It’s sure to be an entertaining Saturday afternoon in Louisiana’s oldest downtown, with the Natchitoches Jazz/R&B Festival outside and one of the world’s greatest volleyball players featured in a free program at 2 o’clock at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum.
Five-time USA Olympian Danielle Scott is the featured guest for a free Olympic Glory program at the downtown museum in Natchitoches. She will share her experiences while winning two silver medals in volleyball and competing in five Olympic Games, the last in London in 2012.
Scott will take questions in the museum’s Atmos Energy Gallery. Admission is free beginning at 1 o’clock. The museum is located facing the traffic circle at the north end of Front Street.
The 2019 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee won two Olympic silver medals in volleyball, one at the 2008 Beijing Games and one at the 2012 London Games. She was a key member of Team USA for an unprecedented five consecutive Olympics (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012).
Scott earned a spot on the USA Volleyball elite team for 19 years, competing in more than 400 matches and winning 20 medals. She is one of only four male or female volleyball players from any nation to compete in five Olympics. The Baton Rouge native was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2016.
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 Baton Rouge’s Woodlawn High, 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. She led Long Beach to an NCAA title in volleyball in 1993 and was voted the Honda and AVCA National Player of the Year.
“Olympic Glory” is supported through a Rebirth Grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the Friends of Louisiana Sports and History (FLASH). The four-part series involves interviews between Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Chairman and FLASH president Doug Ireland and Scott. The programs began May 8 with two-time Olympic medalist Hollis Conway, who grew up in Shreveport and lives in Lafayette. Bossier City native Tim Dement, a USA boxer in the 1972 Munich Olympics, was the featured guest last Saturday.
The series concludes May 29 with Alexandria’s Warren Morris, the LSU baseball legend who medaled in the 1996 Atlanta Games a few weeks after hitting the walk-off home run giving the Tigers their 1996 College World Series championship.
