Last weekend, many people in Louisiana watched as the Southeastern football team was defeated by the LSU Tigers 56-10, but what happened after took the internet by storm.

After the vicious defeat, the Lions football team accepted it and left the visitor locker room in Death Valley better than they found it.

The head manager of the equipment staff, Cade Genovese, and his SLU equipment team packed up the team’s belongings. Before they left, Genovese took a picture of the clean locker room, accompanied by a heartfelt message.

“No matter the outcome. Always leave it better than you found it. Thanks for the memory of a lifetime,” Genovese said.

Genovese grew up in Baton Rouge, just a few miles away from LSU, and always dreamed of going to college there. 

“SLU took a chance on me. I’m from Baton Rouge, so it was obviously my first choice for school. However, after I was accepted to LSU, I wanted to join their equipment team, but I received no response. Southeastern let me in with open arms and the rest was history.”

He said he chose Southeastern because it provided more opportunities to join the football equipment staff.

Only a few years after joining, he became head equipment manager with hard work and dedication.

In his fourth year, he gained overnight social media attention when his team left the locker room and expressed that this was the standard every night.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve [posted] something like this. We clean up frequently and always leave the locker room better than we found it. This time it was at LSU, I wanted to show the work we put in before the late bus ride home.”

Cade wanted to clarify that the standard is no matter the results, they do their business the right way everywhere they go, not because it was the most famous team in the state after the tweet went viral.

“If you look further on my Twitter, you see we’ve been doing this for a long time, to show what we do behind the scenes. You know, no one usually sees this side of football, and it’s something I wanted to share that there’s more that goes into it,” Cade said.

On or off the field, it’s never just him, and he wanted to make sure everyone gets credit for the hard work they’ve done, so others know the dedication it takes to hold that standard.

Football managers Charles Escher, Ayden Cormier and Divante Williams assist in making his job easier alongside the graduate assistants.

The general manager and coach, David Mertens, organizes the team’s travel schedule and makes sure they are well taken care of.

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