Inside The Eye of the Tiger

The Memoirs of a Maverick

De: Chris Warner, Jerry Simmons

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

In the South, Southerners don’t think, they feel; and there’s nothing they feel more passionately about than sports—especially college football. In recent years America’s media-driven, sports-crazed culture has whetted the fan’s appetite and thereby catapulted Division I college athletics into a multibillion-dollar entertainment business that rivals the professional ranks. Today, no place is this trend more evident than at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, home of the LSU Fighting Tiger football team. Louisiana State University is part of the nation’s toughest athletic subdivision—the mighty Southeastern Conference, and as a large public institution, it is a microcosm of major competitive college football and sports across the Deep South, a region where overall athletic success is not only encouraged, but expected. Since 2005, LSU has won nearly 80 percent of its football games, three conference championships, a BCS National Championship (2007) and a College Football Playoff Naional Championship (2019). But LSU has not always been atop the college football world. Why did LSU have six straight losing seasons in football? How did LSU Athletics survive the losing years? Who is responsible? How did LSU rise from the fall? What is it that LSU and other competitive schools have done that has made them so successful in sports so fast? What sets LSU and some of the larger SEC schools apart from other football-playing schools in terms of competitiveness? Answers to these important questions can be found inside the pages of this must-read book. Written for the serious observer, alumni or fan struggling to realize how the system works, or often fails to work, Inside the Eye of the Tiger is an introspective snapshot of what it’s like to coach in a big-time athletic department where campus politics and winning are regularly at odds. Often what you see from the outside looking in to the athletic department is not always a true picture of what actually happens. Inside the Eye of the Tiger is the story of what really went on behind the scenes of the LSU Athletic Department over two tumultuous decades in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. *** Hall of Fame LSU Tennis Coach Jerry Simmons’ memoirs of 26 years of coaching is an engaging and sometimes startling read that will once and for all set the record straight on how business was conducted inside the LSU Athletic Department during its roller coaster ride from 1981 to 1998, and beyond. As told to author Chris Warner by Jerry Simmons in a straightforward, provocative style characteristic of his maverick personality, this is a must-read for anyone hoping to enter the big business of college athletics, whether coaching or administratively; as it is the tell-all sports book that will for the better forever alter the stereotype of the modern, big-time Southern athletic department. This is a politically-correct book.