Courtesy: LSU Athletics
BATON ROUGE – Jerry Stovall, who earned national acclaim for LSU as a star football player and later as the head coach of the Tigers, passed away in Baton Rouge on Monday at the age of 85.
Stovall was a 2010 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame, a 1977 inductee into the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame, and a 1981 inductee into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. His No. 21 LSU jersey was retired in Tiger Stadium on Oct. 13, 2018.
A 1963 first-round NFL Draft selection, Stovall also starred for nine seasons in the NFL (1963-71) for the St. Louis Cardinals, where he earned three Pro Bowl appearances as a safety. Stovall in 97 NFL games, had 18 interceptions with two scores and six fumble recoveries.
A native of West Monroe, La., Stovall was an all-America football player and served as a coach and college athletics administrator in his life. Stovall played high school football at West Monroe High School, graduating in 1959. He signed with LSU and succeeded Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon as the Tigers halfback.
Stovall would play several roles for the Tigers, although his primary position was left halfback. He would also play defensive back, return specialist and punter in his time at LSU. In his three seasons (30 games), he carried the ball 218 times for 1,081 yards (13 touchdowns), a 4.96 average. He caught 30 passes for 462 yards.
A unanimous all-America selection as a halfback in 1962, Stovall was named the conference’s Most Valuable Player en route to finishing as the Heisman Trophy runner-up behind Oregon State’s Terry Baker. A two-time all-SEC selection, Stovall also held the LSU record for punting average (42.1) in a season.
Stovall gained nearly 700 return yards on special teams and recorded seven interceptions as a defensive standout.
He was coached by Paul Dietzel in his first two seasons (Dietzel once called him “that skinny little runt from West Monroe”) and in 1962 by then-first-year assistant coach, Charles McClendon. Stovall made his first national television splash of the year at Georgia Tech when he ran the second-half kickoff back 98 yards for a score to tie the game at 7-7. LSU would win, 10-7.
Stovall had a big game in a 23-0 win over Florida as he ran and caught passes for 63 yards of a 77-yard drive for a first quarter field goal; caught a 16-yard TD pass in the third period; and scored on a slashing six-yard run in the fourth period. According to Coach McClendon, his defense and blocking was “The most vicious this season by one of our backs.”
In 1962, LSU would finish 9-1-1 after a 13-0 win over Texas in the 1963 Cotton Bowl. For Stovall, his college career would be over and for Coach McClendon it was the successful start of his long head coaching tenure in Tiger Town.
Stovall joined Dietzel’s staff at South Carolina after his NFL retirement, returning to LSU in 1974-78 under coach McClendon. He left coaching to become head of the LSU Varsity Club, what would eventually be the predecessor to the Tiger Athletic Foundation.
“I left coaching,” he explained at the time, “but I did not leave football. I left coaching because I felt, if I couldn’t be head coach at LSU, I didn’t want to be a head coach anywhere else.”
Dietzel returned to LSU as Athletics Director and after the 1979 season conducted a search for McClendon’s replacement with the proviso that he be a “proven head coach.” Unfortunately, his choice, Bo Rein, after just 42 days on the job, perished in a plane crash returning from a recruiting trip to Northwest Louisiana.
Dietzel needed someone who could somehow mesh with a coaching staff of Rein’s that was already in place. That person was Stovall, and two days later Dietzel would say: “He’s young, tough, aggressive, articulate, a great recruiter with superior integrity. Under the circumstances, he was my only choice. Jerry Stovall is LSU through-and-through.”
Stovall became only the third alumnus (and the most recent to this date) to serve as head football coach at LSU, joining E. A. Chavanne (1898, 1990) and Gus Tinsley (1948-54).
In 1982, he was named the Walter Camp Football Foundation Coach of the Year after leading the Tigers to an 8-3-1 record and an Orange Bowl appearance. Stovall would serve as head coach from 1980-83.
After his head coaching stint at LSU, he took a job in banking before becoming Athletic Director at Louisiana Tech (1990-94). Afterward, Stovall became the president and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Sports Foundation.
He would serve for more than two decades leading the foundation, bringing hundreds of sporting events to Baton Rouge which brought millions of dollars in economic impact to the city.
Funeral arrangements are pending for the LSU Legend at this time.
