by Doug Ireland
LSU graduate Herb Vincent, associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference for the past 11 years after more than two impactful decades as an administrator and publicist at his alma mater, is the 2025 winner of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award presented by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Vincent served as senior associate athletics director and as associate vice chancellor for university relations at LSU before stepping into a leadership role at the SEC. Next June 28 at the Hall of Fame’s 2025 Induction Ceremony in Natchitoches, he will become the 24th recipient of the Dixon Award since its inception in 2005, and will be enshrined in the Hall. The Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award has been presented annually by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s 35-member Hall of Fame selection committee to an individual who has played a decisive role as a sports leader or administrator benefiting Louisiana and/or bringing credit to Louisiana on the national and international level.
It is named in honor of the 1999 LSHOF inductee, an entrepreneur and innovator who is credited as the key figure in bringing an NFL franchise to New Orleans, and the development of the Caesars Superdome, highlighting an array of sports-related endeavors.
Vincent’s selection was announced in November by Louisiana Sports Writers Association president John Marcase and Doug Ireland, the longtime chairman of the Hall of Fame. Vincent emerged from a ballot showcasing 25 noteworthy nominees for the Dixon Award.
Vincent will be among the 11-member 2025 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class headlined by eight “competitive ballot” inductees announced in September. Two others, who will receive the LSWA’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, will be announced soon.
The Class of 2025 is headlined by a star-studded group of eight inductees from the LSHOF “competitors ballot,” headlined by West Monroe, LSU and NFL star Andrew Whitworth, pro basketball All-Stars Danny Granger and Vickie Johnson, and coaching greats Danny Broussard, Joe Scheuerman and Dale Weiner.
The LSHOF Class of 2025 also includes LSU gymnastics great and NCAA champion April Burkholder, and George “Bobby” Soileau, an NCAA boxing champion at LSU who won a state crown as a football coach at his alma mater, Sacred Heart High School in Ville Platte.
The 2025 Induction Class will be celebrated June 26-28 in Natchitoches, Opportunities to purchase admission for the four ticketed events are available at the LaSportsHall.com website through the LaSportsHall.com/Induction25 link.
The Class of 2025 will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum, operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
In his current role under SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Vincent is responsible for all communication strategies for the league as well as serving as SEC spokesperson. He has been part of the conference’s administrative team as the SEC has emerged as the tonesetting league in NCAA sports, revolutionizing not only major college football but the landscape of intercollegiate athletic competition.
Prior to that, he served more than two decades at LSU, beginning as assistant sports information director, quickly getting promoted to SID and an assistant AD’s role. He briefly left LSU in 2002, but returned two years later and afterward was named Senior Associate Athletic Director in 2006 and then added a dual role as university Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations in 2009.
While in that role he supervised the SID and the marketing/promotions office, was the primary liaison with LSU Sports Properties, and was department administrator for the hugely successful LSU baseball program. He served as SID from July 1988 until July 2000 when he was named Vice President for Communications for College Sports Southeast regional cable network before returning to LSU in 2002.
Vincent became the first Louisiana-rooted person to serve as the national president for the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) in 2019-20 after four years on that organization’s board of directors. He also received one of CoSIDA’s top honors, the Arch Ward Award in 2019 for outstanding contributions to the profession, and was a CoSIDA 25-year award winner in 2012.
In 2015, Vincent was named to the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction, and also has been inducted in the university’s Manship School of Mass Communications Hall of Fame.
His work in the profession through the years has been recognized for excellence many times, including an array of LSWA honors for him and his LSU staff. He worked on the LSU staff under Louisiana Sports and CoSIDA Hall of Famer Paul Manasseh during his undergraduate days before earning his journalism degree in 1983.
Vincent spent the 1984 and 1985 seasons as public relations director for the USFL’s New Orleans Breakers – when Dixon was one of the franchise’s owners — and the Los Angeles Express.
After the USFL folded, he also served one year as athletics publications director at UL Lafayette and was on the SEC staff as assistant director of public relations for two years prior to returning to LSU in 1988. An author of a book on LSU football, “The LSU Football Vault,” Vincent is a native of Little Rock.
The Dixon Award’s 2024 recipient was longtime Southland Conference commissioner Tom Burnett, a Louisiana Tech and West Monroe High School graduate whose service to the Southland and on NCAA committees in several sports culminated with his role as chairman of the 2022 Men’s Basketball Committee that oversaw postseason play concluding with the Final Four in New Orleans.
No Dixon winner was selected in 2023. The 2022 recipient was Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation president Jay Cicero, a Shreveport native whose three decades of leadership in the Crescent City has been filled with major sports events and abundant community service by the foundation. He is heading preparations for the upcoming Super Bowl in New Orleans.
The 2021 Dixon Award winner was retired NFL referee Terry McAulay, a Hammond native and LSU graduate. McAulay, now the rules analyst for NBC’s Sunday Night Football, is one of a handful of referees to work three Super Bowls.
The 2020 recipient was Joan Cronan, an Opelousas native and LSU graduate who became one of the most respected administrators in collegiate athletics as women’s athletics director, and then overall athletics director, at the University of Tennessee.
Other past Dixon Award recipients include the 2018 winner, Steve Gleason, the former New Orleans Saints player who has become globally acknowledged as one of the world’s leading advocates for people diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
In 2008, the Dixon Award went to world-renowned orthopedic Dr. James Andrews, a Homer native, LSU graduate and SEC champion pole vaulter.
Paul Hoolahan, executive director and chief executive officer of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Classic for 23 years, was presented the 2015 Dixon Award.
The 2016 winner was world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes, a Natchitoches native and LSU graduate who has become a leading figure in the field of sports-related concussion research and treatment.
Sue Donohoe, who served as the NCAA’s vice president for women’s basketball for 12 years, and also directed the men’s basketball NCAA Division I championship, was the 2017 recipient. The 2025 LSHOF Induction Celebration is slated to kick off Thursday, June 26, with a press conference and reception. The three-day festivities include two receptions, a youth sports clinic, a bowling party, a Saturday luncheon and a Friday night riverbank concert in Natchitoches.
Purchases for four ticketed events, culminating with the Saturday night, June 28 Induction Ceremony, along with congratulatory advertising and sponsorship opportunities, are available through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Adding to the 394 sports competitors currently enshrined, 23 winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 75 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 492 current members of the Hall of Fame.
The Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors.
For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com or Foundation Director of Business Development and Public Relations Greg Burke at 318-663-5459 or GregBurke@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
