As you regular readers know, I have been in full flush with my LSU boosterism this past week (for example), and my Louisiana patriotism (see here), but honesty bids me say that the reader who sent this (and who has given me permission to publish it anonymously) is right:

I was a freshman at the University of Texas when the Longhorns won the national championship in 1969. It was a perfectly exhilarating experience to mix with thousands of other students celebrating in Austin. I have no idea if they cancelled classes the next day; in any case, I rather doubt I was in any condition to attend. My interest in football has since waned, but I can understand the passion for sports.

Having said that, it is a bit demoralizing to see LSU glorify its $28M locker room, and $4M dollar coach, while the state legislature guts the budget for the school as a whole. Yes, I know, all those football funds are raised privately, and donors can do as they wish. And there are reputedly overall benefits to the university, what might be called trickle-down academics. But in the end, I think the fundamental purpose of a university is to educate, not entertain. Apparently, the Louisiana legislature does not agree.

So why does a Texan care? I am not an LSU alum. But for the past twenty years it has been my pleasure to support two programs at LSU: the rare book collections at Hill Memorial Library, and the South American field work of the Museum of Natural Science. My interest is in research related to natural history; the Museum is an exemplary institution, one of the best anywhere. The library’s collection of early natural history books is excellent, and it is a lovely place to study. To be clear, I am not some sort of mega-donor; but even at the modest level of my contributions, I find myself at a loss to explain to anyone why I should donate to an institution that slashes the budgets of libraries and labs needed by aspiring students, while energetically raising millions to provide football players with a locker room more sybaritic than Spartan. There are smaller schools, with less glorious teams, that could use a bit of attention. Should I move my support? I’m not trying to be a jerk; as I said, by the standards of football donors, my gifts are small beer. But I’m asking an honest question.

This e-mail stood out to me because my older son is an LSU sophomore, and his student job this past academic year is in the Museum of Natural Science (he wants to be a historian of science). His specific assignment has been to scan and catalogue the notes and papers of the late Ted Parker, who was one of the greatest American ornithologists ever. I had never heard of the man, yet he is partly responsible for having made LSU’s ornithology department one of the nation’s best. He has been described as the greatest field ornithologist the world has ever seen. He died in a plane crash in the Peruvian jungle in 1993, along with several other biologists. Colleagues said that the knowledge the perished on that mountainside in that crash will likely take several decades to recover from.

I was a student at LSU when Ted Parker was there. I had never heard of him. Not much of a surprise — I was a journalism major, with minors in philosophy and political science — but how I wish I had known that a scientist of his caliber was working right there on our campus. I still wouldn’t have heard of him, if not for my son Matt telling me about how absorbing his work is, going through Parker’s papers and making digital records of them. Matt is still doing that work, and it is really exciting to him. He’s working for one of my undergraduate friends, Dr. Robb Brumfield, who was so inspired by Ted Parker, his professor back in the 1980s, that he decided to become an ornithologist himself.

By putting his hands on Ted Parker’s papers — a huge task that he has been laboring at for months now — son Matt is learning firsthand about what a great scientist does, and what he can contribute to the world of knowledge. He even went in over the Christmas break to work on the project. Matt isn’t going to be a scientist, but if he becomes a historian of science (his dream is to work in a museum), Ted Parker will have inspired yet another young man to devote his life to science. What Ted Parker accomplished for the world of ornithology is staggering — and he did it right there at LSU. Everybody in Louisiana knows the name of Ed Orgeron and Joe Burrow, and that is a glorious thing! But how many of us know the name of Ted Parker? My correspondent said that the LSU ornithology department is as great in its field as the LSU Tigers are in theirs.

It is an honest-to-God tragedy that Ted Parker is a stranger to Louisiana, and the men and women at LSU standing on the shoulders of that giant are having to labor under such difficult material conditions. As the reader points out, this is not the fault of the LSU Athletics Department. This is the fault of the Louisiana legislature, and, in turn, of the people of Louisiana — people like me, who are thrilled by the victories of the football team, but who don’t say a word when the legislature brings the budgetary hammer down on the academic side (e.g., after many years of budget cuts, LSU is near the bottom in state funding per student, compared to peer institutions).

We have every reason to be proud of the LSU Fighting Tigers — and we are! My family is planning to go to the parade for the team on Saturday. But we also have every reason to be proud of the academic departments — but we aren’t, not really. At least that’s not where we put our money. Maybe the phenomenal success of the football team this year will inspire the legislature, and the people of the state, as well as LSU’s vast alumni network around the country, to rectify that injustice. Here’s a link to donate to LSU in various ways — but please, pass up the Tiger Athletic Foundation. They’ve got plenty of money, and heaven knows they’ve earned it. But there are professors, staffers, and students who have also earned it, and who need our support.

Inspired by this reader, and full of gratitude for what my son Matt is learning at LSU’s Museum of Natural Science, as well as for the joy that Coach Ed Orgeron and his team have brought to me and my family this year, on Wednesday night I gave $300 to the Ted Parker Memorial Fund at the LSU Museum of Natural Science. I’ve never given anything to LSU as an alumnus; my charitable giving has gone to other places over the years. But now is a good time to start. Maybe for you too, my fellow alumni — and anybody who cares about the LSU Tigers, and who knows deep down that they should give something back to the school that made it all possible? It doesn’t have to be to the Ted Parker Fund — there are many academic departments that need — really need — whatever you can give. If this reader from Texas, who isn’t even an LSU alumnus, can recognize how important the academic and scientific work LSU does is to the wider world, so should we who once knew LSU as our home, or who hold it in our hearts.

I bet Coach O., as a true son of the Bayou State, would agree — and so would this recent graduate below, who thanks to LSU, looked up and saw the stars. There are some young future scientists, historians, and scholars on that campus who can’t play football, but who deserve the same opportunity to excel: