Wouldn't the school located in the state capital city be the first to get the rewards? Back then, we were SLI and later USL. We were a small college that shared the same conference with SLU, NW, Nichols, NLU, McNeese and LA Tech. None of those schools came close to LSU and deserving of greater attention, and still don't. LSU has a med school, law school, dental schools and vet school. The only thing it doesn't have is a pharmacy school that ULM has. That LSU, BACK THEN, got all of the money is not hard to understand. Now, if UL today was the same back then, maybe we would have 2 major universities like most states have, e.g. Ole Miss/Miss State, Florida/Florida State, Michigan/Michigan State, Oklahoma/OK State, etc. Instead, we are like Arkansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, West Virginia - only 1 Big Dog in the state. Actually, Louisiana is more like Ohio. Even though there is Ohio University, Ohio State is the only Big Dog. Like LSU and all other schools is here, there is Ohio State, then Ohio, Miami Ohio, Kent State, Akron, Toledo and Bowling Green plus a number of smaller schools. That will never change there or here. I am afraid R1 status is likely our ceiling unless we can get a med school and somehow change our perception to the public. Athletics goes a long way in changing that. Unfortunately, our leadership has not realized the benefits of developing a major program that puts us along side other Big Dogs, so our perception remains unchanged. We can't blame LSU back then for what they became. Maybe we can blame them now for holding us back. But, more often then not, we seem to be our own worse enemy.





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) they are then renamed LSU and soon take over (merge) the A&M college.