I dont want to post the whole article since its an SI Book article out of the book "50 years of great writing" and I dont want to get the board in trouble. But Bradley had a great story about his days with LSU. Its called The best years of his life - The Glory of LSU football. Anyway, he had a paragraph in there that I wanted to share. "I was only 21 years old, yet I believed that nothing I did for the rest of my life would rise up to those days when I wore the Purple and Gold. I might go on to a satisfying career and make a lot of money, I might marry a beautiful woman and fill a house with perfect kids, I might make a mark that would be of some significance in other people's eyes. But I would never have it better than when I was playing football for LSU. " I thought that was great... It must be great to be an LSU football player. I have been a fan my entire life, but if I was good enough to play College Ball after high school. (Which I wasn't I assure you) I could not imagine doing anything else but getting an education at LSU, and coming out of the tunnel to 92,000 screaming Tiger Fans on Saturday night in Death Valley. Well I guess there is always Play Station..... Thats about the closest I have come except in the 7th grade when our JV team got to play in Tiger Stadium against Episcopal in front of 120 screaming fans....
Hey, thanks for posting this! I remember when this was originally published--the 2002 College Football preview issue. A great, great article. Highly recommended to those who haven't read it yet.
John Ed Bradly is a brilliant writer. As a an occasional feature writer for SI he has written some beautiful pieces that often have a connection to the south. He is also a successful novelist. "Love and Obits" was one of his early novels and my personal favorite being that it is set in Washington DC where I for three years. I grew grew up in Opelousas where John Ed also was raised. His first novel, the name escapes me, was based on friends and family members he grew up with. What was cool was that I personally new many of the characters in the book. Just last week I had neighbor ask me if I knew JE Bradly being that we were from the same hometown. She had met him at a lecture and was thoroughly impressed. She also asked as an afterthought if he had maybe played football along the way. I proudly informed her he played for LSU. John Ed is someone LSU can be very proud of. I also think he was all SEC his senior year.
