I feel sorry for my friends who are LSU fans. Truly, I do. Anyone who knows me is clearly aware that I am no LSU fan in any way, shape or form. But I also recognize that my friends love pulling for the Tigers and they were enjoying a fairly rare basketball season. After some lean years, this has been one to be enjoyed. It was shaping up to be a great one. Actually, it probably already qualified as that. Then the other adidas fell last week and everyone is left looking for answers and they don’t even know the question.

I don’t feel sorry for Will Wade. LSU either knew, of should have known, what they were getting into when he was hired. Yes, he was young and energetic and more importantly, he wasn’t Johnny Jones. But he was also not free of some whispers and behind the scenes talk about his rise through the college basketball ranks. Watching him coach, his immaturity can get the best of him. He got a technical foul last year in the final minute when he team had the ball. You can’t do that. Ask some Louisiana-Lafayette people about his actions last year. And don’t try to tell me it’s because he’s young. No doubt, he has brought LSU basketball back to a place it hasn’t been in quite awhile. But he has not helped himself at all in the last week with what has gone on off the court. He keeps digging a deeper hole.

I feel sorry for players such as Skylar Mays, a junior on the LSU team. By all accounts, this is a top-notch guy. He’s a star in the classroom (second team Academic All-American) and, even though he wasn’t thought to be one of the top contributors when this season started, has turned himself into one. To me, it looks like he’s what an LSU basketball player should be all about. Maybe he will rise above all of this controversy, but you have to believe that this isn’t exactly how he was planning on this year playing out.

I don’t feel sorry for Javonte Smart, the Baton Rouge native who has been the focal point of the FBI wire tap in which Wade was heard talking about his frustration in failing to finalize “the offer” to get Smart in an LSU uniform. No, there’s no proof that he received anything improper. But ask yourself this question — what do you think happened?

I don’t feel sorry for these purple-and-gold irrational fans who keep trying to come up with reasons why there “is no proof.” Maybe he was talking about (Texas coach) Shaka Smart! Thankfully, I think there are less of them than there were a week ago, because common sense has started to win out. I don’t know how these people can defend Will Wade, but they do. But let’s not kid ourselves; if LSU were 5-26 instead of 26-5, they’d be standing in line to get rid of Wade.

I don’t feel sorry for the LSU administration. Well, not totally. This whole thing didn’t get sprung on them with a phone call late last week. It’s been out there for quite awhile and they chose to not do anything about it until they were forced to. Or they just put their head in the sand. And the track record involving LSU coaching issues isn’t exactly stellar (see Miles, Les). On the other hand, they have recognized their responsibility is to protect the university, not Will Wade. If forced to choose one or the other (which is what has happened), they made an easy call. In the middle of the fire, it’s easy to say you shouldn’t be playing with matches, but there’s a bigger issue at play.

I feel sorry for Kent Lowe, LSU’s sports information director for basketball, Shreveport native and F.O.D.W. (Friend of Designated Writers). On a good day, his is a thankless job. Instead of worrying about game notes and media seating, he’s having to deal with this excrement storm that is completely out of his control.

Most of all, I feel sorry for college basketball. No, given what the sport has evolved into, this isn’t a shocker. But it’s not exactly One Shining Moment, as CBS will try to tell us when this season is finally over.

Tuesday, October 22, 2002

EWE makes transition from public life to prison

Former governor begins 10-year federal sentence

By Teddy Allen The Times

FORT WORTH, Texas – Thirteen minutes.

For Edwin W. Edwards, that’s all the time it took between the beginning of something familiar and public – a news conference – and the beginning of something foreign and private – a 10-year prison term.

Far from the Governor’s Mansion or Mardi Gras or Tiger Stadium or Las Vegas – far from happier days – Edwards began a side-of-the-road news conference just outside the grounds of the prison here by thanking the authorities for allowing him to self-surrender. “I gave my word. That’s why I’m here.”

The former four-term governor of Louisiana woke in his Baton Rouge home Monday, walked his dog, ate breakfast, then flew with his son David to Fort Worth. He ate a hamburger and vanilla ice cream at Chili’s, then rode to the Federal Medical Center, a 33-acre prison surrounded by a 12-foot-high fence.

At 12:39 p.m., Edwards, in a green Taurus driven by his son, arrived at the prison’s front gate on a non-striped road of buckling gravel. More than 25 members of the media – six satellite trucks and more than a dozen cars hugged the road’s shoulders – waited.

For the next 10 minutes, 30 yards from the prison’s gate, Edwards answered questions with the same off-the-cuff yet polished and composed demeanor he has perfected in more than 30 years as the state’s most popular politician. He wore a warm-up outfit, a cotton sports shirt and New Balance shoes. He carried with him a folder of personal items, including a Bible and his personal journal.

Nothing about either his appearance or his delivery suggested fear of being moments away from beginning a decade-long sentence for his conviction on racketeering, extortion and fraud charges.

He said he didn’t know what to expect in prison, that he would be a “model prisoner as I’ve been a model citizen,” that he still respected a judicial system that he felt in this case “went awry.” He maintained his innocence and again disputed the testimonies of those he felt were once his friends.

“I’m saying I didn’t do anything to justify my being here,” he said. “I’m optimistic the Supreme Court will give me a hearing. … I just want everybody to know I did not do anything wrong as governor.”

Without a miracle decision from the U.S. Supreme Court or a presidential commutation, Edwards, 75, will have to serve a minimum of 8 1/2 years. When the governor mentioned Texas was his second favorite state, a reporter said, “And you get to spend 10 years here.”

Edwards smiled quickly: “I don’t think so.”

He was asked if it was a humbling experience. In front of him and behind the reporters was a mechanics business, its lot filled with old tires and pallets, rusted trailers and pipe and broken-down forklifts. A muddy dog was chained to a fence by a trailer. And behind the former governor cars rattled by, music blaring, their drivers oblivious to this day in Louisiana history.

Also behind the governor, the imposing prison on the hill, its landscape one of scrub oaks and bent elms. With the day’s low gray clouds, it was a place devoid of joy.

“I don’t know if it’s a humbling experience,” he said. “It’s reality.”

As usual, he was quick with wit. “If you give me credit for the time I’ve spent in court and in front of juries, I could walk out of here tomorrow.”

Would he change anything?

“My friends,” he said.

And then it was over. “I’ll see you sometime in the future,” he said. “When and where I don’t know.”

Followed by reporters, he began walking toward the prison gate when his son whispered to him that regulations demanded he not walk to turn himself in.

“You have to ride,” David said.

“Sorry,” Edwards said to those following. “I’ve got to ride into prison.”

And just before he closed the door, he said, “Don’t try to follow me in. They might not be as nice to you as I was.”

The car stopped at the gate where Alex Harrison, a big man in a blazer and tie and gray dress slacks and a badge, checked identification. The lieutenant told Edwards and his youngest son to proceed.

It was 12:52 p.m.

The car climbed a slight rise and then disappeared on its other side. On the hill 300 feet away, the road ended at the prison’s parking lot by the front door.

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