By Doug Ireland
NATCHITOCHES – LSU football greats Leonard Fournette and eight-time Pro Bowler Patrick Peterson, along with Tiger baseball legends Aaron Hill and Ryan Theriot, head a star-studded nine-member group of competitors’ ballot inductees chosen for Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame induction next summer.
The LSHOF Class of 2027 also includes two-time Triple Crown-winning jockey Robby Albarado; transformational Northwestern State and Alabama college baseball coach Jim Wells; one of the state’s most successful high school football coaches, Hank Tierney; the cornerstone of the 1985 Final Four ULM women’s basketball team, Lisa Ingram; and another LSU and NFLstandout, Pro Bowler Henry Thomas.
The new class will be enshrined next June 24-26 at the Hall of Fame’s home in Natchitoches to culminate the 68th Induction Celebration. Ticket information for the seven events over three days of festivities is available at the LaSportsHall.com website.
A 40-member Louisiana Sports Writers Association committee selected the 2027 inductees completing a three-week process. The panel considered 144 nominees from 23 different sport categories on a 34-page competitors ballot, with 58 reaching the final phase of deliberations.
Also spotlighted next summer will be three other Hall of Fame inductees from the contributors categories: a winner of the 2027Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award and tworecipients of the 2027 Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism presented by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association, the parent organization of the Hall of Fame. Those inductees will be selected and announced later this year.
The complete 12-person Class of 2027 will swell the overall membership in the Hall of Fame to 512 men and women – athletes, coaches, administrators and sports media members –honored since its founding in 1958.
Peterson ranked among college football’s best players before embarking on a tremendous 13-year NFL career. At LSU in 2010, he won the Bednarik Award as the nation’s top defender and the Thorpe Award as the top defensive back – becoming the first LSU player to win those two prestigious awards. Peterson made the Pro Bowl in each of his first eight seasons (2011-18) and was a three-time AP first-team All-Pro (2011, 2013, 2015). He was voted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s All-Decade Team for the 2010s.
The consensus No. 1 player in the 2014 recruiting class from St. Augustine in New Orleans, Fournette earned All-American honors as an LSU sophomore after notching school single-season records of 1,953 rushing yards and 22 TDs. He broke the school single-game record with 284 yards on 16 carries in a 38-21 win over Ole Miss. Fournette played seven NFL seasons withJacksonville, Tampa Bay and Buffalo, helping the Bucs win Super Bowl LV.
Thomas was a standout defensive tackle for LSU, helping the Tigers win the SEC in 1988, and in 14 NFL seasons as a three-down interior defensive lineman. But he was more than a run-stopper, racking up 93½ career sacks – fourth-most in NFL history among players listed solely at the defensive tackle/nose tackle positions. He made the Pro Bowl in 1991 and ‘92 and earned a second-team AP All-Pro nod in 1993 after recording 23 sacks in that three-year stretch with the Minnesota Vikings and was named one of the “50 Greatest Vikings” in the franchise’s 50th anniversary season in 2010.
Hill, a California native, played shortstop for LSU from 2001-03, earning Freshman All-American honors in 2001 and first-team 2003 All-American honors and SEC player of the year accolades. He played 13 MLB seasons with Toronto (2005-11), Arizona (2011-15), Milwaukee and Boston (2016) and San Francisco (2017), was an AL All-Star in 2009 and became thefirst player in MLB history to win a Silver Slugger award in both leagues – accomplishing the feat with the Blue Jays in 2009 and D-Backs in 2012. Playing most of his career at second base, he compiled a .986 career fielding percentage
Baton Rouge native Theriot came out of Broadmoor High to play shortstop for the Tigers from 1999-2001. He helped Skip Bertman chalk up the last of his five College World Series titles in 2000 when he scored the walk-off game-winning run in LSU’s 6-5 victory over Stanford. Theriot was named to the CWS All-Tournament team. Playing three infield and two outfield spots, he hit .281 in eight MLB seasons, helping St. Louis win the 2011 World Series and getting another Series championship ring a year later in San Francisco.
