LSU Baseball
After completing one of the best seasons in college baseball history and collecting a host of national honors for the sport, Dylan Crews has been selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Corbett Award winner as the top overall athlete in the state. He is the ninth LSU baseball player to win the honor and the fifth position player to be recognized.
James J. Corbett Awards
“[Winning the Corbett Award] means a lot,” Crews said. “Reading down the list of winners and seeing those legends – it’s a great feeling to be included with names like Burrow, Duplantis, Shaq. Just to be in the same conversation with those guys is a very good feeling.”
Crews’ list of accomplishments is extraordinary. He collected the Golden Spikes Award as the top amateur baseball player in the country, and the Bobby Bragan National Collegiate Slugger Award as the nation’s top college baseball hitter. A consensus All-American, he also became the first player in history to win the SEC Player of the Year honor in back-to-back seasons. He earned the SEC Male Athlete of the Year for all sports. The icing on the cake was leading LSU to its seventh College World Series championship – he is just the fourth player to win the Golden Spikes Award and the national title.
“When I first walked in the locker room in the fall, I knew we had a special group,” Crews said of his LSU squad. “But it didn’t hit me until about the first out in the ninth inning of the championship game that we could [win the championship].”
Crews led the SEC and ranked third nationally with a .426 batting average. He tallied 18 home runs, 16 doubles and 70 RBI, and he also led the nation in runs scored (100) and walks (71) and ranked second in the nation in on-base percentage (.567). He reached base safely in all 71 games this year for the Tigers.
“His consistency is next-level special,” said LSU coach Jay Johnson. “He is the best player in college baseball. You can’t represent LSU Baseball any better than the way Dylan does.”
In the long line of hits, home runs, victories and awards, one moment epitomized Crews’ sensational season. In the ninth inning of the second game of the Super Regional against Kentucky – his final game at LSU’s storied Alex Box Stadium, Crews came to the plate with a three-run lead and two runners on base. A base hit in this situation would lock up LSU’s first College World Series trip since 2017. And Crews delivered. He lined a double to left field to drive in two runs and to electrify the 12,640 rabid Tiger fans watching their star center-fielder at home for the final time.
“Personally, my favorite moment of the season, and probably my career, was hitting that double in my final at bat at Alex Box Stadium,” he said. “It was perfect to finish my career at home like that.”
"That was one of the best moments in my coaching career," Johnson said.
With all of his success on the baseball diamond, Crews has remained true to early lessons from his parents.
“My parents used to say that it’s one thing to be a good baseball player, but it means more to be a good person,” he said. “So I try to do something bigger than myself to impact others.”
He is involved in many efforts to give back to the community and was named to the 2023 SEC Community Service Team. He is involved with Team of Dreams in Gonzales, La., which is an all-abilities baseball league serving the youth and young adults who use wheelchairs, persons with physical disabilities, or persons with intellectual disabilities. He also works with Families Helping Families of Greater Baton Rouge, a nonprofit resource center organized and directed by family members of individuals with disabilities. Crews and his family buys four seats for every LSU home game and gives the tickets to families with special-needs children. He also signed autographs and took pictures with the kids in right field before every home game at Alex Box.
“This guy can do whatever he wants. I mean, literally,” Johnson said in May. “He chooses to do things like that. Think of others first, people who aren’t as fortunate as him. That’s what I’m talking about. You have Mike Trout of college baseball that is like the greatest human being on the planet.”
“I love doing it; it’s a great feeling,” Crews said.
