A police escort whisked Houston’s citizen of the day 25 miles through city traffic at midday Wednesday, hoping he’d be in time to placate a throng of waiting admirers.

LSU football coach Les Miles arrived at the JW Marriott for the Touchdown Club of Houston’s LSU Day luncheon 55 minutes late, but the more than 600 fans on hand would have waited all day for the coach of the defending BCS national champions.

The red carpet extended all the way from City Hall, where Mayor Bill White issued a proclamation declaring Wednesday “Les Miles Day” in the city of Houston.

“There doesn’t have to be a Les Miles Day for me to come to Houston,” cracked Miles, whose plane from Baton Rouge was delayed.

The Tigers are 34-6 under Miles. Despite losing twice in the regular season, LSU earned a berth in the national championship game and defeated top-ranked Ohio State 38-24.

“Every year championship teams have to overcome bad plays, losses, adversity,” Miles said. “I can’t tell you how down our locker room was after a loss at Kentucky. We’d just played 94 plays on defense and 91 on offense, basically a game-and-a-half and we came up short. … We’d just been named the No. 1 team in the country and we were deposed.

“For that team to come all the way back and play as well as they did certainly was a great judge of character.”

Former Houston City Councilman John Kelley presented Miles the mayor’s proclamation. Miles got a good laugh from the portion mentioning LSU did not lose a regulation game in 2007 – both its losses, to Kentucky and Arkansas, were in triple overtime.

The Tigers’ local fan base has exploded locally in recent years because of both the team’s success and an influx of former Louisiana residents after Hurricane Katrina. Two heralded prospects, Cypress Ridge quarterback Russell Shepard and Chavez defensive end Michael Brockers, have committed to LSU in recent months.

LSU begins its title defense Aug. 30 against Appalachian State, which shocked then-No. 5 Michigan – coincidentally Miles’ alma mater – in the season opener last year in Ann Arbor, Mich.

This was the 10th of 12 stops on the 2008 LSU Tiger Tour, which began May 7 in Lafayette, La. and concludes Sunday in New Orleans. Houston was one of three out-of-state stops; the others were Pensacola, Fla. and Jackson, Miss.

Miles was joined by LSU athletic director Joe Alleva, recently named to that position after serving 10 years in the same capacity at Duke, and Tigers women’s basketball coach Van Chancellor.

Chancellor, who coached the Comets to four straight WNBA championships from 1997-2000, took over the Tigers in April 2007 and guided them to the Final Four last year. He was named SEC Coach of the Year.

“We were about seven seconds away from having a Van Chancellor Day here in Houston too,” Chancellor joked with reference to LSU’s close loss to Tennessee in the 2008 national championship game. “We went from the being about the most experienced team in the country to being one of the youngest. … Last year I coached a team with a lot of pressure on them. This year’s team doesn’t have much pressure on it and it should be a fun team to coach.”

Subscribe to this comment's feed