Albarado, who died this summer and will be enshrined posthumously, retired from active riding with 5,222 wins (30thall-time) in 2021 after 32 years in the saddle, which started in 1990 at Evangeline Downs. With a .440 in-the-money percentage, his mounts earned more than $221 million, 19th all-time. Albarado won two Triple Crown races — the 2007 Preakness aboard Curlin and 2020 Preakness on Swiss Skydiver — and was in the money on eight other occasions. He had three career Breeders Cup wins and won the 2004 George WoolfMemorial Award.
Wells, a Bossier City native, was inducted in the American Baseball Coaches’ Association’s Hall of Fame in 2023. The Northwestern State graduate and former Skip Bertman assistant ranked among college baseball’s top coaches in a 20-year career at his alma mater (1990-94) and Alabama (1995-2009), going 817-411 (.665) with three College World Series appearances(1996, 1997, 1999), 14 NCAA Tournament appearances (1991, 1994 at NSU, 12 more at Alabama), five conference titles (1991, 1993, 1994 Southland, 1996, 2006 Southeastern Conference), and a spot in the 1997 CWS championship game. Wells transformed downtrodden programs at NSU and Alabama.
Tierney, a head coach for 40 seasons at Archbishop Shaw, West Jefferson and Ponchatoula, is in his 50th overall year of coaching. He entered the 2026 season sixth on Louisiana’s all-time wins list (340-125), six victories shy of fifth. He guided Shaw to its first state title in 1987 (Class 4A) and added another in 2024 (Division II Select) and has seven LHSAA Prep Classic appearances overall — six with Shaw, who hired him as a 25-year-old assistant in 1977. He was elevated to head coach in 1983 and won 12 Catholic League titles with a 185-48 mark in a 19-year stretch (1983-2001).
Ingram was a two-time all-American center who led ULM to the NCAA Final Four in 1985, she was the “Miss Inside” to Eun Jung Lee’s “Miss Outside” on the great Northeast Louisiana Lady Indian teams which compiled a 102-15 record from 1981-86. Ingram, a native Floridian, is ULM’s and the Southland Conference’s all-time scoring leader with 2,601 points and is also ULM’s career rebounds leader with 1,173. An 18-year veteran of pro basketball overseas, Ingram was among the first to play in the WNBA.
The 2027 Induction Class will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum. The facility is operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
The striking two-story, 27,500-square foot structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
The new competitive ballot inductees will raise the total of Hall of Fame members to 411 athletes and coaches honored since the first induction class — Baseball Hall of Famer Mel Ott, world champion boxer Tony Canzoneri and LSU football great Gaynell Tinsley — was enshrined in 1959 after their election a year earlier.
The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame already includes 26 Pro Football Hall of Fame members, 18 Olympic medalists (including 11 gold-medal winners), 15 members of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, seven of the NBA’s 75 Greatest Players, seven National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 45College Football Hall of Fame members, 21 in the Black College Football Hall of Fame, 12 Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductees, 10 Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinees, 10 College Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 10National High School Hall of Fame members, and five National Museum of (Thoroughbred) Racing and Hall of Fame inductees. The LSHOF showcases jockeys with a combined 16 Triple Crown victories, six world boxing champions, four NBA Finals MVPs, four winners of major professional golf championships, and five quarterbacks with a combined seven Super Bowl MVPawards.
Biographical information on all current Hall of Fame members is available at the LaSportsHall.com website, and a steady stream of info is available at Instagram at lasportshall, atFacebook.com/LASHOF and the @LaSportsHall account on X (formerly Twitter) account.
The 2027 Induction Celebration will kick off with a press conference and reception. The three-day festivities include tworeceptions, a free youth sports clinic, a bowling party, and a free riverbank concert in Natchitoches. Tickets for induction events, along with congratulatory advertising and sponsorship opportunities, are available through the LaSportsHall.comwebsite.
Also on the website, anyone can join the Hall of Fame Team, which provides members with exclusive content and priority access while generating financial support for the Hall of Fame museum.
The 2027 Induction Celebration will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was established as a 501 (c) (3) non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board of directors. For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or [email protected], or Foundation Director of Business Development and Public Relations Greg Burke at 318-663-5459 or [email protected], or by calling the Foundation office at 318-238-4255 (HALL). Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
Online ticketing and event information for the 2027 Induction Celebration is available at this link:
www.LaSportsHall.com/Induction27