Jerry Stovall

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 1981

University: LSU

Induction Year: 1981

Jerry Stovall experienced the good, the bad and the ugly in his football career. The good: He started on tow of the best teams in Louisiana State University history, helping the Tigers win major bowl games two years in a row for the first time (it has happened once since then). He finished second to Terry Baker in 1962 Heisman Trophy voting.

The bad: He played on also-ran teams that didn’t get into the playoffs at West Monroe High and with the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League.

The ugly: When he was appointed head coach of LSU following the death of Bo Rein in an airplane crash, Stovall struggled through four roller coaster seasons. He was fired after the 1983 Tigers failed to win a single Southeastern Conference game for the first time in the school’s 52 years of membership in the SEC.

In all started at Millsaps Elementary in West Monroe , with Stovall playing for teams coached by Ray George and Bobby Wilson. His first love was baseball, but his talent on the football field made it obvious his future in athletics would be in that sport.

West Monroe High was in its second year of existence when young Jerry Stovall arrived, with Howard Barker coaching the Rebels’ football team. But A.L. “Red” Swanson, who was the superintendent of Louisiana Training Institute, was the man who first realized that the bespectacled youngster might have the potential to develop into a college football player.

Swanson first saw Stovall play on the LTI playground when Jerry was visiting his grandparents, who worked there. Later, the former LSU athlete and assistant coach watched the West Monroe youngster blossom into stardom. He took Stovall to LSU games five times during the Tigers’ 1958 national championship season.

“I thought he would have to be redshirted a year, but he had the size, speed and a great desire to play,” Swanson recalled. “He had everything you could want.”

Stovall, now Athletic Director at Louisiana Tech, credits Swanson with getting him a scholarship to LSU. But that is recalling events through the perspective of a teenager. Stovall was a one-man team at West Monroe in 1958, making history as the first All-Stater in the first eight years of the school’s existence. There were other outstanding running backs in North Louisiana – Henry Brown of Bossier, Bo Campbell of Byrd and Charlie Cranford of Minden , to mention a few – but most talent scouts would’ve given the nod to Stovall for all-around ability.

“Jerry was among some very good football players we brought in at that time,” LSU coach Paul Dietzel recalled. “He didn’t stick out like a beacon light, as John David Crow and Billy Cannon had done in previous years. But after he got here, it wasn’t long before he moved to the top of the class.”

“No one in their right mind would’ve figured him to be an All-American,” said Dan McClure, who coached Stovall in both football and baseball at West Monroe , “unless they knew his temperament. You had to know what he had on the inside. When you did, you knew a person with that attitude would excel somewhere.”

Marty Broussard, who had been around LSU as a student trainer since 1938, called Stovall “the most respected man we’ve had around here in a long time.”

Before Stovall rose to the top at LSU, he had doubts about his ability to play for the Tigers. Once, he packed his bags and called his father to tell him he was coming home. “Fine,” said William Stovall. “I’ll get you a job.”

After hanging up, Jerry thought about the kind of job his dad would be able to get him – and decided to stick it out in Tiger Town .

In the third week of the 1962 season, Stovall’s 98-yard return of the second-half kickoff gave the Tigers a nationally televised 10-7 victory over Georgia Tech. Predictably, he gave credit for that play to his teammates.

“Nobody touched me,” he said. “The blocking was perfect. All I had to do was run.”

Four weeks later, Ole Miss handed the Tigers their only loss of the season. But Stovall had sensational performances against the Rebels in both of his last two years, gaining 190 yards rushing in only 13 carries – an average of 14.6 per carry.

McClendon called him “the most complete football player I’ve ever seen,” but Heisman votes gave the nod to Baker, the Oregon State quarterback who Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year” for excelling in both football and basketball, and winning a myriad of academic honors. Stovall led voting in the South, but Baker led on both coasts and got 172 first-place votes and a total of 707 points to Stovall’s 112 first-place votes and 618 points. Roger Staubach, who won the Heisman a year later, didn’t even finish in the Top 10.

Stovall was a consensus All-American, however, and signed a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals worth 75,000. He played in two Pro Bowls during his nine-year NFL career as a defensive back and also handled the Cardinals’ punting – setting a club record for punting average in one game.

He launched his coaching career on Dietzel’s South Carolina staff, and coached under McClendon near the end of his 18-year stint as head coach at LSU. But Stovall dropped out of coaching before McClendon’s “lame duck” 1979 season to direct the Varsity Club.

When Dietzel recommended him after Rein’s tragic death, he said, “Jerry Stovall is LSU through-and-through.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways, ways we will never comprehend,” Stovall said when he accepted the challenge.

The ways of LSU fans who had cheered him during his playing career weren’t so hard to comprehend. When he got the LSU job, the Stovalls’ home was packed with well-wishers and the phone rang all night. On the day he was fired four years later, there were no visitors and only two phone calls.