I get ESPN the mag for the insider stuff and LF is on the cover. Pretty good. Click link below for the rest. Article by Wright Thompson. LSU running back Leonard Fournette is making history, but what will history make of him? His teammates leave through the locker room doors at the north end of Tiger Stadium, but Leonard Fournette waits for a state trooper and a campus police officer to escort him out alone. His sudden fame is always separating him from someone or something, one of the casualties of the mania that has settled over Baton Rouge. A crowd has gathered, wanting an autograph, a picture, a touch, and if he exits with the rest of the Tigers, he might not get home for hours. The trooper goes first, a bull of a man named Bryan Madden, all biceps and pecs, himself an offensive lineman for LSU 23 years ago. His day job is working the security detail for Gov. Bobby Jindal's family. Everything from his shaved head to his holstered Glock says: Try me. They walk out through the tunnel, in the opposite direction of Fournette's departing teammates. An hour after the South Carolina game, the stadium bowl is empty. Fournette looks around, commenting about the strangeness of seeing the place so quiet. It seems much smaller when the spell is broken. He makes a quarter turn and heads into a concourse. The only sounds are the metal clap of folding chairs and the voices of concession guys trying to give away the last of the food to co-workers. Madden opens a gate, and Fournette climbs into the front seat of an unmarked police car. As Madden turns on the flashing lights and pulls out past the basketball arena, Fournette scrolls through the women mentioning him on Twitter. Blue lights reflect off the campus buildings. Through the tinted windows, he sees -- a student he knows walking home in the dark. The student can't see him. Madden heads up the hill toward the old athletic dorm, where he lived as a player. "You never been in Broussard Hall?" he asks. "Nah," Fournette says, clearly pleased both to have avoided that simpler past and to crack on Madden about it. "I should sue for hazard pay," Madden says. "Times change, huh," Fournette says, almost giggling. He's got a great laugh, a wide, easy smile, which is the same at a news conference as it is alone with his parents. He hasn't been separated from that. Madden tells Fournette stories about the old days, about an infamous Broussard Hall fight that started between Shaquille O'Neal and a defensive back but ended up with basketball coach Dale Brown and football coach Curly Hallman almost coming to blows. Madden saw it, but since this happened before modern sports fame turned college stars into a kind of public property, the brawl never made headlines. "No Twitter," Madden says, and though it's dark in the car, his voice sounds like he is smirking. "It's just a rumor now." He wheels back behind Fournette's apartment building, where the sophomore gets out and walks upstairs to meet his family. There's a party going on, with Popeyes chicken and his mom's fried rice, both pork and shrimp. The next morning, he drives from Baton Rouge along I-12 to Slidell to have lunch. His mom, Lory, and two sisters join him at a suburban chain rotisserie place. It's relaxing and easy. Nobody bothers them during the meal, at least not until the Fournettes get ready to leave. People start cheering, calling Leonard's name, chanting. At first his mom thinks something is wrong, and then she realizes. A restaurant is giving her son a standing ovation as he heads toward the door. A legend in the making Leonard Fournette has become appointment viewing this season. Take a look at the highlights. TWO DAYS LATER, Lory Fournette sits in her living room and tries to make sense of her son's football season. It's been a strange fall. On Sept. 12, when LSU opened, the Fournettes were parents of a well-known running back. By mid-October, they were witnesses to a living myth, which neither they nor Leonard can fully comprehend or control. He'd just passed 1,000 yards faster than Bo Jackson and Herschel Walker ever did, and this coming Saturday, he'll literally punch a would-be Florida tackler off him with his free hand. Not only does he gain a record number of yards, he gains them with an almost cartoonish brutality. He is becoming a football folk hero, like Bo or Herschel, Joe Namath or LSU's only Heisman Trophy winner, Billy Cannon. No matter what happens in the rest of Leonard Fournette's life, he'll struggle to escape the wake of this season, and if his career peaks at the Heisman ceremony, he'll be forever shadowed by the avatar of who he used to be. A few years ago, Cannon was spotted by a younger LSU fan who couldn't possibly have seen him play, and the fan stammered and gushed and finally asked, "Are you Billy Cannon?" Now an old man, Cannon smiled and said, "I'm what's left of him." Lory says she doesn't worry much, not even about injury, quoting Proverbs 18 as an explanation: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." What kind of God would give a boy the ability to be the best at something and then not allow that talent to find its fullest expression? She has faith. Two things do scare her, she finally admits. As a child, Leonard stuttered. She knew his dreams, so she would stand him in front of a mirror and make him address an imaginary audience. "If you're gonna be an NFL player," she told him, "you're gonna have to learn how to speak." He faced the mirror and practiced, and even though he long ago stopped stuttering, she worries sometimes. He's just on TV so much. It makes her proud to see him act the same in an interview as he does at home. "Don't ever let anybody take that from you," she tells him all the time. She worries about Leonard feeling lonely too, so she calls three or four times a day, keeping a line open, maybe passing along a Bible verse. "To let him know," she says. "Sometimes when you're in the limelight you can really feel alone. Even though you have all these people around, you can really feel like everything is closing in on you. No matter what's going on, he can always call us." It's all she can do now; watch, offer a few words of support, make sure he's got something comfortable and familiar when he gets home from a game. In a few days, she'll head over to Baton Rouge with pans of her son's favorite foods. They tailgate at his apartment this season, just a block from campus. It's easier that way. The family famously endured Katrina on an I-10 overpass, but that memory isn't as powerful a force as the way Leonard's life has changed this season, and the speed with which that change has come. All his life, he has stood out on whatever team he joined, but this is different: He is leaving the promise behind and stepping into whatever comes next. He's always been full of potential. When people looked at him as a young man, they imagined what he might become. The living room around Lory is a testament to that potential. Every star athlete's childhood home is basically the same, the ones who grow up to drive trucks and those who end up in the NFL. Awards cover every flat surface, from the Touchdown Club of Atlanta, from a playground in New Orleans. Leonard's mom has magazine covers and plaques from the SEC on the floor, long ago running out of places to put them all. Some look slick and professional; others are flimsy and tarnished. Only later will meaning be assigned, the trophies serving as either proof or taunt. Against South Carolina, Fournette became just the 10th running back in college football history to gain 1,000 yards in five games. Only three of the other nine remain household names, each a Heisman winner, and while Ricky Williams flamed out, Barry Sanders and Marcus Allen are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The rest have faded from memory. http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/sto...te-became-one-tigers-most-exceptional-players
Great story. Amazing that Leonard has the maturity at his age to deal with it all in a matter of fact way. His family is close knit and is a great support group.
Leonard Fournette did the Heisman pose last year against Sam Houston State. This is his time to win that award and if he goes out and dominates Saturday, that award is his to lose.
With a mother like that it is easy to see how he's remained grounded. Also clear that his class is real and not an act.
Here's more on Bryan Madden, former LSU player himself http://theadvocate.com/features/people/13716051-123/les-miles-defense
I think it'll be close between him and Boykin. That kid continues to put up huge numbers...albeit against much lesser competition.
