Sugar Bowl

While there are many different categories of awards presented by the New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, some years the Committee finds that there are people deserving of recognition who do not necessarily fit into one specific category. For that reason, the Committee presents the Jimmy Collins Awards to outstanding individuals and organizations.
 

Collins was a longtime supporter of New Orleans sports who is credited with creating the New Orleans Sports Awards and forming the awards committee in 1958.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl presented 2005 Jimmy Collins Awards to the LSU Athletic Department and to Paul Tagliabue and Arnold Fielkow.

The devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the recovery from it challenged many in the athletic world, both in the arena and outside of it. Countless athletes, coaches, administrators and fans responded like champions and helped in the immediate aftermath of the storm and throughout the ongoing return to normalcy.

When Katrina ripped through New Orleans just as the fall school semester and football season were getting under way, Baton Rouge in general and the LSU campus in particular became havens for hurricane refugees. The Tigers Athletic Department responded in countless ways. The Pete Maravich Assembly Center was used as a triage center. LSU took a significant financial hit when it moved its season-opener against Arizona State to Tempe, Ariz., to avoid compromising ongoing relief efforts on campus.
 
Numerous Tiger student-athletes opened their dorm rooms and apartments to victims of Katrina, and later, of Rita. LSU made its facilities and staff available for teams displaced from New Orleans. The New Orleans Saints played four regular-season games there, enabling local fans to reconnect briefly with their team, which had set up headquarters in San Antonio because of damage to the Superdome. The Tulane Green Wave, another displaced Dome tenant, made Tiger Stadium one of its stops on an unprecedented season-long tour of 11 different stadiums to play Southeastern Louisiana. The New Orleans Hornets, displaced to Oklahoma City, returned to Louisiana for one game once the P Mac was again used for basketball.
 
The Loyola basketball team, whose school was shut down during the fall semester in 2005, was allowed to practice at the P-Mac and the Wolfpack’s coaches were given office space in the administration building.
 
For its selfless dedication to helping hurricane refugees find a place, to play, and in some cases live, the Allstate Sugar Bowl recognized the entire Louisiana State University Athletic Department with a Jimmy Collins Award for 2005.