Two of the biggest names in sports, Peyton Manning and Les Miles, are among the eleven that will be inducted this weekend into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches. Former LSU baseball coach and A-D Skip Bertman hired Miles after Nick Saban left for the Miami Dolphins.
“He’s the winningest coach in the history of LSU, so he did his job, regardless of the fact whether he ate a piece of grass or misspoke at anytime,” said Bertman.
Miles won 77-percent of his games while at LSU, including a national championship in 2007. Manning led the Colts and Broncos to Super Bowl victories and goes down as one of the NFL’s All-time greats.
But CEO of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation Ronnie Rantz says the most deserving member of this class is a Danielle Scott, who is a five-time USA Olympic Volleyball Standout and won two medals.
“No US women has ever done that,” said Rantz. “And then she played professionally for a long time and was so good in the decade from 2001 to 2010 she was voted as the number one indoor female player in the world.”
Former La Tech quarterback Matt Dunigan is also going into the Louisiana Sports Hall of fame. Rantz says Dunigan is a 2006 Canadian Football League Hall of Fame inductee.
“He played their 15 years and won a bunch of Grey Cups and he’s like the John Maddon of Canadian Football in Canada. He lives in Dallas and flys back and forth every weekend, Canada doing games in studio, he’s a big personality,” said Rantz.
Peabody Magnet High School basketball coach Charles Smith will also be enshrined on Saturday, along with former Southern Baseball Coach Roger Cador and Leesville’s T-Berry Porter who was Louisiana’s first professional rodeo cowboy are among the highlights of this class.
