Tuesday Notebook

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Though it's nice to be sleeping in a bed again -- the last two weeks I was on couches -- where I'm staying this week in Baton Rouge is probably the worst hotel I've visited so far.

When I arrived, I noticed a dead cockroach on its back on the rug ... in the front lobby. I also saw a small bug crawling around on the bathroom floor a minute after checking into my room, then saw another dead bug on that same bathroom floor that could have been cleaned up by the housekeeping staff.

The front desk staffer is always in the back on a personal phone call or watching television. Trust me, I don't want be the annoying guy ringing the bell either.

And the free morning breakfast is more municipal than it is continental.

Below are some other tidbits from my first 36 hours in Baton Rouge:

CONVOY: As I was departing the LSU indoor football complex mid-afternoon Monday, a bunch of players were hustling in for practice. Car after car after car turned into the sprawling facility. I think I may have heard a hip-hop beat or two pounding from within the tinted windows. I did hear a little country music too, probably from the cars of offensive linemen.

ONE GREAT INTERN: One Great Season welcomes Kevin Theiss, a junior at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York. We'll have more about Theiss and the work he'll be doing here later this week.

WEATHER REPORT: It's October. Please lose the humidity, Louisiana.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH? I'd always thought this just from how Les Miles looks on television. But it's even more apparent when you see him in person that if he had a little more hair, he'd look exactly like actor Kurt Russell: