NATCHITOCHES — Wasn’t that last month? Yes, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inducted its Class of 2020 at the end of June.
There’s another induction at the end of August? Yes. The Hall of Fame will honor the Class of 2021 Aug. 26-28 in Natchitoches.
A special “early bird” discount is available through Tuesday on the LaSportsHall.com website for the four events that require ticket purchases.
The 2021 LSHOF inductees are headlined by New Orleans Saints star receiver Marques Colston, Major League Baseball All-Star Rickie Weeks from Southern University, and three of LSU’s greatest competitors – basketball’s Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, football stalwart Glenn Dorsey and national-champion track coach Pat Henry.
Baton Rouge ties connect five members of the LSHOF Class of 2021. Baton Rouge native Courtney Blades Rogers, considered one of college softball’s best pitchers of all time at Nicholls and Southern Mississippi, joins the trio of LSU competitors, along with LSU alumnus Terry McAulay, a Hammond native who in a 20-year NFL officiating career refereed three Super Bowls. Now the NBC Sports officiating analyst for Sunday Night Football and Notre Dame football, McAuley is the 2021 winner of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award.
The LSHOF Class of 2021 also showcases Natchitoches native and 1980 Bassmaster Classic champion Villis “Bo” Dowden, chosen as one of the 35 greatest pro anglers of all-time in a joint ESPN Outdoors/BASS package in 2004.
Inducted as winners of the LSWA’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism will be trailblazing New Orleans television sports anchor Ro Brown, former Northwestern State sports information director and longtime Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland. and Baton Rouge Advocate sportswriter Sheldon Mickles.
The Class of 2021 will be enshrined Saturday, Aug. 28, in Natchitoches to culminate the 63rd Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame In duction Celebration Aug. 26-28. The festivities will come two months after the pandemic-delayed Class of 2020 inductions finally were staged on the last weekend of June.
The 2021 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, Aug. 26, with a press conference and reception. The three-day festivities include two receptions, a free youth clinic, a bowling party, and a Friday night riverbank concert in Natchitoches. The full schedule of events and purchases for ticketed events culminating with the Induction Ceremony, along with congratulatory advertising and sponsorship opportunities, are available through the LaSportsHall.com website or by calling 318-238-4255.
The Induction Celebration 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.
Colston, a seventh-round 2006 draft pick, made the NFL All-Rookie Team as he and new Saints quarterback Drew Brees began an extremely productive partnership that was a key in the Super Bowl XLIV championship season. In 10 seasons, Colston set Saints records with 711 receptions for 9,759 yards and 72 touchdown catches.
Abdul-Rauf also had instant impact as a high-scoring guard for LSU, averaging 29 points per game from 1988-90, and was the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in each of his two seasons with the Tigers. In nine NBA seasons, he averaged 14.6 points and then played many more seasons internationally before LSU retired his No. 35 jersey early in 2020 to the delight of his LSU coach, 1999 LSHOF inductee Dale Brown. The former Chris Jackson is still active at age 51, playing in the Big 3 pro league.
Dorsey, a Gonzales-East Ascension product, is the most decorated defensive player in LSU football history and helped the Tigers win the 2007 BCS national championship. A two-time All-American defensive tackle, Dorsey played nine NFL seasons after he was SEC Defensive Player of the Year and earned the Outland Trophy among other top national collegiate honors playing for 2019 LSHOF inductee Les Miles.
Weeks set two NCAA Division I career hitting records still on the books with a .465 batting average and a .927 slugging percentage under 2019 LSHOF inductee Roger Cador at Southern, winning the 2003 collegiate player of the year awards. He played 14 major league seasons, nearly all of them in Milwaukee, and was the National League’s starting second baseman in the 2011 All Star Game.
Henry is one of the most successful track and field coaches in NCAA history. He led LSU’s men’s and women’s teams to a combined 19 SEC titles and an amazing 27 NCAA indoor and outdoor team championships during a 17-year run from 1988-2004, and since then has been head coach at Texas A&M, building the Aggies’ program into a national power.
Rogers was a four-time All-State pitcher at Baton Rouge’s Belaire High School who set an NCAA career record with 1,773 strikeouts in 1,261.2 innings pitched in two seasons apiece at Nicholls and USM. After earning Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year honors as a sophomore in 1998, she followed her head coach to USM and pitched the Golden Eagles to the Women’s College World Series in her final two seasons while earning first-team All-America accolades both years, winning the 2000 Honda National Softball Player of the Year award. A recent NCAA.com column ranked her as one of the 11 best pitchers of all time.
Dowden’s 1980 Bassmaster Classic win came on the St. Lawrence River after he was second in 1976 and third in 1977, highlighting 14 appearances in the Super Bowl of professional bass fishing. He was in the money in 57 percent of the tournaments he entered, including 99 of 241 on the BASS Tour.
Dowden becomes only the fourth outdoorsman elected to the Hall from the competitors’ ballot, joining Grits Gresham (1989), 1975 Bassmaster Classic champion Jack Hains (2018), and Phil Robertson (2020).
Colston 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.
Rogers is the second women’s collegiate softball player elected to the Hall, following Kyla Hall Holas of UL Lafayette in 2011.
McAulay, who retired from officiating in June 2018, is about to start his fourth season as the on-air rules expert for NBC’s game coverage of NFL Sunday Night Football and Saturday telecasts of Notre Dame contests.
Adding to the 357 sports competitors currently enshrined, 20 winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award, the inaugural Louisiana Sports Ambassador Award winner, and 66 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 444 current members of the Hall of Fame before the upcoming inductions.
The 2021 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History 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 at 800 Front Street 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 LSWA founded the Hall of Fame in 1958 and it moved to Natchitoches permanently in 1972. A 40-member LSWA selection committee reviewed 151 competitive ballot inductees, and over two dozen candidates for both the Dixon Award and the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, before making the choices for enshrinement in the Class of 2021.
