Hall of Fame Nominations

• The 1995-96 Loyola University New Orleans women’s basketball team was the first women’s hoops squad at the school. This iteration of the Wolf Pack didn’t have any scholarship athletes, and some had little if any experience playing high level basketball prior to attending Loyola. The team would occasionally have just seven members available for games. It finished with a record of 1 win and 22 defeats.
• In a Maroon article re-examining the inaugural season, co captain Clancey Coffin said the 1-22 record stemmed from inexperience and struggles that are endemic to starting something new. No positions on the squad had any roster depth, said then-coach DoBee Plaisance, who left a successful high school coaching career to become Loyola’s first women’s basketball coach.
• Those in favor of inducting the team argue that – despite the lack of on-court results – the team laid the foundation for what eventually became one of the best programs in Loyola’s modern athletics era. All of the program’s various conference titles and its national tournament runs came in the wake of this team’s struggles. They also came after the school began offering athletic scholarships.
• Perhaps the best way to illustrate the impact athletics scholarships had on the competitiveness of the program this team launched is this: Plaisance’s teams were 60-172 (a winning percentage of .259) before Loyola began giving scholarships to women’s basketball. When scholarships arrived in 2004-05, they were 83-35 (.703) until Plaisance’s departure in 2007-08.
• Nominator Shanna McDonough Miranti, a member of this squad, says the team’s “impact lives on – not only in the wins that followed, but in the opportunities they created for future generations of female student-athletes. They were pioneers in every sense of the word, and their legacy deserves a permanent place in Loyola history ... for their vision, courage and foundational role in women’s athletics” at the university.

Nominated by Shanna McDonough Miranti. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• The only statistics which could be found for John Bordes while playing baseball for Loyola University New Orleans was for the 1969 campaign. The Wolf Pack went 15-11.
• Bordes, described by The Maroon as a pinch hitter, appeared in 12 games. He got three singles in 12 at-bats for an average of .250. He scored one run and had no RBI.
• The Wolf yearbook described Bordes as a reserve on the 1968 team which was trying to get back on track after Loyola’s first losing season since the second world war.
• Having consulted him for this entry, Hall of Fame commissioner member and baseball historian Derby Gisclair says that Bordes “did not play very long,” and many in the New Orleans community associate his career with that of other members of his family who were successful players in their own right.

Nominated by Michael Bordes. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Paige Carter etched her name into a number of entries in the Wolf Pack athletics record books while emerging as an All-America selection in at least seven events as a member of a Loyola University New Orleans women’s swimming program that she helped start. She was a two-time national runner-up and a two-time conference champion as she proved herself to be one of the best Wolf Pack swimmers ever.
• At the time of her nomination, she held four individual program records: for the 500-yard freestyle (5:04.27), 1,650-yard freestyle (17:40.61), 200-yard backstroke (2:23.03) and 400-yard individual medley (4:30.08). She set the 500-yard and 200-yard marks at the 2018 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championship meet. She set the 400-yard and 1,650-yard marks at the 2019 and 2020 NAIA championship meets.
• Carter also had a hand in setting two team relay records, both at the 2018 NAIA championship meet: 800-yard freestyle (7:47.05) and 400-yard individual medley (3:59.13).
• She was All-America in three events at the 2019 meet and four events at the 2020 meet, according to program records.
• She was national runner-up in the 400-yard individual medley in 2019 and 2020. Nationally, she was also a fourth-place and sixth-place finalist (1,650-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle, respectively) in 2020 and an eighth-place finalist (500-yard freestyle) in 2019.
• Carter’s performance in the 500-yard freestyle at the 2018 NAIA national championship meet was good for third place, securing her a spot on the podium. Not only did Carter’s overall performance at the 2018 NAIA championship meet net her a total of five school records – three individually and two team marks. It also helped the Wolf Pack women’s swimming team finish sixth at the meet. “The team’s performance ... was huge,” Carter later told the Maroon. “I just can’t believe it. I’m speechless.”
• Her team also finished sixth and eighth in the 2019 and 2020 national meets, respectively.
• Carter won two Mid-South conference championships in 2020: for the 1,650-yard freestyle and the 400-yard individual medley. She was a fourth-place finalist in the 500-yard free at that conference championship meet.
• Professionally, she has worked as a recruiting consultant since graduating and is based in Tampa, Florida.

