Former Caretaker – Mike The Tiger Should Attend LSU Games

It's part of the tradition that makes college football such a religion in the South. The teams take the field, the band plays, the crowd goes wild, and the team mascot is paraded around the stadium to whip the crowd into a frenzy. For some schools like U.L. the mascot is a costumed performer. For other schools there is a real live mascot, in the case of LSU that mascot is a live tiger named Mike.

A former caretaker of Mike the Tiger made comments on The Jim Engster Show that he's disappointed that the current incarnation of Mike the Tiger did not attend any LSU football games last year.  According to Paul Marks Jr. when he was caretaker of Mike there were no issues in getting Mike moved into his mobile game day surroundings. They simply altered Mike's feeding pattern to entice him into the portable cage.

"There were veterinarians on the hill on the main campus, and they told us to feed him 6 days a week and we didn't on Friday."

By placing food in the portable cage on Saturday's game day the Tiger's natural instincts led him into the new environment with no problem.

A notice posted on Mike the Tiger's Facebook page last year suggested that trainers and caretakers were having issues in getting Mike VI to cooperate and move comfortably into his game day digs.  Of course the Mike VI currently lives in a multimillion dollar habitat that is very comfortable by Tiger standards. Perhaps he knows he's got it good where he is and he isn't interested in going inside the always raucous Tiger Stadium.

Caretaker's say they are continuing to work with Mike VI in hopes having him in attendance by next fall's football season. In the meantime Tiger fans can drop by Mike's habitat on campus at LSU just outside Tiger stadium to say hello to the mascot of their favorite college football team.