Photos comparing LSU football lockers and school library going viral
A pair of images that compare the LSU football team's locker room to one of the school's campus libraries have gone viral on social media, with the images showing a clear disparity between the perceived quality of each.
In the pictures, the library appears to be in need of major renovation while the locker room is in pristine condition after undergoing a $28 million upgrade in 2019, the year LSU won the College Football Playoff national championship.
The images, posted by Twitter user Tom Hearden, have received over 10 million views, and they can't help but hint at where it's believed schools are placing their highest priorities when considering academics and athletics.
Raising concerns about how much money universities spend on sports, particularly football, when compared with academics is a decades-long phenomenon on many campuses across the country and has always inspired spirited public debate.
And college football itself has been the subject of criticism as the NCAA and schools continue to rake in millions and paying football coaches huge salaries while not paying their players on the field anything.
LSU went all out in promoting its locker room renovations, which the school also noted was paid for entirely by private donations via the Tiger Athletic Foundation.
“There’s no student money, no academic money, no tuition or fees, or state dollars used in the renovation of the football operations center, which includes the locker room,” Kristine Sanders, then the interim vice president of communications at LSU, said at the time. “That’s private donations done through the Tiger Athletic Foundation.”
LSU released a master plan that outlined major renovation proposals back in 2017, including a plan to demolish the library and start from scratch, but, as an opinion in Reveille, the LSU student newspaper pointed out, "there hasn't been much action toward improving the library so far."
While on the football front, LSU has performed well, winning the SEC West division title in Brian Kelly's debut season, and the Tigers are projected to be in the divisional race again this year.
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