"Pregame! Tailgate Party" Kicks off Football Season in Style

Tiger Fans Raise the Roof While Raising Nearly $3,000 for a New Tiger Band Hall!

The busy waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings in Alpharetta summed up the atmosphere at the "LSU Football PREGAME! Party" on August 23rd in one breathless sentence: “You LSU folks really know how to have a good time!”

That we do. And the gathering, which represented the final “Band Together Atlanta” fundraiser for the new LSU Tiger Band Hall, proved that LSU supporters know how to be generous for a good cause, too. Between the raffle, auctions and selling out the last few squares on our London Trip football board, the event raised $2,311 on the spot. In addition, another pledge of $500 was made by an alum who could not attend but wanted his donation counted with our results.

To date, Band Together Atlanta has raised almost $6,700 to help make a new home for The Golden Band From Tigerland. And because more than half of that amount was raised in time to help trigger a $5 million match fund set up by an act of the Louisiana legislature, we can fairly claim that we have leveraged nearly $10,000 in total funds for the project.

The event got off to a slow start but within an hour the restaurant filled to capacity. Two footballs autographed by Les Miles and the football coaches, plus LSU baseballs signed by coach Paul Manieri, were auctioned off with lively bidding. Over 35 raffle prizes were given away over the course of the afternoon. And, after a brief delay to fix an audio glitch, fans enjoyed watching videos that featured the Tiger Band, top plays of 2007, and a replay of the National Championship Celebration held in Tiger Stadium last January. When the Tiger Band played the LSU Alma Mater, the gathering stood and sang along. And more than one person shed a tear when the 2007 National Champions flag was raised over Tiger Stadium.

Steven Covington, director of development for the LSU School of Music, traveled to Atlanta from Baton Rouge to personally thank everyone and to provide some great news about the project. He reported that private donations to date are over $1.5 million, and just recently, the LSU Athletic Department announced it is pledging $1.5 million per year for three years towards the building fund. That put the tally over the $5 million threshold and made the $5 million state match a reality. “I am happy to announce that the new band hall complex has been placed on the active project list at LSU,” Covington said. “The architects are getting busy with finalizing designs in preparation for construction.” A construction schedule is expected to be announced sometime in the fall.

Covington added that while enough money has been raised to move the project forward, there is a need for at least $2 million more to meet the complete needs of the project. “It is important to remember that we aren’t done yet, so please consider helping us again when you can,” he stressed. Information brochures and preprinted envelopes were distributed to attendees. You can find out how to donate by visiting www.friendsofthelsutigerband.org.

Band Together Atlanta is a joint project of the LSU Alumni Association Atlanta Chapter and the Georgia Chapter of the Tiger Athletic Foundation (TAF). Because of the success achieved from this collaboration, the two LSU groups are now working to get Atlanta on the schedule for next year's "Tiger Tour" of LSU coaches. A petition banner was signed by attendees at Saturday’s party that will be sent to Baton Rouge to demonstrate Atlanta’s desire to host the Tiger Tour for the first time in many years. Stay tuned, this could get interesting!

Buffalo Wild Wings Alpharetta is also our new Northside chapter viewin location this season. Rio Grande Cantina in Buckhead will continue to be our central Atlanta viewin location. Several LSU supporters at Saturday’s event expressed thanks for providing people north of the Perimeter a convenient location to watch and cheer together. “I live in Cumming amd it’s just too difficult to drive all the way downtown to watch games, so I haven’t been going,” explained Bill Botzong, a Tiger Band alum who showed up Saturday. “Now that there’s a place closer to where I live, you’ll be seeing me here for several games this year.”

Band Together gratefully acknowledges Bill Lind for obtaining the airline tickets from British Airways, and to TAF member Len Jehle for donating the 2008 SEC Football Championship tickets as the prizes for our two football boards that are now sold out. Both prizes will be given away based on the final score of the Mississippi State-LSU game on Sept. 27th. Pariticpants will be notified soon by email with a chart for both boards showing the numbers that will be randomly selected and assigned by the committee in the presence of impartial witnesses.

Finally a big shout out to Sign-A-Rama Buckhead for producing our big football boards and other signs for the LSU Atlanta chapter.