Photo by Ron Brocato.
The Jesuit High School football team was selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Boys’ Prep Team of the Year for 2014-15. The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, selects annual award winners in a variety of categories; it also selects Amateur Athletes of the Month and each year’s Hall of Fame class.
The Jesuit football team turned in a season for the ages in 2014, recording a solid 8-2 regular season before rolling through the playoffs to capture the LHSAA/Allstate Sugar Bowl Division I state championship, the school’s first state title since 1960. Head coach Mark Songy, who took over the reins of the program just prior to the season, and his staff managed things to perfection as the Blue Jays defeated the division’s top three seeds in succession. They upended No. 3 seed St. Thomas More, 20-13, on the road in Lafayette in the quarterfinals, then stopped No. 2 seed and Catholic League rival Rummel, 28-14, in the state semifinals, setting up a showdown with top-seeded powerhouse John Curtis. Senior running back Charles Jackson earned Most Outstanding Player honors in the title game after running for 142 yards on 16 carries while quarterback Trey Laforge hooked up with Kalija Lipscomb for a pair of long scoring strikes to key the memorable victory for Jesuit.
“We all stepped up,” Songy told NOLA.com. “I’m just really, really proud of the effort of our guys. We had a great group of players, obviously, guys that made plays all over the place. I felt like I was really fortunate to fall into this situation. I’m real happy about it. We had a little bit of luck, but we earned our way.”
The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee began in 1957 when James Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class. While adding the responsibility of selecting Hall of Famers, the committee has continued to recognize the top amateur athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month – the honors enter their 64th year in 2020. To be eligible, an athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region.
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 102 Hall of Fame players, 52 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 89-year history. The 90th Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will double as a College Football Playoff Semifinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2024. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting nearly $2.4 billion into the local economy in the last decade.
-www.AllstateSugarBowl.org-
