A newspaper clipping belonging to Bill Bankhead when he was one of the LSU cheerleaders atop Mike III's traveling cage in the 1950s. Bankhead is on the far right.
Mounted on the façade of Mike the Tiger's habitat across the street from Tiger Stadium are small circular plaques with the names of LSU's live Bengal tiger mascots past, present and presumably future, along with the years of their reign.
The current Mike is Mike VII. Or is he? Because way back in the 1950s there were two Mike IIs, an heir and a spare, to borrow a phrase from "The Crown." But because the death of the first Mike II was covered up at the time, one can make the argument that the entire numerical lineage brings us to Mike VIII -- or Mike VII, Plus One.
The story begins in 1936, with the arrival at LSU of the first Mike the Tiger. Students donated 25 cents per person to raise $750 to bring a tiger cub from the Little Rock (Arkansas) Zoo. He was originally named Sheik but had his name changed to Mike in honor of popular LSU athletic trainer Mike Chambers, one of the driving forces behind acquiring a mascot.
Mike I lived until July 1956 when he died at 20. An immediate search for a replacement began, with LSU bringing in a young tiger born in February 1956 at New Orleans' Audubon Zoo. Mike II made his debut Sept. 29 at LSU's season opener, a 9-6 loss to Texas A&M.
Not long after that is when the story gets strange.
Meet Bill Bankhead. A 2021 inductee into the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame, Bankhead had a long and distinguished career as an athletic administrator and coach. He was the first director of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, once coached LSU's swimming and men's gymnastics programs and worked with the International Special Olympics, running its world games held in 1983 at LSU.
In 1956, Bankhead was an LSU cheerleader. He also worked for the intramural sports department and lived on the third floor of the old Gym Armory, now the Cox Communications Academic Center.
"Mike passed away, I guess, in the middle of the night," Bankhead said. "A campus policeman saw him in his cage and got hold of Jim Corbett and Jack Gilmore."
Corbett was LSU's athletic director, Gilmore the athletic department business manager. One of them called Bankhead's supervisor, Harry "Red" Taylor, who was in charge of taking care of Mike.
"The campus police couldn't get in the cage because they didn't have a key," Bankhead said. "Red Taylor called and told me to go get the key out of his desk. I was to take it to Jim (Corbett) and not tell anyone."
Bankhead slipped into the athletic department, then in the north end of Tiger Stadium, through a back door, retrieved the key, and found Gilmore and LSU police chief C.R. "Dick" Anderson waiting for him.
"They didn't tell me what happened," Bankhead said. "They just said don't tell anyone and go back to your room. I did, of course."
It was Corbett, Bankhead said, who decided not to reveal that Mike II died. His absence, according to a story in LSU's "Daily Reveille" newspaper, was because the young Tiger was being kept indoors for a time to help him adjust to being a mascot. In reality, Mike II had succumbed to pneumonia at just 8 months old.
Meanwhile, the football Tigers weren't faring much better than their now deceased mascot. LSU started the season 0-6 before beating Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) on Nov. 10, 13-0. The Tigers finished 3-7.
All the while, LSU secretly searched for a replacement Mike II. According to the TAF webpage MikeTheTiger.com, Gilmore later said another tiger cub of similar age was found at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. The switch was made with no explanation. Even though the two Mike IIs did not look alike -- tigers' have unique facial markings similar to human fingerprints -- all rumors about Mike II dying and being replaced were denied.
Even Bankhead, who climbed up on the top of Mike's traveling cage with other cheerleaders many times, didn't know the story for years.
"One of my jobs when I was with the athletic department was to travel ahead and put together everything, tickets and meals, things like that," Bankhead said. "Jack Gilmore and I would fly, say, to Knoxville together in a small plane. One night I asked Jack about it and he was reluctant to say, but he told me."
What Bankhead still doesn't know is what became of the original Mike II's remains.
"There are two stories," Bankhead said. "One is that he was buried behind the (Mississippi River) levee by the campus. The other is that his body was taken to the vet school in New Orleans. I don't know which one is true."
Unfortunately, Mike II, Version 2.0, didn't fare much better than his predecessor. He only made it through the 1957 season, dying at the Audubon Zoo on May 15, 1958, of complications from fractures to his left rear leg. How his leg was injured also remains a mystery.
Mike III was born in November 1957 and also came to LSU from Seattle, same as the surreptitious Mike II. He reigned over the 1958 championship season and lived to the age of 18 when he died of pneumonia in 1976.
LSU has had four more live Mike mascots since then (not including Omar the rented Tiger from the Alabama game), making the current tiger Mike VII.
But to Bankhead, there is no question that he is really Mike VIII.