Brandon Surtain scrolls through the photos on his iPhone, stopping at the snapshots taken in a studio — not the home studio he now maintains in his old Mid-City New Orleans neighborhood, but the classroom studio in LSU's Foster Hall, where he spent countless hours after football practice.

He remembers being tired, maybe too tired to stand or sit in front of an easel. After all, no one was monitoring the studio, so who would know if he wasn't there?

Answering that question was easy for Surtain: He would know. His teammates would know, too.

Yes, those big guys on the LSU football team's defensive line and backfield. Surtain played defensive back for LSU between, and his teammates often accompanied him to the studio.

Some watched as Surtain and fellow art students painted; others tried th

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