LSWA names Robin Fambrough, Kent Lowe 2020 Distinguished Service Award inductees

NATCHITOCHES – Baton Rouge prep sportswriter Robin Fambrough and veteran LSU basketball sports information director Kent Lowe have been selected for the 2020 Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association, and will be inducted in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame next June.
Fambrough has produced and coordinated high school sports coverage for the Baton Rouge Advocate for 30 years, while also serving the LSWA in leadership capacities including a crucial stint as the organization’s first female president in 1999-2001. As the LSWA’s liaison with the Louisiana High School Athletic Association since the mid-1990s, she has played a pivotal role for both organizations.
Lowe, senior associate sports communications director for LSU since 2000, has won national and state awards for his press releases, columns and publications at LSU. The longtime LSWA treasurer, and a past president of the organization, Lowe has been the driving force since 2002 behind the Cox Sports Television show spotlighting the Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremonies. He has also been an acclaimed bowling columnist for The Advocate, along with being involved in the thoroughbred racing public relations field at Louisiana Downs and assisting with the Independence Bowl in his hometown of Shreveport.
The DSA honor, to be made official June 27 in Natchitoches, means they will be among the elite 12-person Class of 2020 being inducted in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Fambrough and Lowe were selected from a 24-person pool of outstanding nominees for the state’s top sports journalism honor.
The Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism is the most prestigious honor offered to sports media in the state. Recipients are chosen by the 35-member Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame selection committee based on nominees’ professional accomplishments in local, state, regional and even national arenas, with leadership in the LSWA a contributing factor and three decades of work in the profession as a requirement.
Distinguished Service Award winners are enshrined in the Hall of Fame along with the 433 current athletes, sports journalists, coaches and administrators chosen since 1959. Just 64 leading figures in the state’s sports media have been honored with the Distinguished Service Award since its inception 37 years ago in 1982.
Fambrough and Lowe will be among the 2020 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Dinner and Ceremonies on Saturday evening, June 27, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Dinner and Ceremonies are the highlight of the 2020 Induction Celebration beginning Thursday afternoon, June 25, with a regionally-televised (Cox Sports Television) press conference at the Hall of Fame museum at 800 Front Street in Natchitoches.
Outdoorsman Phil Robertson, recognized internationally as the Duck Commander, and former LSU football coach Nick Saban, who won 75 percent of his games and the 2003 national championship in five seasons with the Tigers, join eight-time Mr. Olympia world bodybuilding champion Ronnie Coleman and another global sports figure, Sweet Lou Dunbar of the Harlem Globetrotters, among a star-studded group of eight competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
The LSHOF Class of 2020 also includes a pair of multiple-year Pro Bowl NFL standouts, New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn and Chicago Bears cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman, a star at UL Lafayette, along with two extraordinary basketball players: New Orleans native Kerry Kittles, a two-time All-America guard at Villanova who averaged 14 points in an eight-year NBA career, and Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters basketball legend Angela Turner, who helped her teams to four straight national championship game appearances including wins in 1981 and 1982.
Also honored with enshrinement in the Class of 2020 will be the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award winner and the inaugural recipient of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Ambassador Award, to be announced this week.
The 2020 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
The selection of Fambrough and Lowe was jointly announced Tuesday by Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland and LSWA president Lenny Vangilder.
“Robin and Kent are truly transcendent figures in our state’s sports journalism history,” said Ireland. “For better than three decades, they have filled leadership roles in their fields. Robin has been a guiding force in high school sports coverage not only for the Advocate’s readers, but benefitting the LSWA and the LHSAA through her unique roles associated with the organizations. On the college level, through his leadership of the state’s SIDs, All-Louisiana teams, and his influence in the sports information field nationally, and his deep involvement with the LSWA and our annual Hall of Fame induction activities, Kent has an equally distinctive status.”
In spring 2019, Fambrough became the fourth sportswriter, and the first female reporter, to be inducted in the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame. In her 30th year at The Advocate, and in 29 years as the lead high school sportswriter, she has been recognized five times as the LSWA’s Division I prep writer of the year.
The Louisville, Kentucky, native received the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s prep journalism award in 2001 and 2016. Fambrough was presented the LHSAA’s 2001 Distinguished Service Award, the 2003 DSA from the Louisiana High School Coaches Association, and the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Louisiana Track & Field Coaches Association.
A graduate of Western Kentucky University, Fambrough also worked for two other Louisiana newspapers, the Daily Comet in Thibodaux and the Alexandria Town Talk.
She served as the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s first female president from 1999-2001 at a pivotal time as the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies moved to Shreveport, gaining traction for development of a museum. Fambrough has been part of the LSWA’s Hall of Fame selection committee for three decades.
She has coordinated the LSWA’s All-State selection process in all prep sports for nearly her entire tenure at The Advocate. Fambrough has been a liaison between the LSWA and the LHSAA, providing vital insight to help facilitate best practices for prep coverage by the media and assisting in the development of the Louisiana High School Sports Hall.
Fambrough is on the selection committee for the high school hall and also coordinates The Advocate’s prestigious Star of Stars High School Sports Awards each spring.
A member of the LSU Sports Communications staff since August 1988 who started his 32nd athletic year at LSU in August 2019, Lowe was appointed senior associate communications director in August 2000. He serves as the primary media contact for the LSU men’s basketball team and assists in the overall Sports Communications office in other sports as needed.
In June 2018, Lowe was presented the College Sports Information Directors of America Achievement Award for the University Division (Division I) recognizing his accomplishments in the profession on a national scale. Only one winner is chosen annually.
He has also for the past 26 years written an award-winning bowling column for The Advocate after writing a bowling column for the Shreveport Times for a decade. In 2018, he was inducted into the Louisiana State Bowling Association Hall of Fame for his service to the sport. He was previously inducted into the Baton Rouge Bowling Association Hall of Fame.
Lowe was the 2009 recipient of the Bowling Proprietors Association of America Media Award which recognizes a national and/or local, non-bowling industry media representative who, through either print or electronic media, made a significant contribution to further the sport of and business of bowling.
An expert kegler as well, in 2018, he won the Baton Rouge City bowling singles championship.
Lowe, 61, came to LSU from Louisiana Downs where he served in several capacities for the Bossier City racetrack. He was head writer, broadcast director and later publicity director, broadcasting race results on stations in three states, including two 50,000-watt stations. Lowe hosted a weekly talk show and stakes races live from the track including several radio broadcasts of the $1 million Super Derby which was broadcast on a network of stations in a three-state area and Armed Forced Radio.
During the 1980s, he worked with 2019 DSA winner Dave Nitz on the opening two years of modern-era minor league baseball broadcasts in Shreveport.
Lowe is a member of CoSIDA, which voted his 2010 men’s basketball media guide “Best in the Nation” and his 2012 men’s basketball guide third in the nation. He is a member of CoSIDA’s prestigious Academic All-American committee as well.
Lowe is also a past president and current treasurer of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association who has won numerous first-place awards for writing, media guides and fact sheets in the group’s annual media contest.
He has much radio and TV broadcast and production experience with LSU and the LSWA. In 1988-89, he was the play-by-play voice for LSU women’s basketball. For over a decade, he has done color for LSU softball and women’s basketball broadcasts.
Lowe began his professional writing career under Hall of Famers Bill McIntyre and Gerry Robichaux at the Shreveport Times and began writing bowling in Baton Rouge under the editorship of Butch Muir.
The Shreveport native is heavily involved with the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and for the past 17 years has helped host and produce the now live, nationally-televised induction ceremonies. Lowe was the driving force behind getting Cox Sports Television on board as the Hall’s TV partner.
A 1979 graduate from LSU-Shreveport, he earned his masters’ degree at LSU in 1982, working in the sports information office under CoSIDA and LSHOF Hall of Famer Paul Manasseh.
Lowe was named Mr. Jesuit Flyer as a senior at Shreveport’s Jesuit (now Loyola) High School. He has stayed connected in his hometown in an iconic role on the Independence Bowl game day staff for three decades as the press box announcer and unofficial historian.
The 2020 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 25, with a press conference and reception. The three-day festivities include two receptions, a youth sports clinic, a bowling party, and a Friday night riverbank concert in Natchitoches. Tickets for the Saturday night, June 27 Induction Dinner and Ceremony, along with congratulatory advertising and sponsorship opportunities, are available through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Anyone can receive quarterly e-mails about the 2020 Induction Celebration and other Hall of Fame news by signing up on the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding to the 350 sports competitors currently enshrined, 19 winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 64 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 433 current members of the Hall of Fame before this summer’s inductions.
The 2020 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame announces 2020 induction class

NATCHITOCHES – Outdoorsman Phil Robertson, recognized internationally as the Duck Commander, and former LSU football coach Nick Saban, who won 75 percent of his games and the 2003 national championship in five seasons with the Tigers, join eight-time Mr. Olympia world bodybuilding champion Ronnie Coleman and another global sports figure, Sweet Lou Dunbar of the Harlem Globetrotters, among a star-studded group of eight 2020 competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
The LSHOF Class of 2020 also includes a pair of multiple-year Pro Bowl NFL standouts, New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn and Chicago Bears cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman, a star at UL Lafayette, along with two extraordinary basketball players: New Orleans native Kerry Kittles, a two-time All-America guard at Villanova who averaged 14 points in an eight-year NBA career, and Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters legend Angela Turner, who helped her teams to four straight national championship game appearances including wins in 1981 and 1982.
Robertson, a Vivian native, was Louisiana Tech’s starting quarterback ahead of a young Terry Bradshaw until he gave up football to focus on his love of hunting and fishing. His passion, personality and business acumen ultimately led to a multi-million dollar business in West Monroe and inspired the wildly successful “Duck Dynasty” reality TV show. Robertson becomes only the third outdoorsman elected to the Hall from the competitors’ ballot, joining Grits Gresham (1989) and BassMasters Classic champion Jack Hains (2018).
