CORVALLIS, Oregon — LSU's former provost spoke about how the decision to bring a tiger from Florida to the LSU-Alabama game in 2024 led to his resignation.

Roy Haggerty, who is now a provost at Oregon State, spoke during a Sept. 15 meeting regarding the school's women’s basketball efforts to unionize through the Oregon Employment Relations Board.

Haggerty discussed how LSU's sports culture was different from Oregon State's, and used the events leading to the tiger Omar Bradley being part of the LSU-Alabama game as a "very good contrast to what it looks like when an athletics program runs a university versus when a provost runs a university."

In summer 2024, William F. Tate IV convened several members of his cabinet to say that Governor Jeff Landry "ordered" the school to put the live tiger mascot, Mike VII, on the field during football games.

LSU had not put a tiger on the field since 2015 after receiving a U.S. Department of Agriculture license to hold its mascot on campus.

“I let it be known to the president that this was inappropriate, illegal and immoral, and a number of other objections,” Haggerty said. He also said he threatened to resign if Tate forced him to carry out the order from Landry, saying that Mike's license was his responsibility at LSU.

Haggerty said all this culminated in a meeting at the governor's office, with Landry "yelling" before eventually backing down and ordering his chief of staff to rent out a tiger.

"I knew that because of the governor’s involvement in, and other powerful individuals’ involvement in, athletics at LSU, and my refusal to allow the governor to do what he wanted with athletics at LSU, that I would not survive another calendar year at the university,” he said. “And I chose to seek employment elsewhere."