New voice of Tiger Stadium is a conservative legislator, university critic 

by Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator
September 19, 2025

Dixon McMakin, the new public address announcer at LSU’s Tiger Stadium, has a complex relationship with the state’s flagship university. 

Son of 1970s LSU baseball star Wally McMakin, he is undoubtedly an LSU sports fanatic. But as an attorney, he has sued the school. And as a legislator, he has leaned hard on the university, even publicly joking about cutting its budget. 

McMakin, a 39-year-old Republican, has represented House District 68 in the Louisiana Legislature since January 2024. He’s also a financial adviser, insurance broker and an attorney who isn’t afraid to take on his alma mater. 

In addition to taking over this year from Dan Borne as the Voice of Tiger Stadium, McMakin is the radio play-by-play commentator for Catholic High football. He has worked as a public address announcer for LSU volleyball and softball games since 2020. 

He is paid for his PA work but does not have a contract with the university, McMakin said in an interview with the Illuminator and Tiger Rag. LSU athletics spokesman Zach Greenwell said McMakin is paid $125 per game. 

“This was not a political pick,” McMakin said of his receiving the Tiger Stadium announcer’s job. “I just happened to be a guy that was elected when I got picked.” 

He is undoubtedly a Baton Rouge boy, born to one icon and stepson to another, retired longtime WBRZ-TV news anchor Andrea Clesi McMakin. 

McMakin got his undergraduate, MBA and law degrees from LSU, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. His wife, Bess Casserleigh, a WBRZ anchor, is one of the most visible women in the city. 

Behind his purple and gold exterior, Tiger Stadium’s new announcer is also among the most conservative legislators at the Capitol and at times a vocal critic of the state’s flagship university. 

“Any critique comes from a great admiration and love more than anything else,” McMakin said of his alma mater. 

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Full-court press

Before his Sept. 6 debut in Tiger Stadium for Louisiana Tech vs. LSU, McMakin’s voice rose to prominence in a Baton Rouge courtroom. 

In the 2022 lawsuit McMakin v. LSU, he sued the university to obtain records for Donald Abels, a former LSU Greek Life official accused of using fake social media profiles in 2019 to entrap underage fraternity recruits in underage drinking. Because no laws were broken, LSU handled the matter internally. Abels, who denied the accusations, faced no repercussions and left the school in 2021.

The decision against McMakin set a precedent the university has used to swat down similar requests for its personnel records. Having his name associated with closing off public records didn’t sit right with McMakin, who has a mixed voting record on open government issues but has generally been an advocate for government transparency. 

McMakin’s first goal after being elected was to undo that precedent and get the records he wanted. He quickly filed legislation to remove privacy protections over personnel records for all public employees in Louisiana. His proposal, which lawmakers approved overwhelmingly, would have undermined court decisions that put up significant roadblocks for records related to investigations into public employee misconduct. 

Gov. Jeff Landry vetoed the bill, citing concerns over revealing “sensitive information” such as payroll deductions, prescription medications and emergency contacts. 

Despite the setback, McMakin’s occasional crusades on behalf of LSU students have continued. 

McMakin was among the legislators who intervened this past spring on behalf of an LSU student government presidential ticket whose campaign was disqualified twice. The candidates, former state Senate student workers Alex Foret and Isabelle Tatman, were first accused of bribery and then campaign finance violations. The student-led University Court added their names back to the ballot in both instances, but they ultimately lost the election. 

McMakin has also criticized the university’s protection of the LSU Campus Mounds, believed to be among the oldest manmade structures in the United States. The mounds are also considered to be culturally significant, having been built by Native Americans thousands of years ago. 

Before fences were erected to protect the mounds, they had been worn down by pedestrians and tailgaters. 

McMakin has posted on social media numerous times, calling on LSU to “tear down the fence,” even threatening earlier this year to cut the university’s budget, remarks which he characterized as tongue in cheek in an interview. 

“It’s all built on the idea that I want the flagship university to be the very best and look the very best at everything,” McMakin said. 

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Laughing as a legislator 

State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle interviewed for this report described McMakin as an incredibly personable lawmaker with an unrelenting sense of humor. 

“He makes me laugh all the time,” Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, said of McMakin, who he sits next to on the House floor. 

Riser and McMakin both filed legislation earlier this year to subsidize college athletics. 

Riser’s bill, which passed, will allow all Division I athletic programs in Louisiana to receive an estimated $2 million in taxpayer dollars annually from sports gambling tax revenue. While fairly insignificant to a major college power such as LSU, the money will go a long way for the state’s smaller D1 schools.   

McMakin’s bill would have exempted athlete name, image and likeness income from state taxes. It failed to gain the needed support, with opponents disliking the optics of giving a tax break to highly compensated college athletes while increasing sales taxes for most citizens. 

McMakin said he is considering bringing the bill back next year. 

His other legislative interests have varied. McMakin’s voting record is extremely conservative, even for his right-of-center district. But that has made him a key ally of Landry and increased his influence in the Republican supermajority legislature. 

The flashiest of his conservative proposals, such as calling a constitutional convention or phasing out the individual income tax, have largely stalled. Other Republican staples, such as restricting panhandling or forbidding people without legal status in the United States from obtaining a Louisiana driver’s license, have fared better. 

McMakin has also had several successful proposals with no partisan tint, including a new law that prohibits universities from charging their student media outlets for public records. It passed the legislature unanimously before earning Landry’s signature. 

Those who have noticed McMakin’s joking flair as an announcer at LSU games have keyed in on it as a central theme in all of his professional endeavors. 

“He does go down there and is really loud and tries to be funny,” Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, said of McMakin’s House floor speeches. “That’s his personality, kind of clowning, not in a negative way.” 

McMakin once pantomimed holding a horse’s reins, trotting back and forth behind a legislator presenting a bill on the horse racing industry.

While some of his peers consider his style at the Capitol to be humorous, they note that he knows when to turn it off. 

For instance, McMakin used his booming voice to rage against the pharmacy chain CVS Health, which sent text messages to state employees threatening to shut down its pharmacies in Louisiana if lawmakers approved a bill regulating pharmacy benefit managers. The “middlemen” companies oversee prescription drug programs for insurance companies and large employers, including the state of Louisiana.   

“Quit being liars. Quit using scare tactics,” McMakin said in a House speech on the final day of the legislative session. Lawmakers declined to bring the bill up for a vote. 

McMakin is not the only legislator to take on a big role at a university they represent, though he will certainly be the most high profile. 

State law prohibits individuals from being employed or holding office in two separate branches of government, though some have held legislative seats and worked in higher education, which falls under the executive branch. State Rep. Barbara Carpenter, D-Baton Rouge, is currently the dean of international education at Southern University and also represents the university in the legislature. This dual office-holding has typically gone unchallenged. 

Political observers have noted the possibility of conflicts of interests in these situations requires these legislators to walk a tighter rope. McMakin’s first opportunity to demonstrate how he’ll handle his split allegiances will come when the legislature convenes in March. 

“Anything I’ve ever said or done for LSU was to try to make it better, to compete with the other flagships,” he added. 

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: [email protected].