When I woke up Thursday morning it was still pretty early.  I went ahead and got dressed and went downstairs to the hotel lobby, hoping they'd have some coffee.

They did.  Good start to the day.

Then it was time to find some breakfast.  Normally, I would ask the concierge, but there was no one at the desk.  So I headed out to explore.  I walked a grand total of about sixteen blocks but didn't really find what I was looking for.  (My cardiologist, Dr. John Mickey will be happy about the sixteen block thing.)  Back to the hotel.  But this time, the concierge was there.  He gave me three suggestions and I chose a cafe on St. Charles, just a block off Poydras.  I couldn't eat it all.  The food was great.

Then it was back to the room to write.  I got two blogs done, one about the five keys to

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beating Tulane and the other about my first day here.  By the time I was finished it was time to head to Walk-Ons.

Our events coordinator, Dana Baker, arrived.  She had two huge boxes of tee-shirts that we would be giving away.  She and I unloaded those.  Heather had already set up the ESPN1420 flag and had decorated the entire restaurant with "Geaux Cajuns" signs.  Then it was time to set up equipment and get ready for the show.

At five when "The Sports Gap" was done, I needed to go back to the hotel to charge my phone.  But I was back in plenty of time for Coach Hud's radio show.  Heather and Dana gave out long sleeved tees to everyone in attendance for the show.  And, Hud and I had fun.  It was about as informal and relaxed a show as we've done.  And, of course, the big question on everyone's mind was the status of Cajuns' quarterback Terrance Broadway.  And, I kept teasing the audience both at Walk-Ons and the listening audience as well, but never did ask the question...mainly because I knew Hud wouldn't answer it.

If you recall, when Hud went through his first season, there was a quarterback competition between Blaine Gauthier and Chris Masson.  We never found out who the starter was going to be until Gauthier ran out on the field for the Cajuns' first possession.  Well, the same thing is going to happen tomorrow night.  We'll find out about Broadway when the Cajuns' get ready to go on offense.

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Afterward it was time to pack up.  I got back to the hotel and it was time for some leisure activity.  By now there were plenty of Cajuns at the Marriott so I took a cab there.  I saw tons of people I knew and visited with as many as I could.  I was very pleasantly surprised to see my old friend Angela Pecorino.  She's lived out of state for a while now and it literally had been years since I'd seen her.  She was there with her fiance and we all got a chance to visit for a bit.

I had planned to do the parade with the UL band, but wound up, again, visiting and having a beverage with friends.  Eventually the fans came

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back.  And, I made some new friends as well and took a picture with them.

UL Athletics Director Scott Farmer came in and several of us wound up back in his suite.  There were some of my better friends in the room.  David Fontenot made a duck fart for me (quacking is mandatory) and we had a good time visiting.  Then it was back to the lobby.

Now, there was a  women's basketball game at Earl K. Long Thursday night.  Nick Ross, who works in media relations and Mary Diana Bradley, who handles game management for women's sports, didn't get a chance to leave Lafayette for New Orleans until after that game was over.  I told them I would wait for them and we'd go out for a while.  They arrived a bit after midnight.  We hit Bourbon Street for a while and wound up at Pat O'Brien's.  And, after some time reveling, we walked back to the Marriott and I took a cab back to my hotel.

Don't tell anyone, but it was 3:25 when I got to my room.  Shhhhhhhhhh

 

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