Ludacris

Let me tell you the story of the biggest mistake I have ever made in the workplace. It involves a substantial amount of taxpayer funds, Auburn football, police, university leadership, and Ludacris.

You may remember from the 311 story that in 2005, I found myself as the newly appointed Interim Director of the Auburn University Program Council. One of my main responsibilities was to help the students figure out what talent to bring to campus. We planned two major concerts a year - one in fall, and one in spring. We spent our summer surveying incoming Auburn students at Camp War Eagle about who they wanted to see that year. The answer was Ludacris.

My boss, Dean of Students Kent Smith, was supportive. He was supportive of everything. I cannot say enough wonderful things about that man. He was one of those rare transformational leaders who motivated you to do your best, all the time. Students and faculty and staff all adored him. When you’re planning a university-wide event like a Ludacris concert, one of the things you need is administrative support, and we were fortunate to have it with him.

Me with fake blonde hair and some of the amazing UPC students, at a non-concert event in 2005 - probably a movie on the green? - the year this story takes place. The guy on the far right in the black shirt is Ryan, who comes up later in this story.

Ultimately, MY ONE JOB for this show - the very most important thing - was to prepare a contract, inviting Ludacris to perform at Auburn. The students did their part in offering justification for the artist. I did my due diligence in coordinating this concert with the Dean, and Auburn Athletics since we wanted to use one of their outdoor practice fields for the show, and the Auburn University Police since they’d have to provide routine security, just like for every concert. I got the green light to write up a proposal, with one exception. Everyone I talked to said pretty much the same thing:

“This is fine, but just don’t plan this show on Iron Bowl weekend. We are all tapped out that entire week. Maybe have it the weekend before, when we play Georgia, at Georgia.” 

Those of you who have ever lived in Alabama no doubt understand the significance of that statement. If you don’t know about the Iron Bowl rivalry, I don’t know what to tell you other than this: it is the Super Bowl, World Series, and World Cup of Alabama. There are no professional sports teams in Alabama, and this is how we compensate. People throw all their sports-loving energy into college football. Sometimes it seems like all we really have as a state is Jesus, Alabama football, and Auburn football, and the Iron Bowl is all 3 wrapped up in one. It’s a difficult day if you are a house divided. No one can focus on anything that week, especially if you live in Auburn or Tuscaloosa or like anywhere in the state. 

It was fine with me, and the students, to have the concert on Auburn/Georgia weekend, which was at Georgia that year. The Iron Bowl was an Auburn home game in 2005, meaning Auburn was going to be crazy town that entire week.

I typed out the legally-binding proposal that included cost and dates and times and such, and sent it to Ludacris’ management company. 

Say what you want about Ludacris, the man is a total professional. He faxed (yes, faxed, it was 2005) the signed offer back to me within 24 hours. He agreed to spend anywhere from 45 minutes - 1.5 hours on stage, in Auburn, for Auburn students, for an absurd amount of money that I won’t disclose here because I’m probably not supposed to share it. Let me just say this: in 2005 dollars, it could’ve purchased a small fleet of Honda Civics. This concert would be totally free for Auburn students who’d already paid for the show through their student activity fees. Taxpayer money at work.

Being an Atlanta resident, he said he’d just make the 2 hour drive down for the show and drive himself right back. We didn’t even have to provide a hotel. 

His rider included all sorts of fun liquor that we were not allowed to buy with state funds. 

I happened to get the faxed offer back during the lunch hour one day, when most UPC students were hanging out in the giant office we occupied on the top floor of the Foy Student Union. I whispered to Patricia, our amazing administrative assistant, on my way to tell the students, “we got Luda! Let’s go tell them!” She was as excited as I was.

So I want you to imagine this: 24 year old me, running into an office of 18-22 year old students eating their lunch, yelling, all of a sudden, “Y’ALL!!! WE GOT LUDA!” And waving around a piece of paper that had been faxed to me and signed by Chris Bridges himself, and everyone immediately cheering, hollering, high-fiving, hugging, everyone else. Celebrations abounded. WE GOT LUDA! I think someone started playing Roll Out on the giant speakers we had in the office.

And then imagine me looking down at that piece of paper and noticing something I didn’t see at first.

In 2005, Auburn/Georgia was to take place on Saturday, November 12. We wanted the concert on a Thursday night, so that meant I needed to set the date for November 10. 

The Iron Bowl was to take place on Saturday, November 19. That meant the only Thursday totally off the table was November 17. 

But I had messed up, and invited Luda to come to Auburn on November 17, 2005, the Thursday before that year’s Iron Bowl - the only date we were not allowed to host him.

