Scott Rabalais: On LSU's early practice returns, Death Valley and a farewell to a legend

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Robin Fambrough is handed her LHSAA award for her decades long career covering high school sports during the LHSAA annual Coaches Convention at Crowne Plaza on Tuesday, July 22, 2025.

Notes on a golf scorecard whi ... wait. Hold on. The scorecard just burst into flames. It's really hot right now ...

... Two days into LSU's preseason practice and of course the question of questions is, "How do the Tigers look?"

I've covered LSU football since they went 2-9 in 1992 and when they won three of their four national championships. I wasn't around for 1958. I'm old but not that old. And I always say it's hard to tell what a team is going to be when they're running through individual drills and going against each other in the only level of football that doesn't have some sort of preseason schedule.

That said, LSU clearly looks like it has a talented group. Garrett Nussmeier has been throwing darts all over the football complex, most of them hauled in by impressive receivers like Aaron Anderson, newcomer Barion Brown and tight end Trey'Dez Green. Even one of the few Nuss passes that didn't find the bullseye was still caught one-handed Wednesday as Destyn Hill skied into the air for a sensational grab in pretty tight coverage.

Linebackers Whit Weeks and Harold Perkins, both coming off injuries this past season, look full go with a complete range of motion and lateral agility. There is depth aplenty in key places like the secondary and on the lines.

LSU has to be more than a collection of talent by the time it takes on Clemson on Aug. 30. It has to be a team. Brian Kelly and his staff have four weeks to oversee the development of chemistry that's oh so crucial to succeed in sports. Making a group of guys that includes returning stars, transfers and freshmen is a daunting task, but a necessary one.

... Kelly's tweaking Clemson's nose at last week's Rotary Club luncheon, calling its Memorial Stadium "Death Valley Junior," has -- as you would expect -- not gone unnoticed over in South Carolina.

Allow those Tigers to retort:

"They can have their opinion," defensive end TJ Parker said. "We're going to handle all that on Aug. 30."

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney pointed out his school has called its stadium Death Valley since 1948 while LSU started describing Tiger Stadium that way after beating Clemson 7-0 in the 1959 Sugar Bowl. Some vintage LSU fans probably remember it being called "Deaf Valley" for how loud it was before that.

It's all fun and games, or insults and anger, if you prefer. My thought is, so what? Can't there be two football stadiums called Death Valley? Obviously, there's more than two schools that have the nickname Tigers out there, though LSU claims to be the only Fighting Tigers.

Someone will get to claim bragging rights on Aug. 30. It's amusing, but that's about it.

... Friday marks the end of an era at The Advocate. Our beloved prep editor, Robin Fambrough, is retiring after 34 years covering high school sports (and occasionally a few LSU things) at our newspaper.

To say Robin covered high school sports is landing far short of the mark. She knew all the coaches. All the administrators. Stayed on top of all the key issues and chronicled all the budding careers of so many stars as well as so many kids for whom high school sports was the farthest they'd go. She covered stars even before anyone else knew they were stars, like Seimone Augustus, from Capitol High to LSU to the WNBA to the Olympics to the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Robin knew so many of their stories, on such a personal, granular level. I used to joke that she could tell you what the quarterback for Woodlawn High had for breakfast, never quite sure I'd want to test her on her encyclopedic knowledge.

She is a huge part of an amazing legacy of high school coverage at our paper. Since 1948, The Advocate has had only two prep editors: the late Ted Castillo, and Robin, who filled Ted's shoes in 1991.

Seventy-eight years. Two people. Basically, if you were at a high school game in Baton Rouge in the postwar era, and you saw Ted Castillo or Robin Fambrough in the press box or courtside, you knew it was the biggest game in Baton Rouge.

Coming up in this business as I did in the latter year's of Ted's career, I never thought someone would have his gravitas.

Robin did. And in legendary fashion.

Local prep fans should rest assured that we are hiring a new writer to fill Robin's role.

But replace her? That simply isn't possible.