That was borne out in his days at LSU and over 14 years pitching in Major League Baseball, a career that has landed him in the Class of 2023 of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Now 71 and third base coach of the Atlanta Braves, Wash smiled and shook his head at the memory of the skinny kid from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans who left home to play baseball 53 years ago.
For more than two decades, Lyons was the T-P’s high school writer based in the River Parishes Bureau covering St. Charles, St. John and St. James parishes, celebrating the accomplishments of the athletes and their teams in that area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge where high school sports have always mattered.
For Bruce Brown, the world’s view of the biggest thing out there was never a guiding light for him.
Longtime Northwestern State director of athletics Greg Burke has been named Director of Business Development and Public Relations for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.
Two transformational and highly-decorated figures in the state’s sports journalism field, Lafayette writer and editor Bruce Brown and longtime New Orleans Times-Picayune prep writer Lori Lyons, have been selected for the 2022 Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
Joan Cronan, University of Tennessee Athletic Director Emeritus and a trailblazer for women’s college athletics, has been named recipient of the Michael L. Slive Distinguished Service Award, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey announced Tuesday.
Visitation is Friday evening and the funeral is Saturday afternoon for Jerry Pierce, considered “The Father of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.”
Jerry Pierce, often cited as the father of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, died Tuesday at age 83 after a brief illness.
A Springhill native and longtime leader at Northwestern State University, Pierce was responsible for the creation of the Hall of Fame display in Prather Coliseum in 1972. He was chairman of the LSHOF from 1971-90, when he was promoted from assistant to the president to vice president of external affairs at NSU.
While those artifacts moved to the palatial Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum in downtown Natchitoches in 2013, Pierce’s contributions did not go unnoticed.
In June, Pierce was honored during the 50th anniversary of the Hall’s time in Natchitoches, receiving a standing ovation from the capacity crowd at the Natchitoches Events Center.
Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Friday with a 2 p.m. funeral service Saturday at First Baptist Church in Natchitoches, located at 508 2nd Street.