I slowly turned away from the celebrations, and crept back to my office, panicking. Patricia, knowing me very well, said in a quiet voice, “LBD, what’s wrong?”

I said “nothing” and slammed my door.

I immediately called our middle agent, Robby, who had recently graduated from Auburn and had served as President of UPC just a couple years earlier. Robby helped orchestrate this deal. Robby is also amazing.

Robby answers the phone with a “Congratulations, LBD!! This is going to be great.” He, also, had gotten a copy of the faxed contract.

I respond: “Hey! Yeah, cool. Students are excited. Listen, I messed up and put the wrong date on the contract. I was supposed to put November 10, but I put November 17, and that’s the Thursday before Iron Bowl and we can’t have it then, so can you let Ludacris know about the date change for me please?”

Those of you who work in media and booking are laughing but also your stomach probably dropped to the floor just as badly as mine did when I realized my mistake. And you’re cringing thinking about that conversation happening on the phone.

Robby went silent. Deathly silent. As an empath, I pick up on emotions, even over the phone, so I knew this was going badly. Robby was super chill, but he was never that quiet.

And after a minute he said, “no. Once you have a signed offer from an artist, you can’t change it. Ludacris is coming on November 17 or you are paying him what you agreed to in the contract for nothing. You’ll have to figure it out.”

I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Or throw myself out the 3rd floor Foy window. Or get in my cheap little Geo Prism and drive far, far away. I think I had $27 in my checking account at the time and a credit card bill that I could not possibly pay off on a $1200/month salary. How the holy hell was I supposed to come up with the many, many, MANY thousands of dollars we agreed to pay Ludacris, for one digit being incorrect in a contract. My life was over. 

I wanted so badly to run from my mistake, blame someone else, do literally anything but the one thing that I absolutely had to do. 

I marched down to Dean Smith’s office. (Patricia, at this point, was flat out worried. I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her what I’d done. First I slam my door, then I run away to see the Dean? Without speaking to her?? Something was up.)

I knocked on his door. Sat in the chair across from him. Took a deep breath. And had this very short conversation that has been permanently seared into my brain. 

Dean Smith: (big genuine smile, he was always smiling, god bless him) Hey LBD! What’s up!

LBD: Well, Dean Smith, I have good news and bad news for you.

Dean Smith: Alright, hit me. (Still smiling. Bless him. Meanwhile, I’m dying. A little more by the second.)

LBD: I guess the good news is, we got Ludacris! He just sent back his signed offer.

Dean Smith: LBD!!! What! That is awesome! Congratulations! Way to go! (He may have high-fived me?)

LBD: (stomach sinking even further) yeah, well, the bad news. 

Dean Smith: It can’t be that bad! (Big, genuine smile. Love him.)

LBD: I put the wrong date on the offer. He’s going to be here on Iron Bowl weekend. That’s the one weekend we were supposed to avoid. I put November 17 instead of November 10. And Robby said we can’t change it.
***

Now, I had worked closely with this man for the better part of a year, this cheerful, optimistic, positive thinker, who everyone adored, and I had only seen him stressed out once, during Hurricane Katrina, when he was worried about his family in Mississippi. Literally every other day, he was happy and positive and never lost his smile, no matter what. Except that day. His face fell. He put his head in his hands. Shook his head as if to say “this is why we don’t hire 24 year olds.” And he said to me something I never, ever forgot: “Okay. You know what? It is what it is. Let’s make it work. Get on it and good luck.”

He could have lashed out in anger or berated me for being such an idiot, but he instead responded with kindness. I also won’t ever forget how humbled I was by his response. I felt just a tiny bit better that I didn’t get screamed at, and also felt like he trusted me to make it right. His gracious response meant the world to me. There was a leadership lesson in that alone: choosing kindness, always.

I walked back up to my office and started making calls, apologetically, to everyone involved, except Luda who was none the wiser. I think I was in tears by the time I finally told Patricia what I’d done.

I started with Auburn Athletics who understandably lost their damn minds. “You mean to tell me you want our practice field WHEN?!” The Auburn Police did the same. “Do you not understand how hard it is for us to find staff for the actual real events we have going on that weekend? I think you need to call City of Auburn Police; there’s no way we can be solely responsible for this event anymore.”

There were a couple of days there that I thought the concert was not going to happen at all. I felt horrible. 

What eventually happened over the course of about a week was: everyone agreed to allow the show to go on, November 17, but many, many more people got involved. 

And my reputation as a professional was on the line. 

