Tigers Win LSU Athletics

Values and vision.   

If you're wondering what makes Matt McMahon the right coach at the right time for LSU Basketball, start there.   

His values – hard work, unselfishness accountability, toughness, and joy – helped him become one of the best young coaches in the country, climbing ladders and cutting down nets at every stop in his career.  

His vision – of what LSU Basketball can be, both as a program on the national stage and as a transformative institution for the state of Louisiana – is what brought him to Baton Rouge.   

On this edition of Tigers Win, we talk about how he formed those values and why he believes in that vision. We discuss the standards that define his program and the influences that shaped him as a coach. And we get to the core of who Matt McMahon is, what he believes, and why he's here at LSU.   

To see this episode on YouTube, click here.

Gavin Dugas, Devin Fontenot, and Ma'Khail Hilliard could all be pros right now.

But the hiring of Jay Johnson and the potential to leave a larger legacy at LSU proved too much for them to pass up.

The trio are back at the spearhead of The ReBoot of LSU Baseball, as the best program in the sport looks to make its way back to Omaha as quickly as possible and stay there as long as possible. 

On today's episode, recorded this summer on Twitter Spaces, we catch up with three players with three very different journeys to LSU and at LSU, but three players whose visions of championship contention are singular and unified ahead of a 2022 baseball season with plenty of potential for history-making. 

Our first guest on season 2 of Tigers Win is LSU Soccer head coach Sian Hudson. 

In just her second season, Coach Hudson has led the Tigers to a 7-0 start, a No. 6 national ranking, and a school record 10 consecutive victories dating back to the spring. 

The key to success? Belief. Belief brought her to LSU. Belief carried the team through a eight-game winless streak to start her time in Baton Rouge. Belief kept them bought into a new system of fluid possession when things didn't click at first. And belief has them playing better soccer than just about anybody in the country. 

We spoke on Tuesday, September 14 ahead of a Friday, September 17 matchup with Mississippi State to start SEC play. 

After that conversation, you'll hear the outro music, followed by our conversation from September of 2020, when the Tigers were set to start a COVID-delayed SEC-only fall schedule. I added it as a bonus segment because we referenced it so often in this episode, and because it gives great perspective on how Coach Hudson's vision has turned into reality. 

After that conversation, you'll hear the outro music, followed by our conversation from September of 2020, when the Tigers were set to start a COVID-delayed SEC-only fall schedule. I added it as a bonus s egment because we referenced it so often in this episode, and because it gives great perspective on how Coach Hudson's vision has turned into reality. 

Show Notes: 

(0:00) - Intro

(3:32) - Welcome

(5:04) - Selling the Vision

(6:27) - Building a Website

(11:27) - Goal Setting

(13:12) - Belief and Chemistry

(16:13) - Turning Point

(19:34) - Springboard

(22:39) - Training Sessions

(24:42) - Goal Scoring

(26:24) - Identity

(28:29) - Preparation

(31:21) - Tactics

(33:25) - Standards

(35:10) - Aesthetics

(37:31) - Revenge

About Tigers Win:

Tigers Win is a podcast about excellence. Each episode, we'll pick the brains of LSU coaches, student athletes, staff members, or alumni about the routines, habits, tools, mindsets, and attributes they've utilized to excel in their crafts. Hundreds of champions walk the stately oaks and broad magnolias of the Ole War Skule every year. This is your chance to get inside the mind of world class performers, learn what makes them elite, and how you can apply their lessons to your life and develop your own winning mentality.

Note: JuVaughn's Olympics begin Thursday night at 7:15 p.m. CST (high jump qualifying) and continue Saturday morning at 5:10 a.m. CST (long jump qualifying). The men’s high jump final will take place at 5:10 a.m. CT on Sunday morning (July 31) and the long jump finals are 15 hours later at 8:20 p.m. CT Sunday evening.

JuVaughn Harrison isn't just one of the greatest athletes in LSU history.

He's among the very best in the world. 

No one in America jumps higher or farther than Mr. Jumps, and we will find out this weekend if anyone in the world can out-jump
Harrison, who will become the first man since Jim Thorpe in 1912 to represent the U.S. in the high and long jump at the Olympics.

Harrison is set to take flight on the world stage in the high jump on Friday, July 30 and in the long jump Saturday, July 31. It's a rare combination – jumpers tend to specialize in one or the other, because the skillsets required are vastly different – but Harrison is a rare athlete. 

Before taking off for Tokyo, he joined us, via Zoom, from Bernie Moore Track Stadium to talk about preparing for the Olympics, making his mom proud, and how fast food fuels his flights. 

There is no shortage of former LSU athletes who have become media stars.

From Shaq and Booger to Ryan Clark and Marcus Spears, LSU practically owns TV.

Those tentacles touch every part of sports media, as today's guests can testify.

Former Tiger football standouts Jacob Hester and T-Bob Hebert parlayed their successes in purple and gold to post-football media careers. After different journeys, they've come together as the hosts of Off The Bench on 104.5/104.9 ESPN in Baton Rouge.

Today, we talk about those journeys -- their shared season during the 2007 national championship, their varied careers after football, and the vulnerability of creating content for a vast audience. 

Warning: some slight profanity on this episode. Nothing major, but a heads up. 

Every path to the Olympics is unique.

Part of that is sheer math. It's highly unlikely that all 10,000+ athlete who represent their countries every fourth summer are going to share tons of biographical overlap.

But Brooks Curry's story is especially interesting. He's the under-recruited, highly-doubted, mullet-haired, jorts-creating-and-sporting surprise of the USA Swimming setup this summer, a Georgia kid who found his way to LSU and then to an SEC Championship and finally to the Olympics.

What a delight this conversation was, from the story of how he dreamed of making the Olympics -- although maybe not quite this soon -- to why he bought thrift store jorts and covered them in purple and gold paint, a perfect fit for national television after shocking the world.