Nominated by Kamy Alexander. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• In two seasons as a member of the Loyola University New Orleans men’s basketball team from 2015 to 2017, Johnny Griffin Jr. was twice an All-America honorable mention and arguably has a case to be considered the most able rebounder in the program’s history.
• The 6ft, 5in guard/forward collected 606 rebounds over 62 games for the Wolf Pack (225 were offensive and 381 defensive) . That was good enough for ninth on the program career list. Compellingly, his average of 9.77 rebounds per game is highest among those in the top 10 on the career rebounds list. The only other Loyola men’s basketball player to average more than nine rebounds per game was Brian Lumar (9.28), a 2019 Wolf Pack Athletics Hall of Fame inductee.
• Griffin Jr.’s 319 rebounds during the 2016-17 campaign are tied for third-most in a season with Myles Burns (2018-19), who helped the 2021-22 team win the second national championship in school history. Only the 329 rebounds from Burns and the 334 from Burns’ fellow national champion Zach Wrightsil – each in the 2021-22 season – are ahead of Griffin Jr.’s 2016-17 campaign with respect to boards in an individual season.
• The 57 steals Griffin junior had in 2016-17 were the ninth-most in a season at the time of his nomination. And his 68 blocks during his time at Loyola were the ninth-most in a career.
• Griffin Jr. averaged 15 points per game in his first year with the Wolf Pack and 14.3 in his second season as Loyola went 39-23 over that stretch. A 22-10 record during Griffin Jr.’s second season at Loyola qualified Wolf Pack men’s basketball to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ postseason tournament for the first time in 71 years (the team lost in the first round).
• He transferred to Loyola after two seasons at Chicago State. He turned professional after his second season at Loyola, signing for the Windsor Express of Canada’s National Basketball League.

Nominated by Cam Dumas. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Alexis Hazard had one individual career top 10 finish for the Loyola University New Orleans women’s golf team. It was in 2016.
• She was part of a team that won Loyola the Tennessee Wesleyan University Bojangles Spring Invitational in March 2017. In program records, it is the earliest listed team win. Hazard shot a 174 (+30) and tied for 28th individually at that tournament.
• Hazard was a two-time National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Daktronics scholar athlete while playing women’s golf for the Wolf Pack from 2013 to 2017. She collected a Southern States Athletic Conference champions of character team selection in 2014. She also was a conference all-tournament team selection in 2014 – and made the conference all-academic team twice.
• She is proprietor of Hazard’s Golf Lessons in Helotes, Texas.

Self-nominated. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Christopher Joseph Jr. was a starter in 18 games during his four-year career with Loyola University New Orleans men’s basketball program – 15 of which were during his senior year in 2011-2012.
• Statistically, his best season was his senior campaign: 6.9 points per game, 3.4 rebounds per game, 2.3 assists per game and a free throw conversion percentage of .794. He tied a career high 18 points that season.
• For Joseph’s senior campaign, Loyola went 20-10 and finished first in Southern States Athletic Conference’s West division – though it missed the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics postseason tournament after going 1-1 in the SSAC tournament. It also endured a close, 70-68 defeat to neighboring Tulane University in a grudge match Loyola has not come closer to winning in a long time.
• Loyola went 68-52 during Joseph’s time with the Wolf Pack.
• He is now an associate at the Baton Rouge office of the Adams & Reese law firm.

Nominated by Lee Slan. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• As a member of the Loyola University men’s track and field team, Christian Lynch won an outdoor Southern States Athletic Conference championship in the long jump as a sophomore in 2015. He earned an all-conference selection from the SSAC for that victory – and, at the time of nomination, he held four school records, making him one of the most successful track and field athletes at Loyola in the Wolf Pack’s modern track and field history.
• Lynch’s conference title-winning long jump measured 22ft 11in, or 6.98 meters. That was just .02 meters short of a school record that he had set as a freshman.
• Individual school records he owned at the time of nomination: outdoor 100 meters (10.76 seconds, set at the 2015 Longhorn Invitational), indoor 55 meters (6.55 seconds at the McNeese State Invitational), and the indoor long jump (6.92 meters set at the UAB Vulcan Invitational). For context, those results respectively placed him 21st, fifth and fifth among the various events’ field of competitors.
• He also owns a share of a team record: outdoor 4x200-meter relay (1:31.66, set at the 2015 McNeese State Invitational). That foursome finished in seventh place in that event.
• Other notable finishes at the outdoor SSAC level: a long jump runner-up at 2016 meet and a third-place finish at the event in the 2014 meet. At the 2014 meet, he was part of a runner-up 4x400 team while also finishing second in the triple jump.
• In 2016, Lynch gained recognition as SSAC field athlete of the week. It would take until 2021 for another men’s field athlete to win an SSAC field athlete of the week honor.
• Lynch’s senior season was badly affected by a knee injury, the Maroon recently reported. At the SSAC meet, he finished 10th in the 100meter, fourth in the 4x100-meter relay and registered no mark in the long jump.
• He is now a photographer, videographer, marketing specialist and creative specialist based in his native Baltimore.