Auburn Risk Management micromanaged the ticket distribution and made me personally guarantee that only Auburn students would get in the gates. They assumed I made the date switch intentionally, to prove some sort of point about race and rap and Auburn. No one cared who showed up to Diamond Rio the previous spring. But try to bring a rapper to campus…

I did not make this mistake on purpose. It was just a mistake. The fact that my boss understood that is partly what saved me.

The provost’s office got involved, for reasons I still do not understand. Lemme tell you, if you work in academia, one of the worst things you can ever hear is “the provost has asked…”

In an effort to demonstrate how committed I was to making this work, on the craziest weekend in Auburn, I started sending a weekly digest of updates and information to campus and community leaders who were involved with the show. I encouraged them to forward the emails to anyone in their units who might need to read it. I developed real relationships with all the people involved, always took their calls immediately, and learned the importance of quick, open, and honest communication in a time of stress. 

September 2005-November 2005 was the very first time I experienced an insane amount of workplace stress, all because I made a typo. 

So when my students used to complain that I was really strict on grading them on tiny detailed things, I would tell them this story as a cautionary tale. And I would conclude it with: “I’d rather you make your typos with me, than with Ludacris.”

I also used it as an opportunity to explain that I learned something really important about myself through all this stress: that I always need an editor, and when I am doing important work, I want someone on my team who can catch my typos for me. I’d then list off one or two other faculty members, who some of them had taken for other classes, as my preferred go-to-error-catchers at the time. (“Y’all know Prof. Ginn? Did you know she was my mentor at Auburn? She’s been catching my typos for the last 17 years and I love her for it. We are buds.”) They got it. And I think some started to understand that team work could be a good thing, rather than a punitive thing.

Had I just asked Patricia to review my contract before I hastily sent it in, she’d have found that error for me. But, no. I tried to do it all myself, and in doing so made my life a total hell.

This story has a very good ending. The show went off without a hitch. My grad advisor, Ryan Roberts, was likely the most excited of all, as he was designated our point person to greet Mr. Bridges when he arrived on campus. Sure enough, Luda pulled up in his pearl colored Escalade right when he said he would, rolled down his window, said to Ryan, “Hello, I’m Chris Bridges, and I’m here for the show tonight.” Ryan, a sweetheart from Red Bay, Alabama, excitedly pointed him to drive behind the outdoor stage our students spent the previous day setting up. I remember Ryan hopping on the walkie talkie and going off on how cool that moment was. Luda hung out in his car until it was time for him to go on stage. He honestly may have just been reading a book to kill time.

At showtime, he walked out of his Escalade, got on stage, grabbed the mic, and the crowd went wild. It was a very good show. He did his thing for a full 90 minutes. I stood on the side stage and just watched in awe, amazed that the event actually was happening and things were going great. Photos below courtesy of Steve Tranter, the Director of Major Entertainment who led the student effort on this show and did a brilliant job.

Ever the ethnographer, I also noticed a few things.

First, this was the happiest, most diverse group of Auburn students I’d ever seen in one place at a UPC event. The field was totally packed. No one cared about doing anything but enjoying the concert. All races, ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds came together to enjoy Luda. I don’t hate Diamond Rio but the crowd was much, much different that night. This crowd was way more fun, and felt more representative of what our student population really looked like. There were absolutely zero security or violence problems. 

Second, everyone followed the rules! Everyone did what was expected of them, including our students, and it went just fine. We were all invested in a good outcome.

Third, Dean Smith’s little son Tre sure did enjoy singing all the words to all the songs; he was like 9 and when he started rapping along with Luda, I had to laugh out loud. It was so cute. I finally was able to relax after that.

The day after the show, I sent my final email update to all the important people of Auburn, thanking everyone for their patience with me, for their grace in forgiving me for my mistake, and for their hard work in helping the show be so successful. I got responses from everyone thanking and commending me for taking responsibility for my mistake, and for making the event work out well.

Stressful as that time of my life was, it taught me so much about leadership, communication, grace and forgiveness, and owning your mistakes. And, having someone on your team who can make up for your weaknesses. 

Every time I hear a Ludacris song, I think about this story, about Auburn, and about how fortunate I was to have learned such a valuable lesson about details and communication and leadership at such a young age. The mistake didn’t kill me. I learned from it and moved on. That’s the best any of us can hope for with any mistake, ever.

And, as if you even had to ask: with all the stress of the last few months behind me, as a 24-year-old with no marriage or child or real responsibilities, and a giant group of friends who all lived just down the road or within short driving distance and many of whom were crashing my apartment for the big game: I had the very, very best time at that year’s Iron Bowl tailgate.