Friday was not the first time Allison Jones and younger brother Matt Jones took to outdoor media to make a statement about where things stand with LSU.
“The two of us were left unsupervised,” she said.
Her husband is hunting this weekend. Matt Jones’ wife is in Chicago.
Allison Jones, a Shreveport resident, had the original idea. The source of their ire was SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, whose office is in Birmingham, Alabama.
“After the Zoom committee meeting of the presidents yesterday (Thursday) where they basically did nothing and showed that they were inept, I called Matt,” she said.
The siblings are both attorneys and LSU alumni. He lives in Baton Rouge.
They and their families make LSU games a top priority. They have had season tickets and sat together for 30 years — in the same seats for the past 20.
“We need to get a billboard that says, ‘Fire Sankey,’” she told him.
He didn't need convincing.
Within 24 hours, the billboard was up in Birmingham.
h siblings Allison Jones and Matt Jones designed and paid for this billboard to go up in Birmingham three blocks from the SEC offices.
PROVIDED PHOTO
Its message is simple. It reads, in yellow letters against LSU purple: FIRE SANKEY.
To make the billboard happen, Matt Jones called Baton Rouge-based Lamar Advertising directly.
“This is what I want to do,” he told them, upfront enough that Lamar's legal team required the siblings to disclose who was paying.
The billboard is signed by their self-created group, a backronym — TIGERS: Taskforce Investigating Governance, Ethics and Reform in Sports — which notes it is not affiliated with LSU, Lane Kiffin or anyone else.
Beneath the group name, in small print, the billboard reads: Matt and Allison Jones.
The digital billboard is currently set to run for a week in Birmingham.
The siblings put up the money and then created a GoFundMe, which more than covered the cost of the billboard within a day.
Any leftover funds, Matt Jones said, will go to the Cajun Navy.
Listening to the pair discuss what they perceive as injustices provides insight into their passion for LSU — and their siblinghood.
“There's a history of us using outdoor advertising to express outrage at the abuses and excesses of the Southeastern Conference and its officiating crews,” Matt Jones said. “We exercise this power, um, sparingly. We only do it when outrage has reached a point which it's no longer tolerable and where just men cannot remain silent.”
In a definite big-sister voice, Allison Jones said, “Just people.”
And for a moment the bluster was gone from her younger brother’s voice.
“Just people, sorry. Just people,” he said, almost meekly.
In 2018, after LSU linebacker Devin White was ejected on what Matt Jones called a “bullsh…, I mean a questionable" targeting call, leaving White unable to play for the upcoming Alabama game, the two put up “Free Devin White” billboards in Birmingham and flew a banner saying the same over the Georgia-Florida game.
Matt Jones says he sees the SEC's threat to expel LSU, a founding member of the conference, as a line that cannot be uncrossed.
“It's kinda like your spouse saying, 'I want a divorce,'” he said. “You don't go back from that.”
Asked if there's anything else people should know, he didn't hesitate: “Geaux Tigers.”