USA TODAY
NATCHITOCHES, La. — Long before he became the beloved head football coach at undefeated LSU, this is where Ed Orgeron made some of the dumbest mistakes of his life and nearly threw away his future, according to local legend.
It was late 1982. Orgeron had just finished his junior season as a football player at the local university, Northwestern State. But he was on thin ice. He already had quit LSU as a freshman because he was homesick and didn’t like it there. Then after he joined NSU about 180 miles up the road, he had earned a reputation as a hell-raising, curfew-busting barroom brawler.