Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
Jonathan Austan Luna was drinking with friends Friday night at The Station, a popular sports dive bar off College Drive, when another friend walked in offering to buy them tickets to the LSU-Alabama game the next day in Tuscaloosa. The group quickly packed their bags and drove through the night to Alabama. After about three hours of sleep, they proceeded to partake in “heavy tailgating,” the Denham Springs man recalls. A few hours later, during a timeout in the second quarter of the game, the 31-year-old Luna waited for stadium security to walk away before climbing over a wall on the home side of the stands onto Saban Field after a dare from his friends. Videos of Luna posted to social media show a calm, though inebriated, man wearing a T-shirt advertising the popular LSU bar Fred's. He shrugs before raising his arms in front of the sea of Crimson Tide fans. He was on the field for approximately 10 seconds before a University of Alabama staffer escorted him off and he was promptly handcuffed by an Alabama state trooper. “I was waiting to get tackled,” Luna said. “I felt like Ricky Bobby from 'Talladega Nights,' like ‘what do I do with my hands?’” Luna, who does not attend LSU, said he knew he was going to get arrested. He was booked into Tuscaloosa County Jail on a count of second-degree criminal trespassing, a class C misdemeanor in Alabama that can carry a punishment of up to three months in jail. His friends posted his $500 bail a little over an hour later, a condition of the earlier dare. “If you tell a south Louisiana man ‘I bet you won't do it,' it usually kind of happens,” said Luna, who is banned from attending Alabama games for the next five years, but will be back in Tuscaloosa for a court appearance on Dec. 4. “All the police officers were super nice.” “We take matters of security seriously and are extremely disappointed in what occurred Saturday night,” according to a statement from an Alabama athletics spokesperson on AL.com. “Entering the competition arena without authorization is unacceptable. Such prohibited actions carry consequences, as in this case where the individual was arrested and trespassed from campus,” the spokesperson added. Luna added that he does not encourage anyone to run onto fields during games, and did not mean to cause any harm as part of the stunt. Instead he wanted to add some excitement to an otherwise disappointing season. LSU ended up losing the rivalry game 20-9. “I had no intent of wanting to screw up the game,” Luna said. “I waited for the timeout.”
