Gaynell Tinsley: LSU Photograph Collection, RG #A5000,
Louisiana State University Archives, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.
Scott Purdy: Was there a scholarship here for you?
Gaynell Tinsley: Yeah, they had offered me a scholarship before, and I told them I was going to Tulane. I guess I got here . . . Jess Tinsley, a cousin of mine, had played about four or five years before at LSU and had been a good lineman for them. So they got to talking to me about how great he was and all that stuff, how I should stay here, so I just decided to stay at LSU.
Purdy: So when you came, your scholarship, did it pretty much pay all your bills or was there . . . were there extra expenses?
Tinsley: No, there was . . . it paid all . . . all the bills, I mean, room, board, and tuition, and all that stuff. And we usually got jobs in the summertime to help buy clothes and things.
Purdy: What kinds of jobs around here?
Tinsley: All the way from working on the highway to oil field jobs. Anything that was open. And they . . . Of course, they usually helped us to find them.
Purdy: Would you go back home during the summertime, or did you stay in Baton Rouge?
Tinsley: Not necessarily. Sometimes we’d stay in Baton Rouge, sometimes the job would be back at home
Purdy: Your coaches helped to get these jobs or were these things you had to go out and catch on your own?
Tinsley: No, I guess it came through the Athletic Department at Baton Rouge. I’m sure it came through the, you know, the Highway Department here in Baton Rouge. And they would tell the people in that particular parish if they had a job or if they’d like to, for them to help out the football players. And I don’t remember . . . I have no idea what the amount of money was. It wasn’t a big amount of money. It was just a normal salary that you would have gotten for that work if you hadn’t been a football player. But I do not remember. I have no idea what it was.
Purdy: What I’m wondering about is how did the Depression affect . . . I’m wondering if that affected your ability to come to LSU and stay or if it made it more of a struggle?
Tinsley: No, I . . . like I say, I don’t guess that it really did. I mean, I guess it affected everybody, you know, some. But so far as what we . . . The real necessities of life during the stay at LSU, we . . . we got that all right because as I say, the scholarship covered almost all of it. See, our scholarship covered room, board, laundry, books, and all that kind of stuff. So we didn’t just . . . Actually the only expenses that we had were mainly clothes and just personal expenses, you know, that we had to pay for.
-- Gaynell Tinsley, interviewed by Scott Purdy, 1993