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F r i d ay, O c t O b e r 31, 2025
Woodward out at LSU Athletic director finalizing separation from university in wake of critical comments from the governor
BY KOKI RILEY and WILSON ALEXANDER Staff writers
LSU and athletic director Scott Woodward are finalizing his separation from the school, one day after Gov. Jeff Landry said Woodward would not be the one to hire the replacement for coach Brian Kelly. LSU confirmed in an announcement Thursday that Woodward and the school agreed to part ways effective immediately. Longtime LSU athletic official Verge Ausberry will serve as the interim athletic director as the school nears the end of its search for a new president and looks for a new head football coach. With four years left on his contract, Woodward is owed a buyout of roughly $6.7 million. LSU is expected to comply with the terms of his deal, according to Yahoo Sports. Woodward’s buyout would be paid out into 2029 and could be offset by the salary at his next job. According to the contract, Woodward has a duty to find another athletic director job or a similar position. “We thank Scott for the last six years of service as athletic director,” Scott Ballard, the chair of the LSU Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “He had a lot of success at LSU, and we wish him nothing but the best in the future. Our focus now is on moving the athletic department forward and best positioning LSU to achieve its full potential.” The decision had been expected, especially after Landry criticized Woodward for what he described as a “pattern” of bad coaching contracts. Landry claimed Woodward was to blame for the nearly $77 million buyout that Texas A&M paid Jimbo Fisher, and LSU owes Kelly a nearly $54 million buyout that is still being negotiated. Woodward hired Fisher at Texas A&M to a 10-year, $75 million contract in 2017. Two years after Woodward left for LSU, then-Texas A&M athletics director Ross Bjork gave Fisher
ä See WOODWARD, page 9A
$2.00X
Shutdown threatens Head Start programs Early learning centers face uncertain future BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer
STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
Scott Woodward was hired as LSU’s athletic director in April 2019 and led an athletic department that won six national championships under his guidance.
WASHINGTON — Along with food stamps, air travel and other casualties of the prolonged federal government shutdown, many Head Start programs will run out of money Saturday, threatening early learning, food assistance and health screenings for preschoolers, as well as free child care and job training for their lower-income parents. About 10% of the programs nationwide won’t receive funds Saturday, affecting more than 58,600 “We know that the children at 134 Head Start affected grantees centers in 41 states, acwill likely stay cording to the National open as long as Head Start Association. they can using the In Louisiana, 1,344 chilrevenue funds or dren at more than a dozen centers, primarily in New other resources. Orleans and Acadiana, But the longer have scrambled to cover the shutdown the impact of not receivcontinues, the ing checks. harder it’ll be for “We know that the affected grantees will likely them to be able to stay open as long as they hold on.” can using the revenue LIBBIE SONNIER, funds or other resources. But the longer the chief executive officer shutdown continues, the at Louisiana Policy harder it’ll be for them to Institute for Children be able to hold on,” said Libbie Sonnier, chief executive officer at Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, a New Orleansbased research nonprofit. Head Start serves about 13,800 of the 100,000 Louisiana children who live in households at or near the federal poverty line. “We also know that, when centers are forced to close, parents will have to make impossible choices of either going to work to sustain their family or not making an income and staying home with their children,” Sonnier said. Advocates see this latest hurdle as another unwelcome wrinkle in a yearlong struggle over the future of the 60-year-old program, says Teresa Falgoust, director of data and research with Agenda for Children, an advocacy group based in New Orleans.
ä See SHUTDOWN, page 7A
Historic sharecropper cabins demolished BY CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT
Staff writer
For more than 130 years, four sharecropper cabins have stood in a line along Great River Road in the upper west bank of Ascension Parish. Last week, ahead of planned industrial development in the rural area, crews demolished two in a move that sparked grief
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and outrage from some residents. The cabins sit beside the Mulberry Grove Plantation house, which was constructed in 1836 in the Greek Revival style, and all are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A 1993 form about the site estimated that the cabins were built around 1890. Ashley Gaignard, founder of the Donaldsonville-based Rural Roots
What’s left of a sharecropper cabin built around 1890 lies beside sugar cane fields near Modeste on Tuesday.
Louisiana advocacy group, and other locals expressed grief over the destruction of the cabins. Her uncle, Cloveste Joseph, was born in one of them, and she said they served as a living reminder of where her family came from. “It’s the little things that you can bring your kids to and say, ‘Hey,
STAFF PHOTO By CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT
ä See CABINS, page 9A
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