Nominated by Leah Banks. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Don Moreau owns the record for most wins by a Loyola University New Orleans baseball coach: 252. The program recorded those victories from 1991 – when the university reinstated intercollegiate athletics after putting it on hiatus in 1972 – to 2002.
• In Moreau’s final season, the Wolf Pack clinched the first league title in the modern era of Loyola baseball by winning the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference tournament. The only other time the baseball program had managed to win a conference tournament title at the time of Moreau’s nomination was in May 2025. Moreau earned distinction as conference coach of the year that season. And he was the Louisiana Sports Foundation’s college baseball coach of the year for that campaign.
• The 2002 team also collected the first of the five post-reinstatement national tournament appearances recorded by Wolf Pack baseball as of the time of Moreau’s nomination. That squad won 30 games and lost 33 overall, going 17-13 in its league.
• Moreau has also lost more baseball games coaching Loyola baseball than any other Wolf Pack coach in program history, whether in the modern or antique eras: 354. His winning percentage of .416 is fourth all-time among Loyola coaches – trailing antique era Hall of Fame inductee predecessors Jack Orsley (.721, 142-55 overall) and Louis “Rags” Scheuermann (.650, 234-126 overall). Scheuermann is second all-time on the wins list for Loyola baseball coaches behind Moreau.
• Moreau’s 2000 Wolf Pack baseball team went 35-22 and set a program record for most victories in a season at the time. That squad produced the first Wolf Pack baseball player to be selected in the Major League Baseball draft during the modern era: 2012 Hall of Fame inductee David Lindsey. The 2000 team’s wins record stood until the 2021 team went 36-15. From 2022 until Moreau’s nomination, Wolf Pack baseball had seasons of 36, 37 and 42 victories.
• Prior to arriving at Loyola, Moreau led a local American Legion baseball team to several division and district championships. He was division coach of the year and was a Louisiana finalist for the US baseball federation’s state coach of the year.
• Moreau was fired shortly after the 2002 conference title. He filed a federal lawsuit against Loyola alleging age discrimination as well as seeking damages and money he claimed was owed to him. The case was later settled out of court for undisclosed terms.
• Moreau’s sons are: David Moreau, distinguished coach and athletic director at New Orleans Jesuit High School; Doug Moreau, press box announcer for the New Orleans Saints; and Daryl Moreau, a former Tulane University basketball star.

Nominated by Ryan Mahoney. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• At the time of her nomination, Brooke Surette had scored the sixth-most points in a career for the Loyola University New Orleans women’s basketball program. She scored 1,642 points in 116 games – an average of 14.1 points per game – during a four-year career beginning in 1996, in the second year of the program’s existence.
• She is the only player in the program’s top 10 in individual career scoring to have played in the 1990s. The five Wolf Pack women’s basketball players to have outscored her over the course of a career all have been individually inducted into the university’s athletics hall of fame: Trenese Smith, Kiely Schork, Keiva Council, Jasmine Brewer and Trenell Smith.
• Surette proved to be a bright spot during some of the Wolf Pack women’s basketball program’s leaner, early years. The team went 36-76 during her time at Loyola. Its most successful season was when Surette was a junior, when it went 13-17 overall and posted a respectable home record of 9-4. That team was the first in program history to qualify for a postseason conference tournament (it lost in the first round).
• She earned conference freshman of the year recognition for her first season on the Wolf Pack, when the team finished 6-22. She averaged 19.9 points and 9.3 rebounds per game that campaign. The Maroon reported that she was the only freshman on the all-conference team that year and was ranked 17th nationally by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
• Surette told the Maroon she would have traded all those freshman accolades for more team success. “Regardless of what I get it doesn’t really matter – if we were winning more games, I’d feel I was getting the job done,” Surette said to the student publication at the time.
• She later worked as an assistant coach for the Wolf Pack women’s basketball team, then coached by future Hall of Fame inductee DoBee Plaisance.
• Information online suggests Surette now resides in Kansas City, Missouri, and has worked in sports training as well as for an employee-owned contact center.

