Who’s up next in the LSHOF Class of 2027?
It’s an extremely exclusive club enshrined in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Since the Louisiana Sports Writers Association formed in 1958 to facilitate better coverage of high school sports and launch the Hall, only 402 competitors have been inducted. Add in the contributors — journalists, administrators and officials — and the total population of the LSHOF is 515, beginning with Baseball Hall of Famer Mel Ott of Gretna, world boxing champion Tony Cazoneri of Slidell and Homer native Gaynell “Gus” Tinsley of LSU football fame.
Ott, Canzoneri and Tinsley were inducted during the 1959 Ark-La-Tex Sports Award Banquet in Shreveport.
A dozen more people officially joined the ranks last Saturday night in Natchitoches. They emerged from nearly 160 candidates in 28 different sports categories considered by a 40-member selection committee over nearly a month of deliberations, culminating in several hours of discussion and voting face-to-face (and sometimes, nose-to-nose) in late August last year.
Anybody can nominate a candidate but to make the 2027 ballot for competitors, the nomination deadline is Wednesday, with instructions available at the LaSportsHall.com website. The July 1 deadline allows the selection committee a month to check credentials and advance viable nominees to the ballot.
It’s a demanding process, by design. The founding fathers said it should be.
The first formal discussion of a state sports Hall of Fame happened in a 1950 meeting of sportswriters in Lake Charles. It took eight years to get the pony from the farm to the paddock to the track and off to the races, but the basic premise still stands.
“An organization with a membership so exclusive that nobody may immediately qualify to be tapped will open for business this weekend as a going concern, “ Shreveport Journal sports editor Otis Harris wrote in a Dec. 11, 1950 column.
“It is the Louisiana Hall of Fame – a hall of fame for the state’s greatest athletes, men or women, amateur or professional, living or dead.”
Selection, he wrote, would require 90 percent approval from voting writers, with no more than two inductees to begin, and just one in succeeding years, “if anyone qualifies,” said Harris.
“The purpose,” he explained, “is to make the hall of fame mean something and limit to the roll to athletes, past or present, who have become figures of national or international renown in the general sports pattern. Only the state’s immortals in the sphere of athletes will be enshrined.”
It didn’t pan out precisely that way – current competitors aren’t eligible, for example – but the abiding principle that the honor should be awarded to only the elite has held true almost 70 years.
These days, you’ve heard of most of those inducted. Some aren’t as prominent but are no less deserving. Even before Saturday night’s induction ceremony, there was plenty of speculation about who’s on the horizon.
There’s a partial list in the 120-page, full color commemorative program. But first, start with those not elected for the Class of 2026 who remain on the ballot going forward.
On the big board for 2027 are big league baseball All-Stars (Bossier City’s B.J. Ryan is one), Pro Bowl football players (nearly 20) among almost 40 from that sport on the current list, coaches (pro, college and high school), jockeys and trainers, outdoorsmen, gymnasts, swimmers, soccer greats, track and field Olympians, bowlers, NBA and WNBA All-Stars … even a world chess champion. Bet you never heard of Paul Morphy of New Orleans, who graduated from Tulane in 1857 and was regarded as “the most famous sportsman on Earth” after a tour of Europe.
First-time eligibles for the next class include some people you do know a little about: football stars Leonard Fournette, Jimmy Graham, Ike Hilliard, and Patrick Peterson kick off the list of luminaries. Triple Crown-winning jockey Kent Desormeaux will be in the candidate pool, along with recently retired Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker. Shreveport native Ryan Harrison’s tennis career is over and he’s going on the 2027 ballot.
Trouble is, voters have to blend 12-15 newcomers with the holdovers. Whittle a pool of about 160 down to eight who make it to the spotlight in Natchitoches next June.
Looking further down the road: Odell Beckham Jr., Alex Bregman, Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Jayden Daniels, Mondo Duplantis, Justin Jefferson, Jay Johnson, Lolo Jones, Cam Jordan, Alvin Kamara, Tyrann Mathieu, Ed Orgeron, Sean Payton, and Dak Prescott. All of those have to finish their careers or have been retired for three years before arriving on the ballot.
Those are pretty obvious future Hall of Famers. There are others not as well known doing great things now; you might watch somebody at a nearby high school or college whose accomplishments elevate them to elite status in state history.
The choices are difficult. Not so much in Idaho, South Carolina, Delaware, or even our neighbors in Arkansas and Mississippi. Almost every night, you can see somebody from Louisiana making highlights on SportsCenter – or as a network sports personality.
In September, the LSWA will announce the competitors in the Class of 2027 – only the best of the best.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com