Roger Brandt

Sport: Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism

Induction Year: 1997

Roger Brandt was posthumously awarded the Louisiana Sports Writers Association Distinguished Service Award during the 1997 induction ceremony held at the Student Union Ballroom on the Northwestern State University Campus. Brandt is best known for his work as the sports editor of the Opelousas Daily World. Brandt was first hired at the Daily World in 1971 by John Thistlewaite, the newspaper’s original publisher. Brandt held the sports editor’s position at the newspaper from 1971 until 1984. He also served a second term as the paper’s sports editor from 1989 until his death in Eunice on May 12, 1993.

In addition to his work at the Daily World, Brandt also worked for Louisiana State Newspapers (LSN) from 1984-89. While at the Daily World, Brandt developed a cutting edge style sports section that featured creative use and positioning of pictures in addition to horizontal makeup, which was unusual for the era of the 1970’s. Much of Brandt’s page makeup work was later copied by other newspapers. After his hiring in 1971, Brandt began building a sports staff that was large and versatile enough to deliver live sports coverage on a regular basis at the high school, college and professional level.
Brandt was a firm believer in high school sports coverage, emphasizing the paper’s major circulation areas of St. Landry and Evangeline parishes.

The Daily World was also one of the state’s few small town daily newspapers that regularly covered Super Bowl games and had tickets to Pete Rozelle‘s annual pre-Super Bowl game parties. Brandt was especially known for his daily column, “Instant Replay,” which sometimes offered strong opinions relating to local high school and college teams.

During his career, Brandt won frequent writing and sports makeup awards from both the LSWA, Associated Press and Louisiana Press Association. In addition he also served a two-year term as LSWA president after serving other high level positions in the organization. In 1980 Brandt was also honored with the Louisiana American Legion baseball award.