Lee Dugas is not one of the them.
The Loreauville native and 1983 graduate of Loreauville High School moved to Columbus five months ago. Since then he has been LSU’s No. 1 fan in Big Ten country. Steel nerves come with such a title and Dugas was not worried when LSU fell behind last night 10-0 early in the first quarter.
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LSU settled down and the rest is national championship history.
In fact, Lee and his wife of almost two years, Alicia, have a busy day today. Alicia is scheduled to have gall bladder surgery at 12:15 p.m. When the procedure begins, neither Alicia’s nor Lee’s loyalties will be in question.
“My wife is wearing two LSU tattoos, like the ones you buy from the store, on her head into the operating room, and I will be in purple and gold from head to toe,” Dugas said. “We were in the hospital yesterday (Monday) and I had my colors on and all of the doctors and nurses were dressed in Ohio State.”
Dugas, who spent time in the U.S. Army after college and is now a nurse, moved to Ohio last year because his wife was named the Dean of Students at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, which is 45 miles north of Columbus.
Since then, he has been on the hunt for LSU fans.
“We moved here from Raleigh, N.C.,” Dugas said. “When I was in Raleigh, I was the president of the LSU Alumni Association for Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. I moved here and called the alumni (in Baton Rouge) and said, ‘Where do we have an alumni association in Ohio?’ They said we do not. I said, ‘I’m going to start one.’
“They sent me an e-mail list of 250 alumni on the books. I got here and, for the first couple of games, I sent out e-mails to all 250 asking for all of us to get together, drink a beer, eat some wings and watch LSU play. Four people showed. The second game, two people showed. I said, ‘this is a mess. This isn’t going to work.’
Eventually, Dugas said, a group of a dozen LSU supporters gathered for some food and fun at a to-go restaurant in Columbus called Creole Kitchen.
Although the food was not perfect, the fun was completely down home.
“I had been looking for a Cajun restaurant in Columbus since I have been here and couldn’t find one,” Dugas said. “Last week, I found one on the Internet from a guy from Shreveport who calls himself a Cajun even though Shreveport is about as Cajun as Houston, Texas. He is from Shreveport and his great-great uncle was from New Orleans. We went out there and he cooked for us: etoufee, jumbalaya and gumbo. It was OK. He tried. We all got together and had a good time.”
Dugas’ best run-in with back-home luck occurred by chance on the Columbus roadway.
He had been in Ohio for about a month when he noticed a black pickup truck with an LSU sticker and Louisiana plates driving in front of him.
“I keep my LSU car window flag in the back seat all the time,” Dugas said. “I pulled the flag out, started blowing the horn and waving the flag. The guy is looking at me in the rearview mirror and must be thinking I’m crazy. I follow him for about four or five blacks and he is not pulling over and this is downtown in bumper to bumper traffic. Finally he pulls over and I pull up behind him and run out to his truck. He thought I wanted to pull him out and beat him. He’s was looking at me through a crack in his window, and I said, ‘Did you go to LSU?’ He jumps out his truck and hugs me right there in the middle of the road.”
Dugas said the motorist’s name is Terry Curtis and the two talked that day for 45 minutes about boudin, hogshead cheese and Tiger Stadium on a Saturday night.
Curtis is from Slidell and since then the two men talk every week and a half about the Tigers.
After last night, those talks include championships.
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