As championship game nears, we remember the Macon man who once kidnapped LSU’s tiger
Eight years ago this past week, I interviewed a resident of Magnolia Manor in Macon. His name was Norbert James. He was 84 years old. Sadly, he died the following year in the spring of 2013.
I got to thinking about him the other day, not only because I enjoyed sharing his story but because it had an after-life long after I wrote it.
The word “tiger’’ kept coming up.
When Louisiana State University and Clemson play in Monday night’s College Football Playoff championship game, the teams will have a number of things in common.
They are from the South, have passionate fan bases and purple is in their color scheme, although Clemson to a lesser degree.
Their head coaches took rather serendipitous routes through the coaching ranks to the top of their profession. The programs have star quarterbacks — Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow for LSU and Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence — who could be the first players selected in the NFL draft this year and next, respectively..
And, oh yeah, both teams are nicknamed the Tigers.
The bands will be playing “Tiger Rag,” regardless of the outcome of the big game in New Orleans.
It’s not unusual to have a tiger for a school mascot. In fact, Tigers are the second-most popular team nickname behind Eagles. According to the Mascotdb.com searchable database, the other most common team names are Bulldogs, Panthers, Wildcats, Warriors, Indians, Lions, Cougars and Knights. In the South, two other Top 25 college football programs — Auburn and Memphis — carry the Tiger name. Missouri, which is in the SEC East, also are the Tigers.
Norbert had a tiger tale by the tail. He would bring it up at the barber shop. He would tell the big cat story over a plate of catfish at Jim Shaw’s Seafood on Friday nights.
It brought him a measure of notoriety. It also got him banned from LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge for more than 50 years.
Kidnapping mascots is neither a high crime nor a novel idea. College fans have been in the middle of these pranks and stunts for more than a century. Navy is always trying to steal Army’s mule. And Army has unofficial marching orders to try and swipe Navy’s goat. A Texas student once “dognapped’’ rival Texas A&M’s revered collie mascot, Reveille.
Although it wasn’t a “live” animal, I remember when a Georgia Southern student snatched the “bear” costume head from a Mercer student during a basketball game in Statesboro in the 1980s, only to get caught and have to return it the following week.
I don’t think I would kidnap a real bear.
Or a tiger.
They had a tiger by the tale — and a big problem
Norbert’s reign of semi-fame began in 1950 after he and three buddies from Tulane kidnapped LSU’s Bengal tiger, Mike.
Mike the Tiger was named after Mike Chambers, the school’s athletic trainer. The animal had been purchased for $750 from a zoo in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1936. The money was raised by collecting 25 cents from every LSU student.
Norbert had a reputation for mischief when he was a student at Macon’s Lanier High School, where he was nicknamed “Fight” because he rarely backed down from one. (He once dangled a student by his legs from a balcony at Lanier.)
He enrolled at Tulane in New Orleans. Since the college had no dormitories at the time, he lived in wooden barracks with the other male students. Norbert became fast friends with a classmate named Oscar, who was from New Orleans and shared Norbert’s love of hunting and fishing.
On the eve of the Tulane-LSU game in 1950, they went “coon hunting” with two classmates. They didn’t bag any racoons that night but, on their way back to campus, they stopped for a late-night snack and noticed a trailer with a long cage being towed by a car parked at the restaurant.
Inside the cage was “Mike,’’ the living, breathing, roaring mascot for LSU. Mike’s custodian was a man from LSU’s veterinary school, who was inside the restaurant. Nobert and his three friends couldn’t resist. They unhitched the trailer and hooked it with a chain to Oscar’s 1942 Plymouth. After a police officer became suspicious and stopped them, they convinced him they were escorting the 500-pound tiger to Tulane’s Stadium, site of the old Sugar Bowl. (At one point, the chain came loose and the trailer passed them on the road.)
The cat-nappers made a triumphant return to campus. They circled the trailer behind the barracks and a crowd gathered in the wee hours of the morning. Several students wanted to paint Mike green — Tulane’s mascot is the Green Wave — but Norbert and his partners in crime had no intention of harming the animal. They were just having some fun.
They had planned to hold the tiger captive until halftime of the game the next day, but the dean of students suggested Mike be taken to a safe location off campus. They tried to hide Mike in the garage of the house where Oscar’s family lived, but the dogs started barking and it caused a stir in the neighborhood.
For a brief moment, they were local folk heroes
When the sun came up the next morning, there were local radio reports about Mike’s abduction. LSU officials issued a statement, pleading for the hostage-takers to refrain from feeding the tiger because Mike was on a special diet.
The police showed up and took Norbert and Oscar to the station for questioning. They were not arrested, but Norbert and his friends later were banned from LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge.
It stayed that way until 2007, when Norbert received a letter from the dean’s office at LSU, officially “pardoning” him for his role as a cat burglar.
“We assume by now that you have realized the seriousness of your heinous crime,’’ the pardon read. “In the spirit of forgiveness, we are absolving you of all guilt. We feel that your 50-year exile from the LSU campus is sufficient punishment for your bad deed. ‘’
Mike the Tiger died of pneumonia six years later. His body is on display at the Natural Sciences Museum on the LSU campus.
LSU is now up to Mike VII. He no longer participates in pre-game events and will not be in attendance at Monday’s game at the Superdome.
But he has his own Facebook page and Twitter account. His game-day meals are served in the shape of the opponent’s logo. It is tradition for LSU students to have their photo made with the tiger while wearing their caps and gowns on graduation day.
Although I wouldn’t recommend Clemson fans get any wild hairs and try to mess with the “other’’ tiger, Norbert always considered it a nice way to be remembered.
Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.