Hank Tierney

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 2027

High school football coach has spent a half-century on the sidelines – 40 (as of August 2026) as head coach and nine as an assistant at Archbishop Shaw, West Jefferson and Ponchatoula. Tierney, who ranked sixth on Louisiana’s all-time wins list with a 340-125 (.731) record entering the season, six wins away from fifth place. He won the 1987 state Class 4A title with Shaw over Covington (14-6) and 2024 Division II Select championship over E.D. White (28-25) with seven Superdome Classic final appearances in all. Most of Tierney’s success has come at Shaw, the Marrero-based school that had exactly one district title when he was hired as a 25-year-old assistant coach in 1977. He was elevated to head coach in 1983, starting a 19-year string of success that saw the Eagles go 185-48 and dominate the tough Catholic League with 12 district titles to go with a state championship and three runner-up finishes. They also won a then-Catholic League record 22 consecutive games before being fired after the 2001 season when the school was ordered to forfeit games in which ineligible players appeared. In a four-year stretch from 1987-90, Shaw went 49-7 – going 13-2 in 1987, 12-3 in 1988 and 12-1 in both 1989 and ’90. Tierney won three more district titles in six seasons at West Jefferson, going 36-27. Then, after three years as an assistant at Ponchatoula, he went 79-37 there with three district titles and a state runner-up finish in 2021. He returned to Shaw in 2022 and has fashioned a 40-13 record with a state title in 2024 and state runner-up finish in 2025 and three more district crowns. … Born 10-1-51 in New Orleans.