Saban went 48-16 from 2000-04 at LSU before jumping to the NFL for two seasons as head coach in Miami, then returning to college football at Alabama, where he has captured five more national championships since 2009. His Tigers won Southeastern Conference championships in 2001 and 2003, reigning as SEC West Division champs from 2001-03, and he won his first national and SEC coach of the year awards while guiding LSU to the 2003 BCS national crown. He is the first sitting college coach elected to the Hall since Grambling’s Eddie Robinson (1985).
North Louisiana natives Coleman (Bastrop) and Dunbar (Minden), like Robertson, achieved worldwide celebrity status in their sports. Coleman, a linebacker for some of Robinson’s 1980s Grambling teams, won a record 26 International Association of Bodybuilders professional titles. Dunbar, the state’s Mr. Basketball at Webster High School, averaged 22 points while starring for the University of Houston before embarking on a 27-year playing career and 43 ongoing years of involvement with the Globetrotters.
Horn’s unlikely and colorful 12-season NFL career included four Pro Bowl appearances, all with in his seven seasons with the Saints (2000-06), when he set several franchise season and career receiving records, including career touchdown catches (50). A second-round 2003 NFL Draft pick after being a four-year starter for the Ragin’ Cajuns, Tillman was a two-time Pro Bowler who had 38 career interceptions and forced 44 fumbles as he played 13 pro seasons, all but a few games with his hometown team, the Bears, from 2003-14.
After averaging 22 points while leading St. Augustine to the 1992 Class 5A state championship, Kittles became a record-shattering All-American at Villanova and the No. 8 pick (Brooklyn Nets) in the 1996 NBA Draft, leading to a successful pro career. At tiny Shady Grove High School in rural Bienville Parish, Turner was a three-time state Most Valuable Player and two-time prep All-American before her dynamic all-around game helped the Lady Techsters go 143-10 in her incredible four-year (1979-82) college career.
Turner will join former Techster teammates Pam Kelly, Janice Lawrence and Kim Mulkey, and their co-head coaches Leon Barmore and Sonja Hogg, in the Hall of Fame next summer.
Saban will be the eighth former LSU head football coach enshrined, joining Gaynell Tinsley (1959), Bernie Moore (1963), Biff Jones (1966), Jerry Stovall (1981), Charlie McClendon (1982), Paul Dietzel (1988) and Les Miles (2019).
Horn will become the 17th former Saints standout, coach (Jim Mora) or administrator (Tom Benson, Jim Finks) inducted, and will be only the third player from this century so far to join the LSHOF ranks, along with running back Deuce McAllister and Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive tackle Willie Roaf.
Coleman is the first bodybuilder elected to the Hall.
The Class of 2020 will be enshrined Saturday, June 27, in Natchitoches to culminate the 61st Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration June 25-27.
The 2020 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
A 35-member Louisiana Sports Writers Association committee selected the 2020 inductees. The panel considered a record 150 nominees from 31 different sport categories on a 33-page ballot, said Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland.
The eight new competitive ballot inductees will raise the total of Hall of Fame members to 350 competitors honored since the first induction class — baseball’s Mel Ott, world champion boxer Tony Canzoneri and LSU football great Gaynell Tinsley — were enshrined in 1959 after their election a year earlier.
Also to be spotlighted next summer will be four other Hall of Fame inductees, the winner of the 2019 Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award, the recipients of the 2019 Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism presented by the LSWA, and a newly-initiated Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Ambassador Award. Those inductees from contributor ballots will be announced later this year.
The complete 12-person Class of 2020 will swell the membership in the Hall of Fame to 445 men and women, including 358 from the competitors’ ballot.
The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame includes 24 Pro Football Hall of Fame members, 18 Olympic medalists including 11 gold medal winners, 11 members of the Basketball Hall of Fame, seven of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players, seven National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 37 College Football Hall of Fame members, nine National High School Hall of Fame enshrinees, jockeys with a combined 16 Triple Crown victories, six world boxing champions, seven Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame members, seven College Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 10 College Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinees, four NBA Finals MVPs, four winners of major professional golf championships, five National Museum of (Thoroughbred) Racing and Hall of Fame inductees and two Super Bowl MVPs.
Just this summer, LSHOF members Kevin Mawae (inducted in 2013), Ed Reed (2017) and Johnny Robinson (1984) were enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, two weeks after Lee Smith (2004) joined the Baseball Hall in Cooperstown and a month before 2010 LSHOF inductee Teresa Weatherspoon’s Sept. 6 entrance in the Basketball Hall in Springfield, Mass.
Biographical information on all 433 current Hall of Fame members is available at the LaSportsHall.com website, with a steady stream of info available at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Facebook page and the @LaSportsHall twitter account.
Saban carved his prominent place in state sports history with the 2003 BCS national title win by his LSU squad over Oklahoma in the Superdome. His Tigers compiled a 48-16 (28-12 SEC) record in Baton Rouge, part of his 232-63-1 mark as a college head coach entering 2019.
Saban is the first coach to win a national title with two different FBS schools since the inception of the Associated Press rankings in 1936. Saban and Bear Bryant are the only coaches to win SEC crowns at different schools. His collection of national championships equals the record set by Bryant.
Among Saban’s coaching tree, former LSU assistants Jimbo Fisher, Will Muschamp and Kirby Smart are current SEC head coaches and Derek Dooley was coach at Tennessee. He is a 2013 inductee in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
Robertson, recognized on sight around the world thanks to his iconic long, rugged beard, began his Duck Commander business in a dilapidated shed, where he spent 25 years making duck calls from Louisiana cedar trees. Robertson built his first call from a piece of walnut in 1972.
From its humble beginnings, the Duck Commander brand has become a household name in quality duck calls and has branched off to make an array of other products, from DVDs, Duck Commander shotguns to Cajun-style marinade to television shows. The Robertson family had a wildly successful venture into the entertainment industry through their reality show “Duck Dynasty” on the A&E Network.
After graduating cum laude in accounting from Grambling, and taking a position in law enforcement, Coleman quickly emerged as one of America’s top professional bodybuilders. He shares the record of eight straight wins (1998-2005) as Mr. Olympia, and holds the record for most overall wins as an International Federation of Bodybuilders professional with 26 career victories, breaking the previous mark of 24 in Moscow in 2004.
A middle linebacker at Grambling, Coleman worked as a police officer in Arlington, Texas, and began training in bodybuilding. His first major title was the heavyweight crown in the 1991 World Amateur Championships, earning the title Mr. Universe. The 5-11, 297-pounder’s pro resume includes wins in Canada, Europe, Russia and New Zealand in addition to world championship events and Mr. Olympia competitions. He last competed in 2009 and is the subject of the 2018 Netflix documentary “Ronnie Coleman, the King.”
Dunbar, a Louisiana prep star at Minden’s Webster High School who was named the state’s “Mr. Basketball,” joining the likes of Willis Reed, Bob Pettit and Elvin Hayes, became one of the sport’s top entertainers with the famed Harlem Globetrotters following a pioneering college career at the University of Houston. He averaged 26 points and 12 rebounds a game as a senior at Webster and poured in 49 points in the state championship game.
The versatile 6-foot-10 Dunbar emerged as a national figure at UH from 1972-75, averaging 22.3 points and 7.7 rebounds for his career while becoming one of the first big men to play point guard at a major university. Shooting 48 percent while also playing in the frontcourt, Dunbar was inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor in 2007.
A fourth-round NBA Draft pick of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1975, he never played in the NBA and after a year in Europe was “discovered” by a Globetrotters scout while playing for the Houston Rockets in a summer league game. One of the most revered players in Globetrotters’ history, he’s been with the team for more than four decades, 27 as a player, most of those in the “clown prince” role. Dunbar has played in front of more than 10 million fans on six continents. He has also been honored as one of the “Legends of Basketball” by the National Basketball Retired Players Association.
A wiry and flashy wideout, Horn was a Saints fan favorite and a record-breaker from 2000-06, helping them to the NFC South title and a playoff berth in his first season. In seven years with the Saints, Horn came close to breaking Eric Martin’s career club records in receptions and receiving yards with 523 catches for 7,622 yards — coming up just nine catches and 232 yards short.
Horn set a club record with 11 receiving TDs in 2004, and had a record four in a Dec. 21, 2004 game with the New York Giants. Horn had a team-record 27 100-yard games in his seven-year stint with the Saints and also set club receiving marks for a single season with 94 catches and 1,399 yards — both in 2004.
He averaged a remarkable 88 catches, 1,306 yards and eight TDs over a three-year stretch from 2000-02, making the Pro Bowl each time. Horn, who didn’t play football for two years after his two seasons in junior college, watched a Jerry Rice instructional video while working at a restaurant and eventually caught on in the Canadian Football League before being drafted by Kansas City. He finished a 12-year NFL career in 2007 with 603 receptions, 8,744 yards and 58 TDs.
Following four seasons (1999-2002) starting at cornerback at UL Lafayette, Tillman was a second-round NFL Draft pick who played 13 seasons before injuries forced him to retire at the age of 34. He started all but four of his 168 NFL games and had 38 career interceptions for 675 yards, taking eight of those picks back for touchdowns.
The 35th overall selection in the 2003 draft had at least three interceptions in nine of his 13 seasons. The 6-foot-1, 196-pounder finished his career with 911 total tackles, notching a career-high 99 in 2011 when he was voted to play in the first of two consecutive Pro Bowls. He also forced 44 fumbles with 10 of them coming in 2012 when he was named an Associated Press first-team All-Pro. In 2003, he set the NFL single-game record by forcing four fumbles against Tennessee on his way to being the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and the Sports Illustrated Defensive Rookie of the Year.
Tillman, who broke up 141 passes in his career, had 16 in 2011 — one fewer than his personal-best of 17 that he had in 2008.
