Dean Hotard is not your typical artist. Forget the canvases and the rainbow of acrylic paints. He’d rather use bedsheets and purple and gold spray paint to depict his greatest muse: the LSU Tigers.
After 20 seasons, the local architect and longtime football fan estimates he has created over 140 banners. For holidays and birthdays, his kids know exactly what to gift him: packs of sheets and cans of spray paint to add to his arsenal.
Usually featuring a cartoon and a witty rhyme, Hotard’s cloth signs have been a staple at his friends’ tailgate setup for years. He also makes posters and original characters, which he shows off at other LSU sporting events, too. Hotard’s creations have become highly anticipated by some Tiger fans and star athletes. Even Joe Burrow’s parents were once spotted posing with one of his banners.
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“This one time I told my daughter, ‘We’re playing a local school. It should be a blowout, so I probably won’t do one.’ And my daughter says, ‘You have to. There are people counting on you,’” says Hotard, 64.
“This one time I told my daughter, ‘We’re playing a local school. It should be a blowout, so I probably won’t do (a banner).’ And my daughter says, ‘You have to. There are people counting on you.‘”
[Dean Hotard]
Hotard says his spark for sign-making ignited with the posters his late father drew for family tailgates. During a game against Alabama, a 12-year-old Hotard swiped his dad’s sign, which was scrawled with a snarky remark using the coach’s nickname. He paraded it around campus.
“All of the drunk, old people were laughing and cutting up about my dad’s sign,” he says. “I waited for the bus (with the players) to pull up, and some 40-year-old drunk guy says, ‘Hey! I’ll give you $20 for that sign.’ Sold! … I was hooked.”
Hotard started his own game-day doodles back in 2004-2005. At first, he made his banners out of architectural paper. He’d roll up and stick the signs in his pant legs to sneak them into stadiums that had rules prohibiting banners over a certain size. At a heated Ole Miss and LSU matchup in Oxford, Hotard and his son revealed a sign at halftime right after Ole Miss threw an interception.
“This (Ole Miss fan) says, ‘If you do that, I’m going to tear it up,’” he says. “She didn’t even know what it said, she just didn’t like us making fun. Next thing I know, she didn’t tackle my son, but she went past him, grabbed it and tore it into a million pieces. Luckily, I had a backup sign in my other leg. … That day was when it quit being on architect paper and started becoming a bedsheet.”
During football season, Hotard does his research before games he attends. He researches rivals playing, investigating smack talk or any controversial statements made about the game. He plays with pop culture references or sprinkles in newsy LSU moments.
The week of the game, Hotard sketches out ideas on scrap paper and napkins. He disperses them into a group text with his three children. They’ll either give him a green light or assure him, “you can do better than that.”
Once approved, he spray paints his sign in his backyard a few days prior to the game.
At the tailgate, the sign is zip-tied to a makeshift frame made of PVC pipe so it can be proudly displayed. There, his designs get grilled once more as buddies rate it with a letter grade. If he brings a banner into the stadium, he ties it around his waist under his clothes to conceal it. Hotard says it just makes him look like he’s been eating too much jambalaya.
Hotard hid a banner to take inside a baseball game in 2009, which ended up going viral. It read: “LSU fans love oysters and championships by the ½ dozen.”
The funny sign caught the attention of the Louisiana Seafood promotion and marketing board and earned him a party at Acme Oyster House. He says it still hangs in the Perkins Road restaurant.
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After a game wraps up, Hotard signs the back of his banner and adds the final score before folding it up and stowing it in the attic with the rest of his collection. Hotard fondly remembers each and even has photo books of all his game-day tarps.
“(My daughter) says they’re going to stuff them in my casket when I perish, even though I don’t want to talk about that,” Hotard laughs.
This article was originally published in 225 Magazine’s 2024 Tiger Pride edition.