Louisiana Tech legend and Hall Of Famer Fred Dean has died at the age of 68 from Covid-19. Dean played for the Bulldogs in the early 70s and had a 12-year NFL career, winning two Super Bowls with the 49ers. Former Tech Sports Information Director Keith Prince remembers Dean’s dominance on the football field.
“So dynamic, such speed, he just had it all and he had that motor as we saw as he went on to the NFL and became one of the great sack people up there for the 49ers during some of their championship years,” said Prince.
Dean was on the 49ers Super Bowl-winning teams in 1981 and 1984. In 1983, he had 17.5 sacks, six of them came in one game against the Saints. He was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008. Prince says Dean was an exceptional person as well.
“Just a wonderful man, he ended up pastoring his own church for the last several years, just a gentle giant, would do anything for anybody.”
Even though Dean played out west for the Chargers and 49ers, Prince says that Dean never forgot where he came from.
“Fred was just a hometown guy, he loved it here knew everybody, and I don’t think it was a big decision for him to want to come back here.”
Dean was born in Arcadia and he played at Ruston High in the late 1960s. He once played a football game at Ruston with a bullet in his stomach.
(Photo is courtesy of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.)
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