His Bears won the NFC title over the Saints in 2006 and played in Super Bowl XLI against 2019 LSHOF inductee Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts but lost 29-17.
Tillman won the 2013 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award — the league’s only award that recognizes excellence on and off the field with an emphasis on a player’s contributions to his community and to society in general.
In college, he was a four-year starter who had 12 interceptions, seven fumble recoveries, three blocked punts and 284 tackles in a career that made him the eighth Ragin’ Cajun to have his jersey retired. A criminal justice graduate at UL Lafayette, he is now an FBI agent.
Kittles was a high-scoring 6-foot-6 guard at St Augustine, Villanova and in an eight-year NBA career from 1997-2005 (he missed the 2000-01 season with a knee injury) after being a first-round pick (No. 8 overall) of the then New Jersey Nets in 1996. As a pro, he played in 507 games with 455 starts and posted career averages of 14.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game in seven seasons with the Nets and one with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Kittles averaged in double figures in seven of his eight seasons with at least 12.5 points per game in each of them. After being a second-team All-Rookie pick in 1997 when he averaged 16.4 points and 3.9 rebounds, he had his best pro season statistically in 1998 with career-highs of 17.2 points and 4.7 rebounds. He also averaged 12.3 points and 3.6 rebounds in starting all 54 playoff games he played.
He remains the career scoring leader (2,243 points) for the storied Villanova program, where he averaged 18.4 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists in a four-year career (1993-96) while shooting 47.8 percent from the field in 122 games. Kittles was the Big East Player of the Year as a junior in 1995 when he averaged 21.4 points (shooting 52.4 percent from field), 6.1 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.2 steals.
A consensus second-team All-American in 1995 and a first-teamer in 1996 as a senior, Kittles was a rugged defender, leading the Big East in steals in 1994 with 87. He still ranks seventh all-time in Big East history in scoring (fifth when he graduated), fifth in field goals made (821), ninth in 3-point field-goal percentage (39.4) and ninth in steals (277).
Kittles led St. Aug to the 1991 state championship game as a junior, with the Purple Knights falling by one point before they brought home the title in his final prep contest the following year.
A four-year starter from 1978-82 and a prestigious Kodak All-American in 1982, Turner helped Louisiana Tech to four Final Fours, four national title game appearances and two national titles (1981 AIAW, 1982 NCAA). The 5-foot-8 forward was a key in an undefeated season in 1980-81 when the Lady Techsters went 34-0 and defeated Tennessee 79-59 in the title game, when she was named Final Four MVP. The following season as a senior, she led Tech to a 35-1 record and the NCAA national title as Tech defeated Cheyney State 76-62.
She helped the Lady Techsters set the Division I women’s basketball record with a 54-game winning streak during the 1980-81 and 1981-82 seasons. “A.T.” scored 2,262 career points, still ranking third all-time at Tech, and averaged double figures all four seasons. Her 817 points scored in 1979-80 still ranks as the second most in a single season in school history.
Turner ranks No. 2 in field goals made (1,021), No. 3 in scoring (2,262 points), No. 3 in steals (358), No. 6 in rebounds (1,073) and No. 9 in assists (466) in the storied history of the program. Known for her picture-pretty jump shot, she made the 20-member LSWA All-Century Team for college hoops chosen in 1999. Her No. 5 jersey is retired.
After graduating as valedictorian for her senior class at Shady Grove High School, Turner was named to the U.S. National Women’s U20 team in 1978, leading the team in scoring at the Pam American Games. She scored 3,780 points in high school.
The 2020 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 25, with a press conference and reception. The three-day festivities include two receptions, a free youth sports clinic, a bowling party, and a Friday night riverbank concert in Natchitoches. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremony, along with congratulatory advertising and sponsorship opportunities, will be available early in 2020 through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Anyone can receive quarterly e-mails about the 2020 Induction Celebration and other Hall of Fame news by signing up on the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding to the 350 sports competitors currently enshrined, 19 winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 64 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 433 current members of the Hall of Fame before next summer’s inductions.
The 2020 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available

RUSTON — In his Hall of Fame sports writing career, O.K. “Buddy” Davis wrote countless thousands of stories, many which earned him awards and all which earned him affection from those he covered in Lincoln Parish, and far beyond.
It was a two-way love affair. As much as his subjects treasured the tales Davis typed for publication over a half-century in the Ruston Daily Leader, Buddy savored the chances to spotlight them and built lifelong friendships along the way.
Almost six years to the day after a debilitating stroke in July 2013 – which slowed, but certainly did not halt, his prolific content output — Davis passed away this summer at age 72. Even considering his incredible legacy, it turned out he saved his most remarkable story for last.
His estate has donated over a half-million dollars to causes dear to Davis. The list of recipients is headed by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, which will receive $100,000 to support the six-year-old, 27,000-square feet, world-class Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum at 800 Front Street in Natchitoches.
He also willed monetary gifts to the Eddie G. Robinson Museum on the Grambling campus, Louisiana Tech Athletics, and other Ruston-based entities: the Louisiana Methodist Children’s Home, the North Louisiana Military Museum, the Ruston High School Alumni Association, and 4 Paws Rescue.
Recently, Buddy’s longtime friend Rick Hohlt, the former Ruston Daily Leader publisher, joined several Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame members and family members, along with LSHOF Foundation officials and sports writing companions of Davis, as a $94,500 check was presented from the estate. The remainder of the gift will be completed next spring.
It is the second-largest individual gift ever to the Hall of Fame Foundation, said Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland.
Davis, himself enshrined in the LSHOF as a 2009 recipient of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, became a legendary figure far beyond Lincoln Parish in his 55-year writing career based in Ruston. He covered everything from the Olympics to NBA All-Star Games, Super Bowls, Final Fours and T-ball tournaments. He crafted tens of thousands of bylined stories, winning well over 100 awards in national, regional and statewide contests.
He was named Mr. Louisiana Basketball by the Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches in 2010. In 2013, he was inducted in the Louisiana Tech Athletics Hall of Fame and was named the University’s College of Liberal Arts Alumnus of the Year (he graduated in 1969). Davis was honored by the Ark-La-Tex Museum of Champions. He earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Football Writers Association of America, and was recipient of the LSWA’s highest honor, the Mac Russo Award, and held a Life Membership from that organization. Davis was a Hall of Fame selection committee member since the panel’s inception in the mid-1970s and remained engaged until his passing.
Already a part-time member of the Ruston Daily Leader staff while in college, he became sports editor after graduating and never left, despite several appealing offers to move up in the sports journalism world. He wrote stories for several national publications, including Basketball Times and Sports Illustrated, but had no desire to leave his hometown, his friends and family, and the remarkable sports landscape in Lincoln Parish.
“It was my job – and it was my pleasure. I made special friends for life, doing what I was supposed to do,” Davis told his acclaimed LSWA friend, Marty Mule, for a chapter in Mule’s 2013 book “Game Changers – The Rousing Legacy of Louisiana Sports.” Davis and trailblazing African-American sports journalist R.L. Stockard of Baton Rouge were the only two non-athletes featured among 78 chapters penned by Mule’.
Davis was extremely proud, and amazed, that 57 of the 433 members of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame hailed from his home parish, including athletes, coaches and staff at Grambling and Louisiana Tech (four more are among the Hall’s Class of 2020). Each time that number grew, he took out an ad in the Hall of Fame commemorative program welcoming the newest star he had covered, and listing all of the others.
Ten of those attended or were represented at the check presentation, with many others sending regrets due to schedule conflicts or other obligations.
Taking part were LSHOF members Leon Barmore, Fred Dean, Aaron James, Bert Jones, Keith Prince and Willis Reed. Barmore and Reed are enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Dean is part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Family members attending were Dr. Pat Garrett, representing his father “Hoss,” the great Ruston High football coach; Nan McJamerson, niece of the Grambling basketball coaching legend Fred Hobdy; Betty Lou Robertson, representing her late husband, former Tech and NBA basketball coach Scotty Robertson; and Eddie Robinson III, on behalf of his grandfather, Grambling’s iconic “Coach Rob,” who Davis considered “like a father to me.”
Also on hand were Buddy’s colleague and successor at the Ruston Daily Leader, Scott Boatwright, and his dear friend Teddy Allen of Louisiana Tech, along with LSHOF Foundation CEO/President Ronnie Rantz, Gracen McDonald of the LSHOF Foundation, and Ireland.
The gathering was held in the O.K. “Buddy” Davis Media Room at Tech’s Joe Aillet Stadium. The area was named for him at the outset of the 2017 football season. The room’s large rear wall, measuring 12 feet tall by 40 feet wide, includes five panels of photos, each panel representing a decade and documenting Buddy’s career with photos of Lincoln Parish competitors he covered, some with personal inscriptions.
Davis’s career is already documented in the inductee data base at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame museum. A special acknowledgement of his gift will be added in the shrine, which he was thrilled to see in its grand opening at the end of June 2013, just two weeks before he was stricken at his home in Ruston.
Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame to induct 2019 class June 8

NATCHITOCHES – Five-time NFL Most Valuable Player Peyton Manning and former LSU football coach Les Miles, who won 77 percent of his games and a national championship in 11 seasons with the Tigers, join five-time USA Olympic volleyball standout Danielle Scott among a star-studded group of eight 2019 competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
The LSHOF Class of 2019 also includes championship coaches Roger Cador (Southern University baseball) and Charles Smith (Alexandria-Peabody Magnet high school basketball), Louisiana Tech quarterback and Canadian Football League Hall of Fame member Matt Dunigan, along with LSU football great Max Fugler, an All-American on the Tigers’ 1958 national championship team, and T. B. “T. Berry” Porter , a member of the Rodeo Hall of Fame.
