In the fall of 1999, Gerry DiNardo, Louisiana State’s head football coach at the time, got a call from Jim Donnan, his counterpart at Georgia, before a game between the teams in Athens, Ga.
It seemed that at one of DiNardo’s routine open practices in Baton Rouge, someone had publicized details of the Tigers’ plays. Someone alerted Donnan, who, rather than exploit this intelligence, behaved as what some in certain parts of the South call a mensch: He told DiNardo.
Would DiNardo. now a commentator for Big Ten Network, have acted as Donnan did? “I can’t say I would have,” he said, adding, “I hope I would have.