I’ve seen LSU’s Greatest of All-Time, live and in-person, and it was incredible.
I’ve eaten a meal with my wife ten feet away from greatness and chosen to respect their privacy.
So, who’s the GOAT, and where did I share restaurant space with them?
Did I have Plucker’s Wings near Joe Burrow in 2019? Did Dylan Crews and I both get a Curbside Burger in 2022? Did I run into Shaquille O’Neal at his Big Chicken restaurant on Carnival Cruise Lines in 2023?
These are all valid and deserved candidates for the GOAT of Tiger Town. But, no. The GOAT spent a year in Baton Rouge and then blazed a trail to become arguably the best athlete in the world today.
Mondo Duplantis has the gold medal and the World Record to stake his claim as LSU’s greatest, Louisiana’s greatest and perhaps the best athlete walking God’s green earth.
Breaking records is nothing new to Mondo. And yes, he’s only Mondo because your true greats only need one name for you to know exactly who the heck they are.
Shaq. Serena. Tiger. Kobe. Jordan. Gretzky. Simone. You barely broke a sweat identifying all of these world class performers by one name only.
The 24-year-old Lafayette native has joined that rarified air. At an age far younger than most of us will have accomplished their major goals in life.
But, Rhett, it’s a world record. It’s awesome and rare … only if your name isn’t Mondo Duplantis. He’s broken the world record for pole vault nine times now, with the last seven being his breaking of his own record.
Mondo is easily one of the two greatest pole vaulters in track and field history now, his only rival being Ukranian Sergey Bubka. Bubka was the first vaulter to eclipse 20 feet and that was considered an unreachable and unfathomable height when he did it in 1991.
Bubka hit his greatest heights in 1994 at 20 feet and 1.75 inches. Mondo, at 24, vaulted 24 feet and 6.25 inches Monday night in Paris.
In essence, Mondo vaulted two Shaquille O’Neals and my daughter. Nearly four Joe Burrows. More than four Dylan Crews.
It’s sort of his destiny. His dad vaulted over 19 feet himself and his mother was a heptathlete and volleyball player herself.
His brother is LSU’s all-time hits leader, and Mondo has worked at his sport of choice since he was three years old.
The craziest part of it all is how long he’s been head and shoulders above his competition. He won his first state title at Lafayette High as a freshman and was a full foot and three inches better than his competition. That, too, was a Class 5A state record.
All that while learning to solve quadratic equations in Algebra I. Not bad.
Bernie Moore Track Stadium probably seemed like the best it was going to get. Then he made it his home for a year, where he won the SEC Championship and was the national runner-up.
That was probably seen as a disappointment, but he’s made up for it since then.
Whatever the next height is, there’s no questioning who the greatest athlete Louisiana has ever produced is.
He’s got the records, all nine of them on the world stage, to dismantle any argument you may have for someone else.
And to think … I missed a photo op to respect his private time with his dad.
It goes to show you that sometimes greatness is right next to you.
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