New Delhi, July 31 -- BATON ROUGE, La. - Sam Leavitt walked into a gym full of young football players on Wednesday and started talking about why he chose the harder path. His season-ending surgery last September, the comfortable situation he left at Arizona State, the call to do something different under Lane Kiffin at LSU. He covered all of it at a women's clinic of all places, his first public words since arriving in Baton Rouge.

That he chose a community event over a formal media session for his first extended appearance under his new coaching staff says something about Leavitt's instincts. He missed SEC Media Days while recovering. He stayed quiet through the spring. When he spoke at "The Huddle" clinic inside LSU's Indoor Practice F...