Sugar Bowl

Hank Tierney, the state championship winning coach of the Archbishop Shaw football team, was selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Boys Prep Coach for 2024-25. The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, selects annual award winners in a variety of categories; it also selects Sugar Bowl Athletes of the Month and each year’s New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame class. The Sports Awards Committee has recognized outstanding high school coaches for the New Orleans area since 1962. Tierney is the first Shaw coach to be recognized since 2000 when boys basketball coach Darren Laiche was honored. Tierney himself won the honor in 1987 during his first stint with Shaw.
 
Tierney directed to a 49-14 regional blowout over No. 16 Loranger on Nov. 22, then won a hard-fought battle with No. 8 John F. Kennedy in the quarterfinals. In the state semifinals, senior quarterback Mason Wilson led four scoring drives and the Eagles held off a late rally by Madison Prep to improve to 11-2 and punch a ticket to the state championship game for the first time since 2008.
 
“No matter if you’re (star running back) Jasper Parker or the manager on the team, if we mess up, everybody is doing up-and-down (drills),” Wilson said. “Nobody is above the program. If we do great, everybody is going to get a ring. So that’s a great aspect about him.”
 
In the LHSAA Division II Select championship against third-seeded E.D. White, the top-seeded Eagles scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to post a 28-25 victory for their first state championship since 1987 (when Tierney was the 36-year-old head coach). Shaw didn’t hold a lead in the game until a long touchdown run by Parker and a touchdown reception by Jacob Washington put it on top 28-17.
 
“We’re so excited to win the game for Shaw and the West Bank community,’’ said Tierney, back at Shaw for the past three seasons after he previously coached the school to four other state finals appearances from the 1980s to the early 2000s. “It was a great high school football game, well-played and hard-fought. We’re just happy to come out victorious. I’m just so happy to get to where we got and win a state championship, which is so hard to do. I know that. This is the sixth (championship game) I’ve played in and lost four of them. So I know how hard it is to do that. I’m just so thrilled for our school, our community, and these young men.”

The other finalists for New Orleans Boys Prep Coach of the Year were Brice Brown (Edna Karr Football), Errol Gauff (Archbishop Hannan Basketball), and Wade Mason (St. Augustine Basketball). Brown’s Cougars wrapped up an undefeated season with a dominating performance in the LHSAA Division I Select Playoffs as they won their four games by a combined score of 172-47. Gauff directed Hannan and state player of the year Drew Timmons to their second state title in four years as the second-seeded Hawks won a defensive slugfest over top-seeded Shaw, 59-55, to earn the LHSAA Division II select championship. Mason, in his first year at the helm of his alma mater, built a core around players from last year’s junior varsity squad into state champions as they used tremendous defense to defeat St. Thomas More, 45-35, for the LHSAA Division I select state title.
              
The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee came together 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 and a variety of annual award winners. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the 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 athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month as well as a range of annual awards – the honors enter their 69th year in 2025.
 
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 29 national champions, 110 Hall of Fame players, 55 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 91-year history. The 92nd Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will double as a College Football Playoff Quarterfinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2026. 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 over $2.5 billion into the local economy in the last decade.