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Ex-LSU star Leonard Fournette makes big gesture, pays for student's entire tuition

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Former LSU Tiger and current Jacksonville Jaguar Leonard Fournette took the idea of a random act of kindness to a whole new level this week.

Fournette saw a tweet from one of his college trainers in which she requested help to pay for her $10,000 senior-year tuition.

The student, Jhane Garner, worked with the LSU football team and, like Fournette, is also from New Orleans. That’s when the running back and his former teammate, Derrius Guice, sprung into action.

Guice gave Garner $1,000 to help cover the tuition and his LSU backfield-mate, Fournette, then offered to cover the remaining balance.

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When Garner saw the tweet, she was at work and was so overcome with emotion that her employer allowed her to leave work.

“It was the biggest thank you,” Doucet said. “When I saw that tweet, I was actually working and I just started crying. They had to send me home because I couldn’t stop crying.

“I can’t even thank everybody enough. I can’t thank y’all enough. Because of these people, they helped me and I’ll be able to finish my last year of school. Words can’t even explain how much appreciation I have to everybody who helped me.”

Fournette has always made a priority of taking care of those who took care of him so he didn’t think twice about helping his former trainer.

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“I know her personally. We’re both from New Orleans and she was my trainer at LSU,” Fournette said. “She took care of me when I needed massages, just the little things. She took care of my body. She is from my hometown. Why not? A little giveback to where I’m from. I feel like everybody needs that chance to do something they want to do in life.”

According to Spotrac, Fournette will make $1.7 million in base salary this season and is guaranteed over $27 million from his rookie contract.

It’s actually a bigger burden for Guice to cover the $1,000 than Fournette to cover $10,000. Guice was a second-round pick and is guaranteed less than $1.4 million over the life of his contract.

But both players would likely have not even reached this level if it wasn’t for people like Garner and the rest of LSU’s training staff.

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“I guess I like to think of it as good karma,“ Garner told WAFB in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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Ross Kelly has been a sportswriter since 2009.
Ross Kelly has been a sportswriter since 2009 and previously worked for ESPN, CBS and STATS Inc. A native of Louisiana, Ross now resides in Houston.
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