Abe Mickal, Former Player, on choosing LSU over other schools' offers

Abe Mickal: LSU Photograph Collection, RG #A5000,
Louisiana State University Archives, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.

How I got started in football, I don’t know. It was just . . . Growing up with the kids and playing sand lot and finally it just kind of fell in place. Football was unknown in Lebanon, so there was no previous trait that was acceptable. And going to LSU, I think it was just . . . No one in my family had been to college. We had no college graduates. In fact, I was the only one that might of, of our family, that finished college. No, my sister then went to Southeastern [Louisiana University]. My younger sister finished Southeastern. So it was just, I guess, the influence of recruiting kind of lead me. I went to LSU, principally because the coach, Coach Ben Enis, always came by McComb whenever he traveled to Mississippi and had Sunday dinner with the family. And we became a close knit and . . . Also, they brought Coach Colonel [Lawrence] "Biff" Jones down from West Point. He was a coach who was a great character, leader, and an exceptional individual. These are the kind of things that kind of persuaded me. I visited several other schools, but I chose LSU.

-- Abe Mickal, interviewed by Jennifer Abraham, 1998