Manning, a New Orleans native, will join his father, Archie, a 1988 inductee, in the state sports shrine. They will become only the third father/son duo in the Hall, preceded by the Ruston combination of NFL stars Dub (1982) and Bert (1986) Jones, and the Baton Rouge duo of track greats Glenn “Slats” Hardin (1962) and his son Billy (1998).
A pair of 2018 LSHOF inductees, receivers Reggie Wayne and Brandon Stokley, were Manning’s teammates with the Indianapolis Colts, and the trio helped the Colts win Super Bowl XLI. Manning capped his career with another Super Bowl title, with Denver, in Super Bowl 50.
Miles will be the seventh former LSU football coach enshrined, joining Gaynell Tinsley (1959), Bernie Moore (1963), Biff Jones (1966), Jerry Stovall (1981), Charlie McClendon (1982) and Paul Dietzel (1988).
Scott, a Baton Rouge native, will become the Hall of Fame’s first volleyball inductee. She claimed silver medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics with Team USA and is a member of the International Volleyball Hall of Fame.
Porter, 91, is the first rodeo competitor selected for the state hall. Smith, 69 as he approaches his 34th season at Peabody, is on pace to become the winningest high school basketball coach in state history if he maintains his current pace for a couple more seasons.
The Class of 2019 will be enshrined Saturday, June 8, in Natchitoches to culminate the 60th Anniversary Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration June 6-8.
The 2019 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
A 35-member Louisiana Sports Writers Association committee selected the 2019 inductees. The panel considered a record 145 nominees from 30 different sport categories on a 31-page ballot, said Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland.
The eight new competitive ballot inductees will raise the total of Hall of Fame members to 350 competitors honored since the first induction class — baseball’s Mel Ott, world champion boxer Tony Canzoneri and LSU football great Gaynell Tinsley — were enshrined in 1959 after their election a year earlier.
Also to be spotlighted next summer will be three other Hall of Fame inductees, the winner of the 2019 Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award and the recipients of the 2019 Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism presented by the LSWA.
The complete 11-person Class of 2019 will bring the membership in the Hall of Fame to 433 men and women, including 19 Dixon Award winners and 64 sports journalists.
The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame already includes 18 Pro Football Hall of Fame members, 18 Olympic medalists including 11 gold medal winners, 10 members of the Basketball Hall of Fame, seven of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players, six National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 37 College Football Hall of Fame members, nine National High School Hall of Fame enshrinees, jockeys with a combined 16 Triple Crown victories, six world boxing champions, seven Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinees, seven College Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 10 College Basketball Hall of Fame members, four NBA Finals MVPs, four winners of major professional golf championships, four National Museum of (Thoroughbred) Racing and Hall of Fame inductees and two Super Bowl MVPs.
Biographical information on all 422 current Hall of Fame members is available at the LaSportsHall.com website, with a steady stream of info available at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Facebook page and the @LaSportsHall twitter account.
One of the NFL’s all-time greats while winning Associated Press NFL MVP honors in 2003-04, 2007, 2009, and 2013, Manning held league records with 71,940 passing yards, 539 touchdown passes and 43 fourth-quarter comebacks going into the 2018 season. He also held league single-season records with 5,477 passing yards and 55 TDs, achieving both in 2013.
He was a 14-time Pro Bowl pick and seven-time AP first-team All-Pro selection in his 17-year career. He played 13 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, who made him the No. 1 overall pick of the 1998 draft out of Tennessee, and completed his career with a four-year stint with the Denver Broncos.
Manning won two Super Bowl rings when the Colts beat the Chicago Bears (XLI) and the Broncos downed the Carolina Panthers in the 50th anniversary Super Bowl in what was the final game of a career that spanned from 1998 to 2015. He also guided the Colts to Super Bowl XLIV where they lost to the New Orleans Saints.
He was voted Super Bowl XLI MVP after leading the Colts to a 29-17 win over the Bears on a rainy night in Miami. He was the AP Offensive Player of the Year in 2004 and 2013, won the 2005 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award for excellence on and off the field, and was the league’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2012 after missing the entire 2011 season because of a series of neck surgeries that nearly ended his career.
Manning won 27 weekly AFC Player of the Week awards during his illustrious career. He played in 266 games with 265 starts and had a 186-79 record as a starter. He also appeared in 27 postseason games, going 14-13 and throwing for 7,339 yards and 40 TDs.
After an All-State and prep All-America career at Newman HS in his hometown of New Orleans, Manning piled up 11,201 career passing yards from 1994-97 at the University of Tennessee while completing 62.5 percent of his passes with 89 TDs and only 33 interceptions. He was the SEC Player of the Year and a consensus All-American in his senior season in 1997, and a street near Neyland Stadium was renamed Peyton Manning Pass in his honor.
After following Nick Saban as LSU’s coach in 2005, the affable Miles continued a pattern of sustained success for the program for the next 11-plus seasons in compiling a record of 114-34 (77.0 percent). With his 114 victories at LSU, Miles, who has an overall career record of 142-55 as a college head coach, is the second-winningest coach in LSU history behind only Charlie McClendon’s 137 wins in 18 seasons.
Miles is the only coach in LSU history to beat Auburn, Florida and Alabama in same season — which he did three times — and in 2005, he became the first first-year coach in Southeastern Conference history to lead a team to the league’s title game.
The consensus national coach of the year in 2011 when he guided his team to a 13-0 mark and a berth in the BCS title game before losing to Alabama, Miles led the Tigers to the BCS title in 2007 and also won two SEC titles (2007, 2011). From 2005-15, LSU averaged 10 victories a year with seven double-digit win seasons and won more games than any other SEC school.
Miles, whose team was ranked No. 1 in the AP poll for 11 consecutive weeks in 2011, had a 62-28 SEC regular-season record with nine winning seasons of five victories or more and had only one losing season in league play (3-5 in 2008). He won 16 times against coaches who had won a national championship. Under his direction, LSU was 7-4 in bowl games and overall won 10 or more games a school-record seven times.
Miles led LSU to five top-10 finishes (three in the top five) and during that time produced 22 first-team All-Americans and had players claim 11 national awards. LSU also led the SEC with 69 NFL Draft picks in that span — which included 13 first-round selections. LSU led the nation with nine draft picks in 2014, a year after setting the school record with nine in 2013. In 2015, LSU topped the NFL with 40 players on opening-day rosters. Miles helped LSU rank second in the SEC in graduation rates in two of his final four seasons.
Scott was a key member of Team USA for an unprecedented five consecutive Olympics (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012). She earned a spot on the USA Volleyball elite team for 19 years, competing in more than 400 matches and winning 20 medals — including the two Olympic silvers.
She is one of only four male or female volleyball players from any nation to compete in five Olympics. She is one of only four male or female volleyball players from any nation to compete in five Olympics. Scott was voted the world’s top professional player in 2001, midway through a career that spanned two decades. Between 2000 and 2009, she earned the top blocker award five times during international competition and was voted the FIVB MVP in 2001. She played professionally for clubs in Japan, Puerto Rico, Brazil and Italy.
Scott starred in basketball, volleyball, track and softball at Woodlawn High in Baton Rouge, winning multiple all-state honors in basketball and volleyball and earning the LVCA’s MVP in 1989-90, and also was an indoor track champion in the shot put. Scott played basketball, volleyball and competed in track and field at Long Beach State, becoming the first female athlete to earn first-team all-conference honors in both basketball and her specialty.
At Long Beach, Scott led her squad to an NCAA title in volleyball in 1993 and was the voted the Honda and AVCA National Player of the Year.
Cador became one of the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s top all-time coaches in any sport while leading the baseball team at his alma mater, Southern University, for 33 seasons (1985-2017). He compiled a career record of 913-597-1 (.604) in leading Southern to 14 conference titles and 11 NCAA tournaments.
In one of the milestones of his career, on May 21, 1987, Cador guided the Jaguars to a stunning 1-0 upset of No. 2-ranked Cal State Fullerton, which was the top seed for the NCAA South II Regional at UNO. It was the first time an HBCU school won an NCAA tournament game.
Cador added two more NCAA tournament victories en route to posting a dozen 30-win seasons. He coached 10 All-Americans and had 62 players chosen in the Major League Baseball draft. Under Cador’s tutelage, second baseman Rickie Weeks, a two-time NCAA batting champion, won the 2003 Golden Spikes Award as college baseball’s top player and was the second overall pick in the draft by the Milwaukee Brewers.
In 33 seasons at the helm of the Peabody Magnet boys high school basketball program, Smith has had remarkable success with a 1,008-176 (.851) career record after becoming just the fourth boys basketball coach in Louisiana history to win 1,000 games while claiming his fourth state runner-up finish in 2017-18. Smith has led the Warhorses to seven state titles (1991, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2017) and three other runner-up finishes (1990, 2011, 2013), and was an assistant on the school’s first state championship team in 1979.
His teams have won 28 district championships, including 19 in a row in a streak that ended in 2014. Smith has guided Peabody to the Top 28 18 times, has never lost in the first round of the playoffs, and has won at least 22 games every season since 1988. He was named the LSWA’s Coach of the Year four times, most recently in 2016-17, and ESPN’s National Coach of the Year in 2010. His 2004 and 2010 teams went undefeated and finished the year nationally ranked. More than 60 of his players have earned athletic scholarships in his three-decade career.
A 2006 CFL Hall of Fame inductee, Dunigan piled up big numbers in college (1979-82) and during a 14-year career in the CFL (1983-96). He broke nine Louisiana Tech school records, including Terry Bradshaw’s mark for passing yards with 7,042 (which now ranks fourth in school history), and was a Kodak/AP Division I-AA All-America pick as a senior when he threw for 2,843 yards and 23 TDs.
