Hullabaloo in the ‘30s: Office of Public Relations Records, RG #A0020,
Louisiana State University Archives, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.
I recall also in terms of my arrival, my sensing of the atmosphere. I had just been in Europe for fourteen months, and so I saw things maybe sometimes in a European pattern. And I saw Louisiana, at that time, somewhat in the same pattern as a little European principality of some sort. And I know one of the things that gave me that impression: at the time of football games, there was great hullabaloo. Bringing the privileged out to the campus and they came out with blaring horns and police escorts and . . . I don't know whether there were flags waving, but it’s the same sense as if they were waving. And it was all this panoply, all this great, big events. Football was a big event. We used to say that's when the ladies came out with the fur coats. Imagine coming out with your . . . [laughing] coming out with your . . . You had to have a sense of style to do that in Louisiana.
In those early years, when we won on a Saturday, there was frequently a student demand for a holiday on Monday. Sometimes it was granted, and I think . . . I think usually, though, if it was granted it was just a half day Monday; no classes Monday morning. It's the epitome of the opposite of what a university is about. That's where football really had its effects on academics.
-- Cecil Taylor, interviewed by Pamela Dean, 1991