JOURNAL SPORTS
NEW ORLEANS — LSUS basketball coach Kyle Blankenship’s amazing double duty in the 2023-24 season earned him a prime spot in the annual Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Sports Awards show this weekend.
Saturday evening, he was officially presented the Jimmy Collins Award by the organization for the likely unprecedented feat of coaching both the women’s and men’s LSUS teams to outstanding seasons, and most notably, national tournament victories on the same day in March.
The honor was prompted when Blankenship collected 65 percent of public votes cast earlier this summer on the Sugar Bowl’s website, while Jay Clark, who steered the LSU women’s gymnastics team to the NCAA championship, was a distant second at 30 percent. Down the list of public voting were Jeff Willis, who coached the LSU Eunice baseball team to a junior college national championship, and McNeese basketball coach Will Wade, the former LSU coach who led the Cowboys to 30 wins, the NCAA Tournament, and the biggest single-season turnaround in NCAA Division I history.
A week after the online voting closed, Clark was a deserving choice of a selection committee for the Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Collegiate Coach for Louisiana in 2023-24, getting the nod over Blankenship, Wade and Willis. The top collegiate coach award has been presented since 1961 and is among eight annual honors issued by the organization, highlighted by the Jim Corbett Awards for the best male and female amateur athlete of each year in the state.
During Saturday’s ceremony, LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels and Tigers gymnast Haleigh Bryant were recognized for winning the Corbett Awards. Former Saints guard Jahri Evans – a 2022 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee – former Duke basketball standout Chris Duhon from Salmen and a trio of Tulane athletes — football’s Matt Forte (a 2023 LSHOF inductee), and basketball’s Carmen Jones and Paul Thompson — were inducted into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame.
The Jimmy Collins Award is not presented annually, but only in remarkable cases, named for the New Orleans sportswriter who launched the Sugar Bowl’s awards in 1958. Blankenship’s recognition began with a video feature package produced by KTAL-TV sports director Tim Owens.
Blankenship, coach of the LSUS men’s team since 2012, stepped into an interim head coach role with the women’s program last October. The Pilots had another superb season, going 28-5 and reaching the NAIA Sweet 16. The Lady Pilots had an even more impressive regular season, going 22-0 in the Red River Athletic Conference and 30-3 overall, upset in the second round of the NAIA Tournament. Each team had only one first-team All-RRAC selection.