A phenomenal collection

With the dawning of the World Wide Web, one local dentist dialed up his personal collection of Louisiana State University memorabilia that was spawned from his lifelong love of LSU football.
“I did most of the printing myself,” said Dr. Jerry Veillon. “It was a lot of fun doing it. I spent a lot of hours on the computer. I had a good time typing all this up, printing it, framing it, and deciding where I was going to put it.”
“First of all,” he continued, “I told my wife Mary Anne I think I’m going to make my carport an LSU room. She said, ‘as long as you don’t paint it purple.’ It was light green before, and it wouldn’t have gone well with LSU colors. So, I painted it a cream color. Like that, the purple and gold show up more.”
As far as his wife, Dr. Veillon said, “She likes it now.”
It has been 12 or 14 years since he has started his collection, and Dr. Veillon now tells his children “don’t buy me anything LSU anymore.” He added, “Now, I don’t have place to put anything else.”
Dr. Veillon’s collection spans the entire history of LSU from its beginnings in 1860. “The first LSU was in Pineville, and it closed after the Civil War when it burned,” he explained. “Then, from there, it went to New Orleans then to Baton Rouge at the School for the Blind then, after that, at the barracks by the Old State Capitol. Then, in 1928, it was the dedication” of the current campus.
He also has a history of LSU in bowl games dating back to the first bowl game in which the Tigers competed. “The first bowl game they went to was in 1907,” he said. “It was called the Bacardi Bowl. It was in Havana, Cuba. They beat (the University of Havana) 56-0.
The collection inside Dr. Veillon’s carport also traces the history of Mike the Tiger and includes photographs of several of the Bengal mascots.
One wall is devoted to print outs of LSU’s All-Americans. Another wall has framed photographs of Colt David’s fake field goal against South Carolina in 2007, the Earthquake Game in 1988 with Eddie Fuller and Tommy Hodson, Billy Cannon’s run, and LSU trainer Doc Broussard giving Cannon oxygen on the sidelines.
The photograph of Cannon’s run is Dr. Veillon’s favorite “because it’s phenomenal what he did. He added, “We’ve never had anybody else do that.”
On separate walls are different memorabilia from LSU’s football championships in 1958, 2003, and 2007. He printed out and framed the rosters of those seasons and has framed photographs from the championships in the BCS era. Also, from the 2003 season, he has framed a copy of his tickets from the home games.
On one wall in the corner is a framed picture of The Golden Band from Tigerland marching down Victory Hill into Tiger Stadium. On another wall is a framed picture during LSU’s first evacuation in the history of LSU football due to lightening. Dr. Veillon was at the game on August 30, 2003, against UL-Monroe.
He said about the incident, “They had lightening, and we couldn’t stay in the stands. They had to empty the whole stadium. They had to wait 30 minutes to see if it was clear, and then we could go back. It was the first time the stadium was closed completely for a ball game.”
Hanging on Dr. Veillon’s walls in his carport are also framed pictures of him. One is of him with two Golden Girls, and the other is of him sitting in Tiger Stadium with his good friend the late Dr. J. S. Fontenot.
Besides football memorabilia, Dr. Veillon printed out and framed memorabilia from LSU basketball and LSU baseball including photographs of Pete Maravich, Bob Pettit, and Shaquille O’Neal. “‘Pistol Pete’ was something else,” he stated. “I saw him play a few times. He was phenomenal.”
In baseball memorabilia, he has a framed history of the old Alex Box Stadium which opened in 1938 and closed in 2008. Dr. Veillon also has framed photographs from inside the old Box and the new one which opened in 2009.
Framed pictures are not the only pieces in Dr. Veillon’s collection. He has LSU gnomes and figurines of Tiger Stadium and of the BCS Championship trophy that line shelves of a display case. He also has a growling tiger head with eyes that light up.
Dr. Veillon’s love of LSU football began at the age of six when his parents took him to his first game in 1937, which was a year after the school received its first live mascot.
“Going to football games then is not like it is now,” he said. “In those days, people wore hats and were very well dressed. The men wore suits, and the women wore corsages with big mums and everything. It was a dressy thing going to an LSU game, and now it’s very casual.”
He attended LSU for a summer semester after graduating high school. He then went to military school before returning to Louisiana where he attended University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette and Loyola in New Orleans.
“When I came back to Ville Platte is when I started getting my LSU season tickets,” said Dr. Veillon. “I’m sitting in the same section I was sitting since 1957.”
“When my daughters started going out,” he continued, “I couldn’t go to all the ballgames. So, I got rid of my tickets. I then got some more tickets with Jimmy Fruge and Dwight LaFleur a few rows up, but I was able to get them in the same area.”
That section is on the lower right side of the east sideline near the 20-yard line. Dr. Veillon’s seats are now 10 rows up from the field.
His season tickets also led him to use the Internet for a purpose other than printing out memorabilia. “When LSU started with the surcharge to get a ticket, I sent the athletic office an E-mail,” said Dr. Veillon. “I said people who would go to LSU games wanted to bring their children who are the future fan base of LSU. You raised it so much that people won’t be able to afford to bring their children.”
Sharing his memorabilia and personal experiences with children and other people is what makes Dr. Veillon’s collection special for him. “For some people who have never seen it before, it’s very interesting,” he said. “They think it’s phenomenal that I did all this over here.”
He concluded, “One little girl came with her aunt. When they walked in here, she said, ‘Look at that. They park their cars in the house.’”