During his CFL career with six teams (Edmonton, British Columbia, Toronto, Winnipeg, Birmingham and Hamilton), he threw for 43,857 yards and 306 touchdowns and rushed for 5,031 yards and 77 TDs – accounting for 48,888 total yards and 383 TDs. He ranks second in CFL history in TD passes, third in passing yards (43,857), third in attempts (5,476) and third in completions (3,057). He ranks fourth all-time in rushing TDs (77) and is fifth in rushing yards by a quarterback (5,031).
The native Texan holds the CFL single-game passing mark, throwing for 713 yards and five TDs in leading Winnipeg to a 50-35 win over Edmonton on July 14, 1994. A three-time All-CFL pick (1985, ‘88 and ‘95), he is the only quarterback to lead four different teams to the Grey Cup. He guided his teams to six Grey Cup appearances, winning in 1987 for Edmonton and in 1991 for Toronto.
Fugler was an All-America center and interior defensive lineman for LSU’s 1958 national championship team. The 6-foot-1, 201-pound Ferriday product was a stalwart on the famed White Team. He was an outstanding blocker on offense who played more minutes than any other player on the unbeaten squad coached by Dietzel.
Fugler made two key tackles on the goal line to preserve a 14-0 win over Ole Miss that season and was named national lineman of the week for his efforts against the Rebels that night. He was one of the stars of LSU’s first national championship in football along with Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductees Billy Cannon, Johnny Robinson, Tommy Davis and Dietzel as well as assistant coaches Charlie McClendon and Carl Maddox.
He earned the Iron Man Award during the 1958 championship season, leading the team in averaging more than 35 minutes of playing time a game. He was one of two centers selected to the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s all-time Louisiana collegiate team that was picked on the 100th anniversary of college football in 1969.
Fugler was an all-state pick and Ferriday High’s first All-American for LSHOF coach Johnny “Red” Robertson, helping build a state-record 54-game winning streak. During Fugler’s five years on the team (he played as an eighth grader), Ferriday won four state championships and lost just four games in that stretch. Fugler played on high school and college teams that combined to go 68-8 while he was a member of those teams. He was an eighth-round pick (94th overall) of the San Francisco 49ers, but his career ended in his rookie season after a serious knee injury.
Inducted in 2015 in the Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Porter was Louisiana’s first professional rodeo cowboy. The Leesville native began rodeoing in the early 1940s and at the age of 16 became a member of the first professional cowboy association in the country, the Cowboy Turtle Association, that developed into the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (he holds PRCA membership card no. 325).
At 22, Porter won the 1949 World Champion Calf Roper title at Madison Square Garden, presented his trophy saddle by Gene Autry after becoming the first world championship “rookie” to win the title. He quickly added the calf roping title at the 1949 World Rodeo in Boston in front of 6,000.
In 1959, Porter became the first Louisiana cowboy to participate in the inaugural National Finals Rodeo. He was a member of the Wrangler Rodeo Team in the early 1950s, and was spotlighted in a promotional handout placed in every pair of jeans put on sale. His career earnings were over $100,000 in 22 years. In 1978, the PRCA presented him with his gold membership card and a plaque in appreciation of his promotion of the sport of rodeo at the high school, collegiate and pro levels.
The 2019 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 6 with a press conference and reception. The three-day festivities include two receptions, a youth sports clinic, a bowling party, and a Friday night riverbank concert in Natchitoches. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremony, along with congratulatory advertising and sponsorship opportunities, will be available early in 2019 through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Anyone can receive quarterly e-mails about the 2019 Induction Celebration and other Hall of Fame news by signing up on the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding to the 342 sports competitors currently enshrined, 18 winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 62 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 422 current members of the Hall of Fame before next summer’s inductions.
The 2019 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide 25-member board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
Steve Gleason joins LSHOF 2018 induction class as Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award recipient

NATCHITOCHES – Steve Gleason, whose place in New Orleans Saints history is now secondary to the impact he is making on ALS research and in the lives of thousands of victims of the disease, is the 2018 winner of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award presented by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Gleason, whose pro football career ended in 2007, turns 41 on Thursday. The announcement of his honor is timed to coincide with an evening event in New Orleans celebrating his birthday. On June 30 during the Hall of Fame’s 2018 Induction Dinner and Ceremony in Natchitoches, he will become the 18th recipient of the Dixon Award since its inception in 2005.
He earned a permanent place in Saints lore on Sept. 26, 2006, when he blocked a punt early in the first game back in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. The play resulted in a Saints touchdown that triggered an emotional victory over their heated rivals, the Atlanta Falcons, on Monday Night Football. The Saints later commissioned a statue of Gleason’s play that stands outside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Two years after retiring from the Saints, Gleason, then 34, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Gleason, along with his friends and family, started Team Gleason which is designed to generate public awareness for ALS, raise funds to help those fighting the disease, and ultimately to find a cure. His continuing efforts and his indomitable lifestyle have made national and global impact.
The Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award has been presented annually by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s 35-member Hall of Fame selection committee to an individual who has played a decisive role as a sports leader or administrator benefiting Louisiana and/or bringing credit to Louisiana on the national and international level.
Dixon Award winners are enshrined as Hall of Fame members and are featured in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum in Natchitoches.
Gleason will be among the 2018 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Dinner and Ceremonies on Saturday evening, June 30, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Dinner and Ceremonies are the highlight of the 2018 Induction Celebration beginning Thursday afternoon, June 28, with a press conference at the Hall of Fame museum at 800 Front Street in Natchitoches.
Six-time Pro Bowl receiver Reggie Wayne, 18-year Major League Baseball pitcher Russ Springer, NBA champion and two-time Grambling All-American Larry Wright, and 15-year NFL receiver and two-time Super Bowl champion Brandon Stokley are among the eight 2018 competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
The class also includes championship coaches Lewis Cook (high school football, still active at Notre Dame of Crowley) and Jerry Simmons (LSU, UL Lafayette tennis), along with 1975 Bassmasters Classic champion Jack Hains and the late Paul Candies, a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.
Also honored with enshrinement in the Class of 2018 will be Pineville broadcaster Lyn Rollins and Lake Charles sportswriter Scooter Hobbs, the winners of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
The 2018 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
The selection of Gleason was jointly announced by Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland and LSWA president Paul Letlow. Last year’s Dixon Award recipient was NCAA women’s basketball administrator Sue Donohoe, a Pineville native and Louisiana Tech graduate.
Gleason, a Washington state native who now is a longtime New Orleans resident, came to the Saints as a practice squad player in 2000. He played in 83 games on special teams and in the secondary at safety. When the team won Super Bowl XLIV following the 2009 season, even though he was retired, he was awarded a Super Bowl ring by the team, and at the same ceremony, a key to the city of New Orleans by Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
The statue “Rebirth” was dedicated in July 2012, when a local news report said the play that inspired it “etched Steve Gleason into Saints lore and became symbolic of New Orleans’ resilience in the face of disaster.” It also was reflective of Gleason’s approach to his life.
In 2013, Team Gleason held the first Team Gleason Summit for a Cure in New Orleans where scientists and people living with ALS, their loved ones, advocates, and other came together to establish a roadmap for new treatments.
A year later, Team Gleason received donations from over 18,000 people and raised more than $1 million during the Ice Bucket Challenge. The foundation has continued to raise money in the years since with the challenge.
Also in 2014, the Team Gleason House for Innovative Living was created. The Gleason House is a residential facility, located at St. Margaret’s Skilled Nursing Residence in New Orleans, that is designed to help people with ALS live more independently. It has seven single occupancy rooms, one double occupancy room, and all rooms are equipped with PEAC technology, and other amenities.
In 2015, Gleason was selected for the George Halas Award from the Pro Football Writers Association, which is given to a player, coach or staffer who overcomes the most adversity to succeed.
Also that year came the release of the critically acclaimed documentary “Gleason” that showcased Gleason’s fight against ALS. The film received top honors from the National Board of Review and selection for the Sundance Film Festival.
In 2016, President Obama signed into law the Steve Gleason Act which allows speech generating devices, like the one Gleason uses, more accessible for patients with ALS and other neurological disorders.
Seventeen people have previously been presented the Dixon Award since its inception in 2005.
The first winner in 2005 was Randy Gregson, a New Orleans native/resident and former president of the United States Tennis Association. In 2006 the winner was Emmanuel “Boozy” Bourgeois, president of Louisiana Special Olympics since 1972.
The 2007 recipients were Don Landry, a longtime collegiate administrator and basketball coach, and Doug Thornton, the executive director of the Superdome.
In 2008, the Dixon Award went to world-renowned orthopedic Dr. James Andrews, a Homer native, LSU graduate and SEC champion pole vaulter.
The 2009 recipients were George Dement, a Bossier City boxing and youth sports activist; and “Mr. Softball” Benny Turcan, a New Orleans native and long-time state ASA softball commissioner.
In 2010 the Dixon Award winner was Gerald Boudreaux, the longtime City of Lafayette recreation director best known as one of the country’s top college basketball referees in the last three decades.
A year later, the committee honored Elmo Adolph, an Olympic and professional boxing official, and Billy Montgomery, who as a highly-regarded state legislator championed sports causes including construction of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame museum.
In 2012, the Dixon Award went to Marksville physician Dr. L.J. Mayeux, the former national president and chairman of the board for Ducks Unlimited renowned for his efforts to restore duck habitat across the nation.
The 2013 recipient was New Orleans businessman and sports benefactor Milt Retif, whose influence has been especially significant for American Legion baseball and Tulane baseball in his hometown.
In 2014 there were two recipients: Tynes Hildebrand, a coach and later athletics director at Northwestern State who served a decade as one of the NCAA’s top basketball officiating administrators, and Wright Waters, the longtime Sun Belt Conference commissioner.
Paul Hoolahan, the executive director and chief executive officer of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Classic since 1996, was presented the 2015 Dixon Award.
The 2016 winner was world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes, a Natchitoches native and LSU graduate who has become a leading figure in the field of sports-related concussion research and treatment. Donohoe was last year’s recipient.
