A Tiger who won’t change his stripes, or pads

Published 7:20 pm Sunday, January 21, 2018

Leonard Fournette has been in the news again this week, which somehow reminds me that I still have my old high school football helmet.

Don’t ask me how I ended up with it.

And no, it’s not leather. Even has a face mask.

I’m pretty sure how I came into possession of it was an accident, it just somehow ended up in my bedroom sometime during my senior year. Probably misplaced by somebody. Maybe, at worst, one of those infamous “mistakes in judgment,” of which there were several in those formative years.

Anyway, no harm done, and besides, as for the details, I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations has long since expired.

Really couldn’t tell you why or how I ended up with it, but evidently no one of authority ever noticed it was missing — or cared — and there were several teammates, I believe, who also somehow ended up with Lumberjack keepsakes.

No idea what their motives were, but we’ve all been sworn to blood secrecy for all these years.

Nobody has squealed.

Until now.

We have no excuse. 

It surely wasn’t like I was going to have any use for the thing beyond a mediocre prep career.

But the Fournette story that broke this week did bring to mind that -— full confession — at one time I could have sworn that most of my final gridiron ensemble accidently somehow on purpose ended up in my possession.

The helmet has yellowed a bit, but is the only remaining artifact — including the jersey that they did legally GIVE the seniors — to survive from that youthful indiscretion.

As I said — lest any old teammates accuse me of being the rat here — I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out.

Besides, I’d return the helmet, but Springhill High School is now a vacant lot and the new building across the street changed the school’s name (to something way too geographically generic), the mascot (to something stupid) and the school colors (to something hideous).

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

But my old relic probably wouldn’t match the current scheme, so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking by it.

For now — and I surely never saw this coming — it gives me something football-related in common with one Leonard Fournette.

Watch Fournette closely today while he toils with the Jaguars in the AFC championship game against the Patriots.

Eagle eyes have been on the case the last couple of weeks.

Twitter was predictably abuzz.

Fournette wears his Jaguars jersey pretty tight, as is the custom for the NFL grunts who tend to attract tacklers.

The current North Webster High School has nothing on the Jaguars’ official colors — a hideous mishmash of teal, old gold, black and white.

But pay close attention to Fournette. He probably tries to hide it. But every now and then, a little splash of familiar purple and gold sneaks a peak outside the tight sleeve of that jersey.

Yes, it’s the shoulder pads.

The internet sleuths turned into Perry Mason, put 2+2 together and shrewdly deducted that Fournette is still wearing his LSU shoulder pads.

First thought: What is this, Pop Warner League? The NFL can’t afford shoulder pads?

My second thought: Stolen property?

No, apparently Fournette need not worry about being served a subpoena from Louisiana while dressing for today’s chores.

“I’m just more comfortable in my college pads,” Fournette said in coming clean. “The NFL pads are sometimes too wide, too heavy, too big, things like that.”

But he didn’t steal anything.

It turns out — we didn’t know any better way back when — that there are proper channels for these matters.

Early this season Fournette simply called the LSU equipment room and, according to a tweet, they were happy to send him something comfortable, his old shoulder pads, maybe the same ones that he flipped that Auburn defender over his shoulders with.

Maybe they sent a bill with them, maybe not. But he’s in the clear.

“Anytime, Fournette” the LSU equipment room’s official Twitter account reported. “Just don’t call us for that fine money!”

Yes, the NFL has strict (ticky-tacky) rules on these sartorial matters, and by golly they like to enforce them.

Socks worn a half-inch too low? Pay up, buddy.

The Fournette shoulder pads are NFL legal evidently.

But, as proud as Fournette is to flash his school colors, if that conflicting purple and gold slips out on national television — egad! — there could technically be a fine to pay.

He ought to pay it in advance and wear his old LSU helmet, too — those Jaguars’ lids are atrocious.

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com