Nominated by Darin Chin-Aleong. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• As a freshman for the Loyola University New Orleans men’s basketball team that won the program’s first-ever national championship, Tommy “T.J.” Whittaker scored the third-most points (254) and made the third-most field goals (120). Both tallies, of course, were from before the three-point line existed.
• The Wolf Pack went 25-5 in what turned out to be Whittaker’s only season at Loyola, including going 4-0 at the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball’s postseason tournament in Kansas City to emerge as the competition’s champion in March 1945.
• The only two players to outscore Whittaker on that team have been individually inducted into the Wolf Pack Hall of Fame: Leroy Chollet and Jim “Red” Hultberg. Their team members all publicly credited Whittaker with being the most important, on-court contributor to that team outside Chollet and Hultberg – in essence completing that historic squad’s “big three.”
• At one point that season, a particularly physical opponent threw Whittaker into a gym wall, hurting his shooting arm and knocking him out of the game early. Chollet hurt his back that game and also did not finish the contest. Loyola lost that game, illustrating how much the team needed them. Further frustrating Whittaker is that his scoring cooled for stretches after the cheap shot that injured him.
• Like Whittaker, Chollet left Loyola after one season. The team evidently missed both of them, making a run to the national semifinals in 1946 but falling there and losing the opportunity to repeat as champions.
• Loyola would not win another national title until the men’s basketball team returned to Kansas City in March 2022 and captured the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championship.
• Whittaker arrived at Loyola having led New Orleans’ Jesuit High School to city and state basketball championships in 1944, earning him all-Louisiana honors.
• After his lone season at Loyola, Whittaker coached the American Legion baseball team at Jesuit to city, state and regional championships. Whittaker had also won championships on that baseball team as a player. He later played professional minor league baseball as well as semi-pro basketball for a team known as the New Orleans Sports.
• A shoulder injury ended Whittaker’s athletics career. For a time, he made a living working three jobs: delivering and picking up linens from restaurants, performing quality control at New Orleans’ Falstaff brewery, and coaching at Stallings Playground near the city’s Fair Grounds thoroughbred racetrack.
• Whittaker eventually co-founded the well regarded Lake Castle Private School, which has grown to have campuses in New Orleans’ Little Woods section, Slidell and Madisonville. He also worked at the school as a mathematics teacher and its athletics director before his death from an apparent heart attack at his home in 1991.
• Survivors of Whittaker included two sons, a stepson and his widow, Patricia. Some may remember his granddaughter, Rachel Whittaker Jones, for her work as a journalist covering the New Orleans Saints and other local sports teams.

Nominated by Ramon Antonio Vargas. Compiled by Vargas and Felix Gaudin.

• The 1999 Loyola University New Orleans track and field team won the first-ever Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC) championships for the school’s athletics program. Both the men’s and women’s squads won the league team titles at Tad Gormley Stadium on April 24 of that year, at last breaking a three-season streak of finishing second place to Southern University of New Orleans (SUNO).
• At the time of nomination, two members of the team that year set school records which still remain on the books: Brian Mailey with a pole vault of 3.05m, and 2008 Wolf Pack Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Sean Fitzwilliam with a time of 10 minutes, six seconds in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Fitzwilliam’s time of 33 minutes, 52 seconds in the 10,000 meters remained the fourth-fastest in program history – and the only one on the top five fastest such times from before 2019. [Note that these are records from the period after Loyola reinstated its intercollegiate athletics program in the mid-1990s after a two-decade hiatus.]
• In the interest of complete disclosure: Loyola that year sent athletes from other sports to participate in and complete events to which its opponents did not send as many athletes. Loyola would score points for each finish regardless of how high that finish was – and the added depth meant the Wolf Pack would get more points than its opponents for an event even if the athletes scoring those points did not contend. “The numbers definitely contributed to us winning,” said team member Elizabeth Moore, who finished fourth in the women’s 10,000-meter run behind two squadmates.
• Loyola sent several basketball players to the GCAC championship meet that year, and they provided depth that propelled the Wolf Pack to the top of the rankings in both the men’s and women’s team competitions. Nonetheless, at that championship meet, several of those crossover athletes did win events. Freshman Jodie Clements won the javelin; junior Meghan McNama took the shot put; freshman Altreca Stark won the long jump; freshman Jennifer Labiche won the women’s discus; and junior Brooke Surette captured first in the high jump as well as the 100-meter dash. On the men’s side, senior Martin Morse won the long jump, high jump and triple jump. Josh Garnier won the 100-meter dash. Both were crossovers. The aforementioned Fitzwilliam won the 3,000-meter steeplechase as a junior, and Chris Kelley took first in the 5,000-meter run.
• Ultimately, Loyola’s men’s team overwhelmed its counterparts from the University of Mobile 87-27. The Wolf Pack women defeated the same school 78-26. SUNO was unable to field a team for the championship meet. The GCAC honored the Loyola track coach at the time, Steve Kalbaugh, as coach of the year for a third consecutive campaign. “We are very proud of the team’s victory and with our new sports members performances,” Kalbaugh said after the contest, according to the Maroon student newspaper. Asked by the Maroon for a comment about Kalbaugh, Kelley said that the coach primarily “was able to get people out there – it’s getting someone to participate in any event and that’s points”.

