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. Those contributor ballot inductees will be announced later this year.
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.