The 2018 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 28 with the press conference and an evening reception. It includes three receptions, a youth sports clinic, a bowling party and a Sunday, July 1 golf scramble at Oak Wing Golf Course in Alexandria. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, and golf entries, along with sponsorship packages, are available through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding the 334 sports competitors currently enshrined, 17 previous winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 60 prior recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 411 members of the Hall of Fame prior to this summer’s ceremonies.
The 2018 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the LSWA and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on participation and sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
LSWA colleague Karl Thibodeaux has died

Obituary for Karl Thibodeaux
Karl Joseph Thibodeaux, 58, of Bayou Blue, Louisiana passed away on Sunday September 24, 2017.
A memorial visitation will be held on Friday, September 29, 2017 from 5:00 PM until funeral time at Samart Funeral Home of Houma, West Park-Houma. A religious service will take place at 7:00 PM at the funeral home.
Karl was born October 20, 1958 in Houma Louisiana to Grace and Bennie Thibodeaux Sr. He graduated from Thibodaux High School in 1976, and Nicholls State University in 1981 with a degree in Journalism. Karl was employed for many years as a sports reporter and photographer, where he focused on bringing local high school athletes into the spotlight. He was one of the regions leading columnists, even winning the Louisiana Sports Writers Association writer of the year award in 1997.
Karl is survived by his 3 sons, Thad Nathan Thibodeaux and his wife Chelsea Thibodeaux, Tanner John Thibodeaux, and Tommy Austin Thibodeaux, his mother Grace Thibodeaux, his brothers Bennie Thibodeaux Jr., Kurt Thibodeaux, his sister Sharlene Duet, and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father, Bennie Thibodeaux Sr. in 2007.
Online condolences can be given at www.samartfuneralhome.com
Samart Funeral Home of Houma, West Park-Houma is in charge of arrangements.
Golf sold out, tickets still available for Friday night Tailgating Party and Saturday night Induction Ceremony.
NATCHITOCHES – With the 2017 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration approaching June 22-24, the annual Hall of Fame Golf Classic has sold out, while reservations are still available for the Friday night Tailgating party and the Saturday night Induction Dinner and Ceremony.
Registration remains open for those events and for the Saturday morning New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans Junior Training Camp, which is free but does require a completed participation waiver form to be completed. Registration of boys and girls ages 6-16 is available online atLaSportsHall.com.
Admission for the Friday night Tailgating Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Style party inside The Landing Restaurant on Front Street in Natchitoches is $75. That includes an array of food and refreshments, entertainment and exclusive access to the 2017 Hall of Fame Induction Class.
The fee to attend the Saturday night Induction Dinner and Ceremony at the Natchitoches Events Center is also $75. It includes a pre-dinner reception starting at 5, with the ceremony kicking off at 6 and a lavish served dinner prior to the induction activities.
Reservations for those events can be made at LaSportsHall.com/purchase. They can also be made by calling operations assistant Ronnette Pellegrin at 318-332-8539.
Friday evening, the Hall of Fame Celebration also includes a free Block Party on the 500 block of Front Street outside the Landing Restaurant from 6-10, featuring two popular south Louisiana musical acts, Parish County Line and Chase Tyler Band. Along with the music, vendors will have food and drinks for sale, and there will be activities for children including Saints’ and Pelicans’ experiences.
A fireworks show over Cane River Lake downtown will take place shortly after dark, about 9:15, after the 2017 Induction Class is introduced on the stage outside The Landing.
LSU’s David Toms, whose 13 PGA Tour golf wins include a major championship, is joined by nine-time Pro Bowl football star Ed Reed, three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, and World Series champ Juan Pierre headlining eight competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
LSU has a heavy impact in the Class of 2017. Two more Tiger heroes, football and track great Eddie Kennison and iconic gymnastics coach D-D Breaux, are included along with Raymond Didier, who has impressive LSU credentials coupled with coaching feats at Nicholls and UL Lafayette. Rounding out the class is Southeastern Louisiana basketball legend C.A. Core. Core and Didier will be inducted posthumously.
Sue Donohoe, a Pineville native and former Louisiana Tech graduate assistant basketball coach who remains one of the college game’s most accomplished administrators of all time, will receive the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award. Also honored with enshrinement will be New Orleans Saints radio play-by-play man Jim Henderson and Lafayette sports media giant Dan McDonald, chosen as the 2017 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
The 2017 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 22 with the La Capitol Kickoff Reception, a free event at Maglieux’s Riverfront Restaurant. The sold-out Golf Classic is set Friday, June 23 at OakWing Golf Club in Alexandria.
The 2017 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
NATCHITOCHES – With the 2017 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration approaching June 22-24, the annual Hall of Fame Golf Classic has sold out, while reservations are still available for the Friday night Tailgating party and the Saturday night Induction Dinner and Ceremony.
Registration remains open for those events and for the Saturday morning New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans Junior Training Camp, which is free but does require a completed participation waiver form to be completed. Registration of boys and girls ages 6-16 is available online atLaSportsHall.com.
Admission for the Friday night Tailgating Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Style party inside The Landing Restaurant on Front Street in Natchitoches is $75. That includes an array of food and refreshments, entertainment and exclusive access to the 2017 Hall of Fame Induction Class.
The fee to attend the Saturday night Induction Dinner and Ceremony at the Natchitoches Events Center is also $75. It includes a pre-dinner reception starting at 5, with the ceremony kicking off at 6 and a lavish served dinner prior to the induction activities.
Reservations for those events can be made at LaSportsHall.com/purchase. They can also be made by calling operations assistant Ronnette Pellegrin at 318-332-8539.
Friday evening, the Hall of Fame Celebration also includes a free Block Party on the 500 block of Front Street outside the Landing Restaurant from 6-10, featuring two popular south Louisiana musical acts, Parish County Line and Chase Tyler Band. Along with the music, vendors will have food and drinks for sale, and there will be activities for children including Saints’ and Pelicans’ experiences.
A fireworks show over Cane River Lake downtown will take place shortly after dark, about 9:15, after the 2017 Induction Class is introduced on the stage outside The Landing.
LSU’s David Toms, whose 13 PGA Tour golf wins include a major championship, is joined by nine-time Pro Bowl football star Ed Reed, three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, and World Series champ Juan Pierre headlining eight competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
LSU has a heavy impact in the Class of 2017. Two more Tiger heroes, football and track great Eddie Kennison and iconic gymnastics coach D-D Breaux, are included along with Raymond Didier, who has impressive LSU credentials coupled with coaching feats at Nicholls and UL Lafayette. Rounding out the class is Southeastern Louisiana basketball legend C.A. Core. Core and Didier will be inducted posthumously.
Sue Donohoe, a Pineville native and former Louisiana Tech graduate assistant basketball coach who remains one of the college game’s most accomplished administrators of all time, will receive the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award. Also honored with enshrinement will be New Orleans Saints radio play-by-play man Jim Henderson and Lafayette sports media giant Dan McDonald, chosen as the 2017 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
The 2017 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 22 with the La Capitol Kickoff Reception, a free event at Maglieux’s Riverfront Restaurant. The sold-out Golf Classic is set Friday, June 23 at OakWing Golf Club in Alexandria.
The 2017 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.

Reservations spiking for 2017 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration activities June 22-24
– contact Doug Ireland, 318-288-6388, DougIreland@LaSportsHall.com
NATCHITOCHES – Inside of two months before the June 22-24 festivities in the 2017 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration, the golf tournament is nearing a sellout and reservations are climbing for the Friday night Tailgating Louisiana Style party and the Induction Dinner and Ceremony on Saturday night.
LSU’s David Toms, whose 13 PGA Tour golf wins include a major championship, is joined by nine-time Pro Bowl football star Ed Reed, three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, and World Series champ Juan Pierre headlining eight competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
LSU has a heavy impact in the Class of 2017. Two more Tiger heroes, football and track great Eddie Kennison and iconic gymnastics coach D-D Breaux, are included along with Raymond Didier, who has impressive LSU credentials coupled with coaching feats at Nicholls and UL Lafayette. Rounding out the class is Southeastern Louisiana basketball legend C.A. Core. Core and Didier will be inducted posthumously.
Sue Donohoe, a Pineville native and former Louisiana Tech graduate assistant basketball coach who remains one of the college game’s most accomplished administrators of all time, will receive the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award. Also honored with enshrinement will be New Orleans Saints radio play-by-play man Jim Henderson and Lafayette sports media giant Dan McDonald, chosen as the 2017 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
The 2017 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 22 with the La Capitol Kickoff Reception. It includes the expanded Friday night Tailgating Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Style party, a significantly-enhanced Friday, June 23golf scramble at OakWing Golf Course in Alexandria and a Saturday morning free youth sports clinic hosted by the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans. Reservations for the Friday night party, the Saturday night Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, and golf entries, are on sale through the LaSportsHall.com website.
The 2017 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
The 2017 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
Adding to the 326 sports competitors currently enshrined, 16 previous winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 58 prior recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 400 members of the Hall of Fame prior to this summer’s ceremonies.
The 2017 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
Hall of Famer R.L. Stockard has died.
BATON ROUGE – R.L. “Russell” Stockard, a trailblazing sportswriter and historian who was a 2008 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee, passed Saturday morning at age 92 after battling cancer.
Stockard is believed to have been the first African-American to have a byline and a photo as a sportswriter for a mainstream major daily paper in the country, at the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat in 1953.
He broke the color line in Louisiana sportswriting circles when he joined the staff of the Baton Rouge State-Times in 1954, and was there until joining the New Orleans States-Item staff where his work appeared from 1960-74.
He was the first sports information director (1959-64) at Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he also taught classes as he did SID work for no additional pay. He became the first public relations director and SID for the Southwestern Athletic Conference, serving in those roles from 1985-92, and worked as the SWAC’s initial NCAA compliance officer from 1990-93.
