Arthur “Red” Swanson

Sport: BaseballBasketballCoachFootballTrack and Field

Induction Year: 2016

University: LSUSoutheasternUL-Lafayette

Very few had as much influence on Louisiana’s sports scene — and remain as anonymous — as Swanson. But he left his fingerprints on more than one sport, and at more than one state school. Swanson, an LSU lineman in the very first game played in Tiger Stadium, later became a coach at Oak Grove High School and molded “Baby Jack”’ Torrance, a 6-foot-5, 260-pound specimen, into a football and track star who later was not only a standout in both sports at LSU but also a world-record shot putter and Olympian. When he was an assistant to Bernie Moore, it was Swanson who was dispatched to Texas to get two prospects who wanted to play at LSU — one of whom was a disgruntled Y.A. Tittle, who first committed to the Tigers, then was pressured to attend the University of Texas before changing his mind again. Swanson, a jack-of-all-trades, coached Southeastern football to a 41-17-4 record from 1931-37 with his.674 winning percentage still the best in SLU history. He coached the LSU basketball and baseball teams during World War II when coaches were often called to active duty, convincing basketball player and future major league slugger Joe Adcock to play baseball, and also led the Southwestern Louisiana Institute football team to a to a 5-4 record in 1950. He died at 82 in November 1987. Born 4-19-1905 in Quitman, La.