GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
It took him retiring from coaching to do it, but former LSU football coach Nick Saban has finally found the break in his schedule to plan a trip to Natchitoches.
Saban, who won LSU’s first national championship in football since 1958 in the 2003 season and won six more at Alabama (2009, ’11, ’12 ’15, ’17 and ’20), will be inducted in person at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame (LSHOF) on Saturday, June 28, in Natchitoches, sources have confirmed to Tiger Rag.
FLASHBACK: NICK SABAN SELECTED FOR LOUISIANA SPORTS HALL OF FAME
The official announcement by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame came later Wednesday.
Saban, 73, retired from coaching after the 2023 season and is an Emmy-nominated college football analyst at ESPN who will enter his second season as a co-host of College GameDay this season.
He was selected for induction to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in September of 2019 with a summer 2020 induction ceremony in Natchitoches. But that ceremony was cancelled because of COVID. Then he could not find the time on his busy coaching schedule – particularly recruiting – for future summers through his retirement. And he couldn’t last summer either as he prepared for the ESPN role. Until now, that is. Nick will do Natchitoches!
Through tireless efforts by LSHOF president and CEO Ronnie Rantz and LSHOF chairman Doug Ireland and others over the last six years, Saban was finally secured for this June 27-28 in Natchitoches just last month.
Rantz finally was able to get Saban on the phone on March 26, and helped convince Saban to make it happen. But Saban was always thrilled with the honor.
“I’m just amazed this has happened,” Saban told Ireland back in 2019. “I didn’t know Louisiana would do this for me.”
Among the other inductees to the LSHOF Class of 2025 is former LSU offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth, whom Saban recruited out of West Monroe High. Whitworth started on the Tigers’ 2003 national championship team, was a first team All-SEC selection in 2004 and ’05 and an All-American in 2005.
Former LSU associate athletic director Herb Vincent, who worked with Saban at LSU before becoming an associate commissioner in the SEC office, will also be inducted along with the late Ed Daniels, a dominant sportscaster in New Orleans for decades, and Tiger Rag’s Glenn Guilbeau, a former national columnist at OutKick.com/FOX News who previously worked at USA TODAY Louisiana.
Daniels and Guilbeau covered Saban’s time at LSU from 2000-04 and at Alabama from 2007-23. Vincent, Daniels and Guilbeau will be inducted into the Hall as Distinguished Service Award career recipients in Sports Journalism. Vincent is also receiving the Hall’s Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award.
Other inductees will be Delgado’s Joe Scheuermann, the state’s all-time winningest college baseball coach, former NBA player Danny Granger, former WNBA player Vickie Johnson, St. Thomas More High basketball coach Danny Broussard, former LSU gymnast and NCAA champion April Burkholder, former Catholic High (Baton Rouge) football coach Dale Weiner, and former NCAA boxing champion and former high school football coach George “Bobby” Soileau.
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