In 1965, he was a key player in bringing about the first recorded integrated high school basketball game in state history, an event between New Orleans’ all-black St. Augustine High School and all-white Jesuit High, commemorated in the 1999 television movie “Passing Glory.”
He was one of five men, including Hall of Fame members coach Eddie Robinson and Grambling SID Collie J. Nicholson, who helped create the annual Bayou Classic football battle between in-state rivals Southern and Grambling held in New Orleans each year since 1974.
A World War II veteran in Europe, Stockard had master’s degrees from LSU, Tulane and Florida A&M, after earning his undergraduate degree in historical geography at Tennessee State in his hometown of Nashville. He went to work in the federal government in Washington, D.C., then taught for several years at Florida A&M before coming to teach at Southern.
“I’ve led a blessed life. I was always able to do what I wanted to do. You could write a script, and it still would never turn out this good,” he once said.
His wife, Mary Thomas Stockard, said he was very modest.
“A lot of people would call and want to talk about some of the things he had done, but he didn’t go around boasting. He just though so highly of all of the people he worked with,” she said.
“He really cherished his friendships. There were a lot of people who considered him a close friend and he felt that way about them.”
Along with receiving the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association and being enshrined in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, Stockard was enshrined in the Greater New Orleans/Allstate Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame in his adopted hometown of New Orleans. In 2009, he was recognized with a National Association of Black Journalists’ Sports Task Force Sam Lacy Pioneer Award.
“Russell Stockard has a complete knowledge of sports. He has dedicated his life to it. If I had to recommend anyone to speak about sports, it would be Russell,” said the late Buddy Dilberto, the iconic New Orleans broadcaster and writer who was the 2005 recipient of the LSWA’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
In 2005, then an adjunct professor of geography at Southern-New Orleans, Stockard was stranded in his Ninth Ward home for two days during Hurricane Katrina. At age 80, he walked more than two miles to the top of the I-10 high rise bridge, and was eventually evacuated from the Superdome.
The hurricane did not decimate his remarkable collection of sports memorabilia and historical information compiled during his more than 50 years of involvement in state sports. After Katrina, he moved his family back to Baton Rouge, where he passed after spending his final days in hospice care.
Stockard also wrote for the Baton Rouge News-Leader, Louisiana Weekly and the Black Collegian magazine.
Funeral service plans were not immediately available.
Dak Prescott is 2016 LSWA Headliner of the Year
By Roy Lang III
Written for the Louisiana Sports Writers Association
“Louisiana Pride.”
The first two words of Dak Prescott’s Twitter bio are simple, yet fitting for the Sulphur-born, Haughton-raised quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
“Home” is where Prescott developed the poise, competitiveness and skills used to become one of the greatest rookie stories in NFL history.
His career at Haughton was outstanding, the time at Mississippi State legendary – but Prescott’s rookie season with the Cowboys was simply amazing.
After longtime starter Tony Romo went down with a serious back injury two weeks before the start of the season, Prescott -- a fourth-round draft pick (eighth quarterback selected) – led Dallas to a 13-3 record (Cowboys were 4-12 in 2015) and the NFC’s No. 1 seed and set NFL rookie records in the process.
The unforeseen rookie breakthrough earned Prescott the 2016 Louisiana Sports Writers AssociationHeadliner of the Year honors. Members of the LSWA voted on the award, and Prescott nearly doubled the total (136-73) of the runner-up, new LSU football coach Ed Orgeron.
Prescott led the NFC with a 104.9 quarterback rating – an all-time NFL rookie record. He tossed 23 touchdowns, four interceptions and added six rushing scores. He was selected to the Pro Bowl and started for the NFC in Orlando, Florida, on Jan. 29.
“Unbelievable to think just a few years ago he was playing for the Bucs,” Rodney Guin, Prescott’s head coach at Haughton, said. “I’m just happy to see a guy that was sold short so many times make it to the top.’’
Louisiana is where Prescott’s relentlessness was instilled by a mother, Peggy, who did everything she could for her three sons. It’s where a toughness and a will to win was emblazoned by efforts to be just like those two monstrous older brothers, Jace and Tad. Prescott’s love for “ball,” and a taste of stardom were born here, too.
“Nobody can teach that,” he said. “Life just hits you. You learn to take that and move on,” said Prescott, whose mother lost a battle with cancer while he was at Mississippi State. He wears No. 4 for the Cowboys to honor her birthday.
The 6-foot-2, 226-pound Prescott was selected with the 135th overall pick in April and immediately battled Jameill Showers for the Cowboys’ third-string quarterback position and a spot on the team.
Strong preseason camps solidified Prescott position on the roster, and an injury to Kellen Moore, Romo’s backup, pushed the 23-year-old to No. 2. When Romo was injured in the penultimate preseason game, Cowboys Nation was left with one option.
Prescott remained unfazed.
“I liked him from the day he got here,” Cowboys veteran tight end Jason Witten said. “We’ve had a good relationship. The best thing he’s done is how he’s handled every situation within the communication side of it -- to be able to make all the calls and checks at the line. For him to be able to handle those situations with confidence and conviction – you gain the respect of the locker room. That’s earned. Nobody can give you that regardless of what your talent level is.”
Dallas owner Jerry Jones has never been shy about his affection and respect for Romo, but even he couldn’t help jumping aboard the Prescott bandwagon.
“Amazing you can get that kind of confidence,” Jerry Jones said. “Among the coaching staff and teammates, there was a groundswell of confidence in him. He just sold everybody. Frankly, there was an inordinate feeling of confidence going into the first game that shouldn’t have been there.”
Prescott never fell victim to a learning curve. He set an NFL record for most pass attempts (176) without an interception to begin a career. The mark was previously held by Tom Brady.
After a season-opening loss to the New York Giants, Prescott and Co. rattled off 11 straight victories and 13 wins in 14 games.
Prescott, who matched Ben Roethlisberger’s NFL record for 13 wins as a rookie quarterback, posted the best completion percentage (67.8), touchdown-interception ratio, and passer rating by any rookie in NFL history.
“He’s a true professional,” said Cowboys cornerback Morris Claiborne, a former Fair Park star who had memorable battles with Prescott in high school. “He’s not pretending to be anybody, he just came in and has been himself since the day he walked in. He’s a good kid. I take my hat off to him.”
2016 HEADLINER OF THE YEAR VOTING
(First-place votes in parentheses)
1, Dak Prescott (15) 136
2, Ed Orgeron (8) 73
3, LSU Gymnastics Team (2) 38
4, Les Miles (3) 37
5, Grambling Football (2) 36
6, Anthony Davis (1) 23
tie, Drew Brees 23
8, Ben Simmons 16
9, Lexie Elkins (1) 15
10, Glenn Cecchini 8
Also receiving votes: LSU Softball Team 6, Louisiana Tech Football Team 5, Michael Thomas (1) 5, Xavier Men’s Tennis Team 4, Louisiana Tech Baseball Team 2, Leonard Fournette 1, Jarrius Robertson 1.
PREVIOUS WINNERS
2015 – Leonard Fournette
2014 – Odell Beckham Jr.
2013 – Peyton Manning
2012 – Tom Benson
2011 – Drew Brees
2010 – New Orleans Saints
2009 – Drew Brees
2008 – Chris Paul
2007 – LSU football team
2006 – New Orleans Saints
2005 – New Orleans Saints
2004 – Nick Saban
2003 – LSU football team
2002 – New Orleans Hornets
2001 – David Toms
2000 – Jim Haslett, Randy Mueller
1999 – Peyton Manning
Sue Donohoe to receive 2017 Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award

NATCHITOCHES – Sue Donahoe, a Pineville native and former Louisiana Tech graduate assistant basketball coach who remains one of the college game’s most accomplished administrators of all time, has been named the 2017 recipient of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award presented by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Dohonoe, currently past president of the board of directors for the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn., served as the NCAA’s vice president for women’s basketball for 12 years, and also directed the men’s basketball NCAA Division I championship. She was on the coaching staff for the Lady Techsters’ 1982 NCAA championship team.
The Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award is presented annually by the LSWA’s 35-member Hall of Fame selection committee to an individual who has played a decisive role as a sports leader or administrator benefiting Louisiana and/or bringing credit to Louisiana on the national and international level.
Donohoe is the first woman to receive the award since its inception in 2005. Dixon Award winners are enshrined as Hall of Fame members and are featured in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum in Natchitoches.
The award is named in honor of Hall of Famer Dave Dixon, the driving force behind bringing the NFL to Louisiana with the creation of the New Orleans Saints franchise. Dixon, who passed away in 2010, is also considered the “father” of the Mercedes-Benz Louisiana Superdome, developing the concept for the innovative domed structure and pushing state officials for its construction in the late 1960s.
Donohoe will be among the 11-person 2017 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Dinner and Ceremonies on Saturdayevening, June 24, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Dinner and Ceremonies are the culmination of the 2017 Induction Celebration beginning Thursdayafternoon, June 22, with a press conference and the La Capitol Kickoff Reception.
LSU’s David Toms, whose 13 PGA Tour golf wins include a major championship, is joined by nine-time Pro Bowl football star Ed Reed, three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, and World Series champ Juan Pierre headlining eight 2016 competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
LSU has a heavy impact in the Class of 2017. Two more Tiger heroes, football and track great Eddie Kennison and iconic gymnastics coach D-D Breaux, are included along with Raymond Didier, who has impressive LSU credentials coupled with coaching feats at Nicholls and UL Lafayette. Rounding out the class is Southeastern Louisiana basketball legend C.A. Core. Core and Didier will be inducted posthumously.
Also honored with enshrinement will be New Orleans Saints radio play-by-play man Jim Henderson and Lafayette sports media giant Dan McDonald, chosen as the 2017 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
The 2017 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
Donohoe’s Dixon Award honor was jointly announced Wednesday by Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland and LSWA president Paul Letlow.
