By JIM ENGSTER, Tiger Rag President
At first blush, the dispute over the use of the number 5 on a Tiger jersey by someone other than Jayden Daniels is trivial, but rages over respect often take a life of their own.
The controversy stands to last longer than the 26 glorious LSU performances from a human highlight reel. The Number 5 dilemma does not go away with DJ Pickett snaring the number Jayden Daniels seared into the memory bank as he passed, ran and danced his way to the Heisman Trophy in 2023.
The message outside the visitors’ locker room is that Death Valley is the place where opponents’ dreams come to die. Yet it is a location where numbers are resurrected even if there is a Heisman connection.
LSU is not the place for immortality. Most schools routinely retire Heisman recipient jerseys and numbers. USC has done it eight times and hasn’t unretired O.J. Simpson’s 32, even though it is widely believed he killed his wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman, on June 12, 1994.
Some schools like Notre Dame and Alabama retire no numbers, allowing them to remain consistent on a touchy policy. Steve Spurrier, who won the 1966 Heisman Trophy at Florida, put his own number 11 back in circulation when he became head coach of the Gators, and subsequent Heisman winners have their numbers in circulation at Gainesville. Ohio State stopped officially retiring football numbers in 2014.
Billy Cannon’s 20 has been off limits in LSU competition since the legendary Tiger played his last college game at the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1,1960. In 1987, shortly after Cannon was released from a Texas prison for two and a half years ending in 1986, a fellow did wear 20 in Tiger Stadium on a uniform reminiscent of LSU. His name was Dennis Quaid, who was the star of “Everybody’s All American.”
Some purists objected when a diminutive thespian like Quaid was decked out in Tiger Stadium in a jersey reserved for the Adonis-like Cannon.
Frank Deford’s book of the same name took place at the University of North Carolina, but director Taylor Hackford chose LSU for the movie location after North Carolina refused, as Deford understood the mystique of Billy Cannon. Does the Daniels’ debacle mean that Cannon’s 20 and fellow Heisman winner Joe Burrow’s 9 are also available for future Bengals? Cannon’s number is officially retired, but things change when present day considerations are weighed against honoring deceased stalwarts of yesterday.
An option for LSU is to officially retire 5 in honor of Daniels when Pickett’s eligibility expires. Another partial remedy would have Pickett wear 05 in lieu of 5. Disrespecting Daniels opens the debate for Number 9. If 5 is free for use, it is difficult to rationalize an exception for protection of 9.
LSU risks alienating its support base over another symbolic salute to greatness. A prominent lawyer in Baton Rouge stopped writing checks to his alma mater when LSU removed former University President Troy Middleton’s name from the library. Many Dale Brown admirers were incensed when the LSU Board lifted the only honor bestowed on the school’s most prominent basketball coach months after the same board voted for Brown to receive exclusive recognition on the PMAC court.
LSU has also dismayed alums by preventing Pete Maravich from entering its Athletic Hall of Fame after he became the leading scorer in NCAA basketball history. Fifty-six years later, Pistol Pete still holds the record, but is banned from the Hall under a rule that he is not eligible because he is not a college graduate. Maravich has been ostracized by his university despite the graduation requirement being waived at least four times for other inductees.
The greatest player ever coached by Skip Bertman is also not a member of the LSU Athletic Hall of Famem even though he does have a degree. Albert Belle left the program 39 years ago in controversy and has been blackballed from the Hall despite being the only major league slugger to slam 50 homers and 50 doubles in the same season and hitting 381 career homers for the Indians, White Sox and Orioles.
LSU will win any dispute with Daniels over Name, Image & Likeness in a Baton Rouge court, but the court of public opinion could be brutal. With his passing and running prowess, Daniels was the most complete quarterback LSU has produced. He boasts the most successful one-game performance in nearly a century of the SEC with 606 total yards. In a 52-35 win over Florida in 2023, Daniels passed for 372 yards and ran for 234. He reigns as the only FBS player in one game to amass more than 350 yards in the air and more than 200 yards on the ground.
LSU can stop the current friction by allowing numbers for Cannon and Burrow to be worn by other players or rescind its decision on Daniels.
The Ole War Skule will pay the price if is inconsistent. Numbers today are not as meaningful as they once were because players on the same team are wearing the same numerals at the same time. But the conflict with Daniels has tentacles.
Heisman winners should enjoy comparable recognition. Any variation places one hero above another. There have been 90 recipients of college football’s greatest honor. LSU should treat its three winners with the same reverence. Anything less invites a mess to be avoided.
Baton Rouge Loses A Great Adopted Son
Stanley “Skip” Bertman logged 88 grand years from his birth in Detroit in 1938 to his death in Baton Rouge in 2026. When he died, he left 870 wins in 18 years at LSU, where he won five national titles. A generation of his players remains to sing the praises of the man who lifted his program from insignificance on campus to the envy of the nation.
Bertman spent the last 43 years of life in the same neighborhood, coaching at one school with one wife. Sandy Bertman died 15 months ago at 87. She grew up in Brooklyn and met Skip at Maddie Ives Elementary School in Miami. They married and were together for 63 years.
The King and Queen of LSU Baseball raised four daughters and became icons in the local community.
Skip Bertman reached the pinnacle at the College World Series for the first time in 1991. He was 53 years old. His resilience in an uncertain profession is a path followed by Nick Saban, who won his first college football title at 52. When Bertman and Saban retired, together they had been national champions on 12 occasions as head coaches.
At one time, the Ole War Skule employed Mark Emmert as chancellor, Joe Dean as athletic director, Saban as head football coach, Pat Henry as track & field coach and Bertman as baseball coach. There was an ample supply of testosterone flowing through LSU and a plethora of success.
Saban is the greatest football coach in LSU history, while Bertman is the gold standard for baseball. It is notable that one man left the place that made him famous while the other man stayed.
Bertman was a person of immense loyalty with a legacy that will extend to generations to be born. He was a giant in the dugout and throughout the town he called home.
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