LSU Baseball
Since its inception in 1967, the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s James J. Corbett Award winners have included 20 NFL players, 10 Major League Baseball players, four NBA players (including two Hall of Famers), 11 Olympians (including eight Gold Medal winners), five WNBA players, and two PGA Tour stars.
The odds are good that an 11th Major League Baseball player has joined the list. Kade Anderson, the star of LSU’s national championship baseball team, has earned the 2025 Corbett Award as the top non-professional athlete in the state of Louisiana. He joins the list of luminaries that include the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Seimone Augustus, Robert Parish, Jayden Daniels, and Angel Reese.
“It means so much to me to be included on the list [of Corbett Award winners] along with so many generational talents,” Anderson said when informed of the honor. “I just continued to put in the work. I put a lot of trust in my coaches and my teammates. I couldn’t have done any of this without them.”
Anderson, a native of Madisonville and a St. Paul's School graduate, closed one of the top pitching seasons in LSU history by turning in a pair of sensational College World Series outings to earn Most Outstanding Player honors as LSU captured its eighth baseball national championship.
“Growing up, I always wanted to be an LSU guy,” the 6-2 left-hander said. “I’ve been wearing LSU clothes since I was a baby. It meant so much to me to be in that scenario to be able to represent LSU in the World Series.”
For the year, the southpaw recorded a 12-1 record with a 3.18 ERA and 180 strikeouts (No. 1 in the nation) in 119 innings (tops in the SEC). Opponents hit just .211 against him and he walked just 35 batters.
“He's the best player in the country,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said. “There's nobody closer to the major leagues than that right now.”
The First Team All-SEC selection started LSU’s opening game at the World Series and tossed seven innings of three-hit ball, allowing just one run and striking out seven as the Tigers took down No. 3 Arkansas, 4-1. In the first game of the championship series against Coastal Carolina, which came in with a 26-game winning streak, he then turned in one of the best games of his career at the most crucial time as he threw a complete-game shutout, allowing just three hits and striking out 10 in a 1-0 victory which put LSU in the driver’s seat for the championship.
“As a pitcher, our job is to get zeroes,” Anderson said when asked about the pressure of a 1-0 College Word Series game. “I had to do what I usually do. I put trust in my teammates and coaches, sometimes baseball is like that, it’s a funny game, you never know what’s going to happen so I always just believe in my guys; I wouldn’t have been there without them.”
Anderson is expected to be a selected near the top of the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft on July 13 – projections have him going as high as No. 1 to the Washington Nationals.
Despite his success, it’s still near impossible to get him to talk about himself.
“My family has been a key to my success – they’ve been big role models for me; as well as all the coaches on our staff, especially Coach Yeskie [LSU pitching coach Nate Yeskie]. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today.”
While he doesn’t talk much about his own success, he does recognize his potential impact on the community. Recently he visited young patients at Ochsner Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, providing iPad gifts and spending time with the children.
"It's a no-brainer for me [to visit the children]," Anderson told WDSU-TV. "Louisiana is about hospitality, it's about community, it's about celebrating people and to be able to give back to our community."
"He is still such a great guy," said Mick Nunez, the coach at St. Paul’s during Anderson’s time with the Wolves. "I've had some guys that, as they grew up and realized how good they were they became too good for anybody. He gets that he's lucky to be a part of it. I'm just super excited for him. Him being such a good guy makes it so much cooler to see. I think every coach can say that they have a kid who doesn't get it. Kade definitely gets it.”