At the 2015 Women’s Final Four, she was the inaugural recipient of the U.S. Basketball Writers’ Mary Joe Haverbeck Award for commitment and service to women’s college basketball. She joined the NCAA in 1999 after serving as associate commissioner of the Southland Conference. In 2009, she was chosen to chair USA Basketball’s junior national committee.
Donohoe was named by The Chronicle of Higher Education as one of the “Top 10 Most Powerful People in College Sports.”
In 2008, she spearheaded an effort to help people better understand the NCAA selection process through a mock selection weekend involving media, administrators and former coaches.
She stepped down from her leadership position at the NCAA in December 2011 and a month later became executive director of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, serving in that capacity through 2015. She has served as vice president and president of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Directors and continues to serve as past president.
She was part of the Lady Techsters’ 1982 NCAA championship coaching staff alongside co-head coaches Leon Barmore and Sonja Hogg, both members of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Also on that staff was another giant of the game, Texas A&M coach Gary Blair, who hired Donahoe to coach on his staffs at Stephen F. Austin and Arkansas before she launched her administrative career and joined the Southland Conference office.
Sixteen people have previously been presented the Dixon Award since its inception in 2005. Last year’s winner was world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes, a Natchitoches native and LSU graduate has become a leading figure in the field of sports-related concussion research and treatment.
The first winner in 2005 was Randy Gregson, a New Orleans native/resident and former president of the United States Tennis Association. In 2006 the winner was Emmanuel “Boozy” Bourgeois, president of Louisiana Special Olympics since 1972.
The 2007 recipients were Don Landry, a longtime collegiate administrator and basketball coach, and Doug Thornton, the executive director of the Superdome.
In 2008, the Dixon Award went to world-renowned orthopedic Dr. James Andrews, a Homer native, LSU graduate and SEC champion pole vaulter.
The 2009 recipients were George Dement, a Bossier City boxing and youth sports activist; and “Mr. Softball” Benny Turcan, a New Orleans native and long-time state ASA softball commissioner.
In 2010 the Dixon Award winner was Gerald Boudreaux, the longtime City of Lafayette recreation director best known as one of the country’s top college basketball referees in the last three decades.
A year later, the committee honored Elmo Adolph, an Olympic and professional boxing official, and Billy Montgomery, who as a highly-regarded state legislator championed sports causes including construction of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame museum.
In 2012, the Dixon Award went to Marksville physician Dr. L.J. Mayeux, the former national president and chairman of the board for Ducks Unlimited renowned for his efforts to restore duck habitat across the nation.
The 2013 recipient was New Orleans businessman and sports benefactor Milt Retif, whose influence has been especially significant for American Legion baseball and Tulane baseball in his hometown.
In 2014 there were two recipients: Tynes Hildebrand, a coach and later athletics director at Northwestern State who served a decade as one of the NCAA’s top basketball officiating administrators, and Wright Waters, the longtime Sun Belt Conference commissioner.
Paul Hoolahan, the executive director and chief executive officer of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Classic since 1996, was presented the 2015 Dixon Award.
The 2017 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 22 with the press conference and reception. It includes three receptions, a youth sports clinic, and a Friday, June 23golf scramble at Oak Wing Golf Course in Alexandria. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, and golf entries, are on sale through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding to the 326 sports competitors currently enshrined, 16 previous winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 58 prior recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 400 members of the Hall of Fame prior to this summer’s ceremonies.
The 2017 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.

LSWA names Jim Henderson, Dan McDonald as 2017 Distinguished Service Award recipients
NATCHITOCHES – Incomparable New Orleans Saints play-by-play announcer and award-winning New Orleans television figure Jim Henderson joins Dan McDonald, whose multi-faceted career has won him national acclaim as a writer and sports publicist, as 2017 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
The honor, to be made official June 24 in Natchitoches, means Henderson and McDonald will join the elite 11-person Class of 2017 being inducted in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Henderson and McDonald were selected from a 19-person pool of outstanding nominees for the state’s top sports journalism honor.
The Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism is the most prestigious honor offered to sports media in the state. Recipients are chosen by the 35-member Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame selection committee based on nominees’ professional accomplishments in local, state, regional and even national arenas, with leadership in the LSWA a contributing factor and three decades of work in the profession as a requirement.
Distinguished Service Award winners are enshrined in the Hall of Fame along with the 400 current athletes, sports journalists, coaches and administrators chosen since 1959. Just 58 leading figures in the state’s sports media have been honored with the Distinguished Service Award since its inception almost 35 years ago, in 1982.
Henderson, who has been the Saints’ distinctive radio play-by-play voice since 1986, is a 13-time winner of Louisiana's sportscaster of the year honor as selected by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
After earning enshrinement in 2011 to the College Sports Information Directors of America’s Hall of Fame for his innovative work at his alma mater, Northwestern State, and UL Lafayette from 1975-99, McDonald has also received national and LSWA honors as a sports writer, and is one of the Acadiana area’s busiest sports broadcasting figures.
Henderson and McDonald will be among the 2017 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Dinner and Ceremonies on Saturday evening, June 24, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Dinner and Ceremonies are the culmination of the 2017 Induction Celebration beginning Thursday afternoon, June 22, with a press conference at the Hall of Fame museum at 800 Front Street in Natchitoches.
LSU’s David Toms, whose 13 PGA Tour golf wins include a major championship, is joined by nine-time Pro Bowl football star Ed Reed, three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, and World Series champ Juan Pierre headlining eight 2016 competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
LSU has heavy impact in the Class of 2017. Two more Tiger heroes, football and track great Eddie Kennison and iconic gymnastics coach D-D Breaux, are included along with Raymond Didier, who has impressive LSU credentials coupled with coaching feats at Nicholls and UL Lafayette. Rounding out the class is Southeastern Louisiana basketball legend C.A. Core. Core and Didier will be inducted posthumously.
Also honored with enshrinement in the Class of 2017 will be the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award winner, to be announced next week.
The 2017 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
The selection of Henderson and McDonald was jointly announced Friday by Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland and LSWA president Paul Letlow.
Henderson, who spent 34 years (1978-2012) as sports director of WWL-TV in New Orleans, has been the radio play-by-play voice of the New Orleans Saints since 1986 (except for the 1990 season, when he called NFL games for CBS-TV).
Henderson replaced New Orleans legend and 1990 DSA winner Lloyd "Hap" Glaudi as WWL's sports director, and helped the station produce one of the highest-rated local news broadcasts in America. As a reporter for CBS Newspath, Henderson regularly covered major events like the Super Bowl, the Masters and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
His play-by-play career has allowed Henderson to be the soundtrack for memorable moments in Saints history, including their first playoff victory in 2000 ("Hakim dropped the ball!"), the NFC Championship Game win in January 2010 ("Pigs have flown! Hell has frozen over! The Saints are on their way to the Super Bowl!") and, two weeks later, the Saints' victory in Super Bowl XLIV ("Get ready to party with the Lombardi, New Orleans!"). After retiring from WWL in January 2012, he has remained in his play-by-play role with the Saints. His TV "retirement" did not last long. Six months later, he returned to the airwaves to provide commentary and analysis on the Saints for WVUE-TV.
In a career dating to 1974, McDonald continues to pile up LSWA writing awards and remains involved in sports media relations in the private sector. He stands alongside state sports information legends Louis Bonnette, Paul Manasseh and Ace Higgins as inductees in the College Sports Information Directors of America’s Hall of Fame (June 2011).
In 26 years as an SID at Northwestern State (1975-80) and Louisiana-Lafayette (1980-99), McDonald became an industry leader in many aspects.Among those who benefited first hand from McDonald's guidance include former assistants Herb Vincent, the associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference; Greg Sharko, the media relations director for the Association of Tennis Professionals; and Pat Murphy, the head softball coach at the University of Alabama, who came to work as a graduate assistant SID for McDonald in Lafayette.
After graduating in three years from Northwestern, the Jonesboro native spent one year as a sportswriter at the Alexandria Town Talk before Northwestern hired him - at 22 years old - to be the SID of what was about to become a Division I athletics department. In 1980, he moved to UL-Lafayette. McDonald won numerous CoSIDA awards for writing and media guides at both institutions, including national honors at NSU, and served two years on the CoSIDA Board of Directors.
He was a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee media relations staff for two Olympic Games (Seoul, 1988 and Atlanta, 1996) and six U.S. Olympic Festivals. He also served two years as president, after a two-year term as vice president, of the LSWA and remains a key member of the LSWA Executive Committee and Hall of Fame Committee.
McDonald retired from then-USL to become senior sports writer at the Lafayette Daily Advertiser and spent nine years in that role. Now a freelance journalist, he has won dozens of writing awards from the LSWA, including three 'Writer of the Year' awards in a five-year span, and was the 1999 recipient of the LSWA’s coveted Mac Russo Award recognizing members who remarkably represent the ideals of the organization. At the Advertiser, he captured a “Best of Gannett” national award for his coverage of the Little League World Series.
McDonald has also done extensive broadcast and television work, including currently anchoring annual webcasts of Sun Belt Conference baseball, softball and golf tournaments. He and his wife of 28 years, Mary Beth McDonald, operate the Lafayette-based McD Media marketing/public relations firm with an emphasis on sports PR.
The 2017 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 22 with the press conference and an evening reception. It includes three receptions, a youth sports clinic, and a Friday, June 23 golf scramble at Oak Wing Golf Course in Alexandria. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, and golf entries, will be on sale this spring through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding the 326 sports competitors currently enshrined, 16 previous winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 58 prior recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 400 members of the Hall of Fame prior to this summer’s ceremonies.
The 2017 Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the LSWA and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on participation and sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 orRonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
