JOURNAL SPORTS
Nine remarkable graduating seniors from north Louisiana high schools received 2024 Scholar-Athlete Awards and $1,000 scholarships Thursday night, presented by the S.M. McNaughton Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame.
The annual awards banquet at Shreveport’s East Ridge Country Club drew a crowd of nearly 300,
including area college head coaches Ben McLaughlin (Louisiana Christian), Bryant Vincent (ULM), Sonny Cumbie (Louisiana Tech) and Blaine McCorkle (Northwestern State), along with Tech’s new athletics director, Ryan Ivey.
The student-athletes were selected from a pool of 15 finalists submitted by high school football coaches from the 318 area code, which encompasses all of north Louisiana.
The winners from Caddo and Bossier schools were Loyola’s Reagan Coyle, Travis Flowers of Benton, Calvary’s Heath Gross, Northwood’s Hutson Hearron and Delarrious Marshall of Green Oaks.
Others honored as top scholar-athletes were North DeSoto’s Lake Bates, Grant Edmondson of West Monroe, Grant’s Jackson Hedrick and Nate Johnson from Ruston.
Johnson, who helped the Bearcats win the Non-Select Division I state championship last season and made straight A’s throughout four years of high school, was designated as the McNaughton Chapter’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year and will be recognized at the NFF’s College Football Hall of Fame Museum in Atlanta, and eligible for the NFF’s national honors.
Two community leaders were also spotlighted for their service. G. Archer Frierson received the
Contribution to American Football Award. Joe Psalmonds received the Distinguished American Award.
The McNaughton Chapter’s 2024 scholarship winners all earned at least first-team all-district honors for their on-field performance last fall, and also carry a cumulative grade point average of 3.2 or better (on a 4.0 scale; 4.0 or better on a 5.0 scale). They all have participated in non-athletic extracurricular activities.
Finalists and the nine scholarship award recipients are chosen by the chapter’s board of directors based on the NFF’s recommended criteria for applications with 40 percent of scoring on academic achievement and GPA, 40 percent on football achievement, and 20 percent on leadership, school and community involvement.
Eight scholarships were awarded by the McNaughton Chapter with an additional one, presented to Green Oaks’ Marshall, came from from KTBS TV of Shreveport and Johnny’s Pizza as the Johnny’s Pizza/Griffin’s Game Ball Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
KTBS honors the memory and legacy of former NFF Board member Bob Griffin, the iconic sportscaster at KSLA and then KTBS for over 50 years, by weekly in-season profile stories and presentations of a Griffin’s Game Ball to a player on the NFF Scholar- Athlete Watch List, which last fall included 38 outstanding senior competitors from across north Louisiana.