By Doug Ireland
It has arrived, finally, on schedule, but for most of us, not soon enough to some degree.
Key phrase: “to some degree.” The “degree” being the outside temperature, which although almost always odious this time of year, is just a teensy bit more tolerable than it was last month and certainly the month before that.
“It” is, of course, football season, and all of its glorious accompanying activities: tailgating or watch parties, band shows and spirit group performances, silly mascots, face-painted fanatics, babies and little kids wearing the cutest team gear, bigger kids and no-longer-kids in the latest team gear, screaming announcers, crowd roars, fight songs, fans griping about officials, sports talk shows second-guessing coaches, poor coaches’ wives and kids enduring the same at every turn, the joy of victory, the disappointment of defeat.
There are many other sports, more every year it seems. Any time I turn on my Roku, I can watch pickleball. I choose not to, but millions of people are playing and it’s a wonderful game. Esports? Technology is not my friend, but I am in the great minority. There are gamers everywhere, although it’s hardly a spectator sport. MMA is a spectator sport that has applied a hip throw to the sports stratosphere.
There is no sport more popular than football, and that is beyond dispute. Across the pond, futbol generates much the same level of excitement, but I don’t notice marching bands, cheerleaders, dance lines, pom-pom lines, or TV timeouts in what I’ve seen of soccer. OK, so I could do without as many TV timeouts, but they’re providing the ad inventory that fuels the football food chain, and we get the chance to stretch our legs, visit the loo, peruse the fridge/concession stand/chips and dip spread, and refill our drink cups. Or channel surf. And/or place real-time bets.
There’s at least one more reason we have to love football season. It’s when Louisiana stands tall, takes a backseat to no place else.
There are only a handful of states, all of them with much bigger populations, that compare.
Doesn’t matter if the Saints are in the Super Bowl conversation or rebuilding phase. Helps, but doesn’t matter if LSU is a national championship contender or an SEC championship pretender.
It’s the caliber of our competitors. Every year Louisiana ranks among the country’s best when it comes to producing NFL players. For example, last year we stood sixth in the top 10 compiled by Bleacher Report, with 101 NFL players, 10 Pro Bowlers, and the BR breakdown opened with the statement “Louisiana has the smallest population of any state listed,” trailing only Ohio, Georgia, Florida, Texas and California in pro production.
How about how good they are? Louisiana ranks sixth per capita, and ninth overall, in the number of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees (25 if you count players from our colleges, and Saints with no other ties, i.e. Jim Finks, Ricky Jackson, Sam Mills and Morten Andersen).
When the folks in Canton release the annual list of candidates, it’s littered with Louisiana products. When that group is trimmed to semifinalists, it’s rare there aren’t 2-3-4 from these parts. Heck, in 2019, three (3) of the eight (8) people enshrined were Louisiana boys: Leesville’s Kevin Mawae, Destrehan’s Ed Reed, and Baton Rouge native and longtime Monroe resident Johnny Robinson. Mawae and Robinson are proud LSU Tigers.
They are also proud Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductees. They posed for a photo before the Gold Jacket Ceremony on Enshrinement Eve 2019, and grouped tightly again the next evening backstage just 10 minutes before kickoff of their inductions – staged, by the way, at Tom Benson Stadium in Canton, named in recognition of the longtime Saints owner who donated $10 million to the Pro Football Hall.
Along with Mawae, Reed, and Robinson, and Andersen, Finks, Jackson and Mills, here’s the list of the LSHOF greats who have busts in Canton:
Mel Blount (Southern), Terry Bradshaw (Shreveport, Woodlawn HS, Louisiana Tech), Willie Brown (DeRidder, Grambling) and Buck Buchanan (Grambling);
Harold Carmichael (Southern), Willie Davis (Grambling), Fred Dean (Ruston, Louisiana Tech), Alan Faneca (New Orleans-born, LSU), Marshall Faulk (New Orleans, Carver HS), Cal Hubbard (Centenary), and Charlie Joiner (Many, W.O. Boston HS in Lake Charles, Grambling);
Peyton Manning (New Orleans, Newman HS), Willie Roaf (Louisiana Tech, Saints), Jackie Smith (Kentwood, Northwestern State), Jim Taylor (Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge HS, LSU), Y.A. Tittle (LSU), Steve Van Buren (New Orleans, Warren Easton HS, LSU), and Aeneas Williams (New Orleans, Fortier HS, Southern).
Might be headed to Canton soon: Jahri Evans (inducted in Natchitoches in 2022), Eli Manning (inducted in Natchitoches in 2023), and Reggie Wayne (inducted in Natchitoches in 2017), who were three of the 15 finalists for the Pro Football HOF’s Class of 2025.
It’s safe to say there are some current NFL stars with ties to the Boot who are heading on a path that if sustained, could carry them to Canton. Joe Burrow (LSU), Justin Jefferson (Destrehan, LSU) and Jamarr Chase (Metairie, Rummel HS, LSU) head that list, and with a big finish, Dak Prescott (Haughton) or much more of his fabulous start, Dallas teammate CeeDee Lamb (born in Opelousas, chased out of New Orleans by Katrina).
Point being: from Friday night lights in the high school ranks, to Saturday college gamedays, and the NFL on Sunday, you don’t have to look very far to see real greatness.
And if you want to celebrate it, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame is right up the road in beautiful downtown Natchitoches.
