by Doug Ireland
Induction in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame is reserved for the best of the best.
With a 40-member selection committee taking three weeks reviewing 149 nominees from 27 different sports categories, there is truly no shortage of consideration, or of deserving candidates.
But only the truly elite are chosen. That fact rings true with a look at the core of the Class of 2025, which was announced recently.
A champion at every level, West Monroe, LSU and NFL standout Andrew Whitworth, is joined by pro basketball All-Stars Danny Granger and Vickie Johnson, AND the state’s winningest all-time college baseball coach Joe Scheuermann ALONG WITH Danny Broussard, one of the nation’s most successful high school basketball coaches.
It is certainly a star-studded eight-member group of competitors’ ballot inductees chosen for the Hall of Fame. And there’s more!
The LSHOF Class of 2025 also includes LSU gymnastics great and NCAA champion April Burkholder, transformational Catholic-Baton Rouge high school football coach Dale Weiner 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 new class will be enshrined next summer at the Hall of Fame’s home in Natchitoches to culminate the 66th Induction Celebration. Dates for the three-day celebration will be announced soon.
Also spotlighted next summer will be three other Hall of Fame inductees from the contributors categories: a winner of the 2025 Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award and two recipients of the 2025 Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism presented by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association, the parent organization of the Hall of Fame. Those inductees will be selected and announced later this year.
The complete 11-person Class of 2024 will swell the overall membership in the Hall of Fame to 503 men and women – athletes, coaches, administrators and sports media members — honored since its founding in 1958.
Whitworth won three state titles and two national high school crowns playing for the late Don Shows at West Monroe, then helped LSU win its first national football championship in 45 years under coach Nick Saban in 2003. “Big Whit” capped a 16-year NFL career, mostly in Cincinnati, by starting at offensive tackle as the Los Angeles Rams won Super Bowl LVI, just a couple of days after he received the 2021 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award for his community activism. He made four Pro Bowls.
Granger, a New Orleans native and Grace King High School graduate, averaged 17 points per game in a 10-year NBA career that included a 2009 All-Star Game appearance and a gold medal win with Team USA at the 2010 World Championships.
Johnson, from Coushatta, ranks among the greatest players in Louisiana Tech Lady Techster program history under coach Leon Barmore, and twice was a WNBA All-Star in 13 seasons in the league. She ended her pro career winning the WNBA’s Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award in 2008.
Scheuermann will join his father Rags, a 1990 inductee, to form the fourth father-son combination in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. The others: football greats Dub and son Bert Jones, USA Olympic track stars Glenn “Slats” Hardin and son Billy, and the football family of sons Eli and Peyton Manning, and their father, Archie.
Scheuermann succeeded his dad as baseball coach at New Orleans’ Delgado Community College and last spring eclipsed the late Tony Robichaux of UL Lafayette as Louisiana’s winningest college baseball coach with 1,179 victories in 34 seasons.
Broussard, who will begin his 42 nd season coaching basketball at St. Thomas More High School in Lafayette, has averaged 27.5 wins per year while collecting 1,130 victories to rank seventh nationally and second in the state behind 2019 LSHOF and pending 2024 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Charles Smith of Alexandria’s Peabody Magnet. Broussard’s Cougars have won six state titles and been runner-up four more times.
Burkholder was a 14-time All-American gymnast and as a senior won the 2006 NCAA beam title to cap an LSU career that featured a school-record 108 victories, helping to dramatically elevate interest in the Tigers’ program locally as it emerged as a national power. She was twice Southeastern Conference Gymnast of the Year.
Weiner retired in 2016 after posting 317 wins, now seventh in state history, in 35 seasons as a high school football head coach. The last 30 were at Catholic, where he built a mediocre program into one of
Louisiana’s best as he won 282 games, 9.1 per year, including a 2016 state title. He also coached 18 state championship weightlifting teams with the Bears.
Soileau won four high school boxing state crowns, beginning with his eighth-grade year, and captured the 125-pound NCAA title in 1956 in the heyday of the sport at the state and collegiate levels. He won 159 games in 30 seasons as football coach at Sacred Heart, including a 1967 state championship, and is a 1988 Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame inductee and an inaugural Louisiana High School Boxing Hall of fame inductee.
The 2025 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum. The facility is operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame already includes 25 Pro Football Hall of Fame members, 18 Olympic medalists (including 11 gold-medal winners), 14 members (including pending 2024 inductees Semoine Augustus and Charles Smith) of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, seven of the NBA’s 75 Greatest Players, seven National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 45 College Football Hall of Fame members, 10 Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductees, 10 Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinees, nine National High School Hall of Fame members, nine College Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, five National
Museum of (Thoroughbred) Racing and Hall of Fame inductees. The LSHOF showcases jockeys with a combined 16 Triple Crown victories, six world boxing champions, four NBA Finals MVPs, four winners of major professional golf championships, and three Super Bowl MVPs. Biographical information on all current Hall of Fame members is available at the LaSportsHall.com website, and a steady stream of info is available at the @LaSportsHall X (formerly Twitter) account.
The 2025 Induction Celebration 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. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
For updates on the 2025 Induction Celebration, use this link:
lasportshall.com/InductionInfo
or text “InductionInfo” to 41444
@LaSportsHall on X (formerly Twitter)
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LaSportsHall.com
