Sugar Bowl

Jerry Stovall, who molded one of the great comebacks of the 1982 football season, has been named Louisiana's Outstanding Collegiate Coach by the Sugar Bowl's Sports Awards Committee.

Stovall, in his third year as head football coach at LSU, parlayed a turn around that startled the college football world when he led LSU from the pits of a 3-7-1 season in 1981, to an 8-3-1 campaign in 1982, including a trip to the Orange Bowl – LSU's first trip to one of the major New Year's Day post-season games in nine years.

Stovall beat the odds and not only saved his own job with the 1982 performance; but with back-to-back excellent recruiting seasons, appears to have LSU on the verge of returning to the status of a football power as it had been during the 60's and early 70's.

En route to the Orange Bowl, the Stovall-led Tigers upset two top-ten ranked teams on foreign turf – Florida and Alabama – and demolished another top ten team – Florida State – on a memorable November night in Tiger Stadium.

"I might have been the only one not surprised by our performance in 1982," said Stovall. "But what we accomplished didn't just happen. It was the result of hard work and dedication on the part of many people in the years directly preceding the 1982 season."

The Tigers were fortunate not to have a series of major injuries during 1982 and the quality of the LSU football team was borne out by the resent National Football League draft when six players were drafted in the first seven rounds--four of those going in the first three rounds.

The 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 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 Sugar Bowl Athletes of the Month.

-www.AllstateSugarBowl.org-