is the Fightin' Tigers (not plainly "Tigers"), Lady Tigers, Bayou Bengals for the men and Ben-Gals for the women, and the school mascot is Mike the Tiger. The school colors are purple and gold. LSU's nickname is a throwback to its Confederate heritage and was drawn from the Civil War fame of two Louisiana brigades who fought so fiercely that they became known as the "Louisiana Tigers."
Based on winning percentage, the University's athletics program is consistently one of the best in the nation. Its arenas include Tiger Stadium (football), Pete Maravich Assembly Center (basketball, volleyball, gymnastics), Carl Maddox Fieldhouse (indoor track), Bernie Moore Stadium (outdoor track), Tiger Park (softball), and Alex Box Stadium (baseball.) Important rivals in football include one of the longest running college football rivals with the Ole Miss Rebels, and others include the Alabama Crimson Tide, Arkansas Razorbacks and the Auburn Tigers.
Keeping with the French/Cajun character of South Louisiana, LSU support can be seen by its distinctive spelling of "Go Tigers" as "Geaux Tigers".
In 1996, a federal court ruled that LSU had violated the civil rights of female athletes. This ruling was based on Title IX of the Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race or gender.
The LSU Tigers football team, a.k.a. "the Bayou Bengals", represents _Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States in NCAA Division I FBS college football. Current head coach Les Miles has led the team since 2005. LSU entered the 2007 season with 680 victories, the 12th most in NCAA history, and the 4th most of any SEC team, behind only Alabama (784), Tennessee (762), and Georgia (704). LSU also entered the 2006 season with a 0.635 all-time winning percentage, the 16th best in the NCAA, and the 4th best in the SEC, behind only Alabama (0.712), Tennessee (0.697), and Georgia (0.642). The LSU football team has enjoyed recent success as they won the BCS National Championship in 2003 with a 21-14 victory over Oklahoma in the Nokia Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and won the 2008 (2007 season) BCS National Championship Game versus the Ohio State Buckeyes with a 38-24 score, thus becoming the first team since the advent of the BCS to win multiple national titles.
LSU's Tiger Stadium, also known as "Death Valley", has a capacity of nearly 93,000, making it the sixth largest sports stadium in the nation (not including racetrack stadiums) and the third largest sports stadium in the Southeastern Conference. For years, Tiger Stadium has consistently been labeled by numerous NCAA coaches and players (as well as ESPN.com ("Top Ten Scariest Places to Play: Death Valley Tops List of Scary Venues for Opposing Teams) by Bruce Feldman 10/1/2007) as the single most difficult venue for a visiting opponent. As such, LSU has one of college football's best home field advantages. LSU makes a significant effort to schedule the majority of their home games at night as they have discovered that crowd noise and participation reaches much greater levels during night games. The intense crowd noise in the final seconds of the 1988 LSU-Auburn game once registered as an earthquake on the seismographs in the campus Geology Department and since has been well-known as the "Earthquake Game." During the 2007 season, while also setting record attendance numbers, the raucous LSU crowd registered unbelievable sound levels of 123.4 decibels and 129.8 decibels during the Tigers nationally televised wins against Virginia Tech and Florida , respectively.
LSU is notable for the fact that it is the only current college football team that wears their white uniforms in home games as opposed to their darker jerseys (in their case, purple). All other NCAA football teams wear their darker jerseys in home games, even though football is one of the few college sports that do not require a specific jersey type for each respective team (unlike college basketball, which requires home teams to wear white or light-colored jerseys while the away team wears their darker jerseys), and is similar to the NFL in letting the home team decide what to wear.
The Louisiana State Tigers basketball team represents Louisiana State University in NCAA Division I men's college basketball. Women's teams and athletes at LSU are known as Lady Tigers. The team is currently coached by Butch Pierre (interim) and has enjoyed recent success, including a Final Four run in the 2005-2006 season. Past coaches include John Brady, Press Maravich, Dale Brown and Harry Rabenhorst. They play their home games in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center located on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The team participates in the West division of the Southeastern Conference.