Nominated by Andre Belanger. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Daria Delfino chipped in massive contributions to what was Loyola University New Orleans women’s golf’s first and – at the time of nomination – only conference championship in 2019. That year, she also helped Loyola to a ninth-place national finish, a program best.
• She was the first player in the history of women’s golf to earn recognition as a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics First Team All-America selection. Only one other player in program history has managed to earn such an honor.
• Delfino collected three tournament wins during her career at Loyola. That is tied for the most in program history. She is only one of two players to have more than a single tournament win for the Wolf Pack. Delfino also has the fourth-most top five and top 10 tournament finishes (nine and 13, respectively).
• A fourth victory worth mentioning came shortly after Delfino graduated from Loyola. In August 2019, she won the Rhode Island Golf Association’s Women’s Amateur Championship as the contest’s third seed. The Ocean State native had pursued that title three times previously but came up short. “This tournament is The Masters of Rhode Island women’s golf,” Delfino told the Providence Journal newspaper at the time. “I was happy that I had my best.” Delfino’s breakthrough at the RIGA tournament came one day after learning her grandmother had died. Physically, Delfino was also battling through shoulder and neck pain, having undergone a regimen of physical therapy, according to the Provide Journal.
• Delfino’s senior year is her calling card to most at Loyola. To help Wolf Pack women’s golf make history by taking its first Southern States Athletics Conference championship, Delfino finished second overall individually, going four over par for a team-best score of 220 at the Cambrain Ridge course in Greenville, Alabama. She earned selection to the all-conference tournament team – her sixth all-tournament team selection that season.
• A little more than a month later at Oklahoma City’s Lincoln Park course, Delfino went +5, 293 to help power Loyola to a No. 9 finish at nationals. At the time of nomination, that remained the program’s best team performance at nationals. She also tied for 13th place in what is the second best individual finish at nationals in program history.
• When nominated, Delfino’s individual performance at nationals in 2019 remained the program’s best 72-hole tournament score and 72-hole tournament score to par. It is also the program’s best national tournament score and third-best national tournament score to par.
• Delfino capped off her exceptional senior campaign by securing a spot on the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s all-state team. She joined three women’s golfers from LSU and one from UL-Monroe, leaving her as the only selection to not come from an NCAA Division I program.

Nominated by Camal Petro and Garrett Lacour. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• While pitching for the Loyola University New Orleans baseball team as a sophomore in 2014, Kevin Lindsey posted what was the program’s lowest earned run average in an individual season since the school relaunched intercollegiate athletics: 1.65. No other Loyola pitcher has posted an individual season ERA lower than 2.11.
• In a notable performance that season, Lindsey was named LSWA’s Pitcher of the week. In a mid-week game against UNO Lindsey pitched one inning and went scoreless. Just a few days later he pitched a complete game seven inning shutout. For the week, he threw eight shutout innings while only giving up four hits. This performance earned Lindsey his sixth win of the season against Emmanuel College and secured the Wolf Pack's first winning campaign since 2002. Loyola went 26-24 that year (including 18-11 at home), its last winning campaign until 2020.
• At the time of his nomination, Lindsey’s career ERA of 3.10 was the program’s second-lowest among modern Loyola pitchers. He had thrown for the third-most career wins, too: 22. He also had logged what was tied for the program’s second-most innings pitched (325) and what was tied for the sixth-most strikeouts (171) in a career.
• Lindsey held the program’s lowest career ERA mark for five years.
• The 2.71 ERA that Lindsey posted as a junior in 2015 was the program’s eighth-lowest in a season.
• Lindsey’s sophomore campaign was the only winning season Loyola’s baseball team recorded during his career. The Wolf Pack went 16-39, 23-28 and 22-33 during his freshman, sophomore and senior seasons, respectively. Overall, Loyola went 87-124, or won about 41% of its games, during Lindsey’s career with Wolf Pack baseball.

Nominated by Joel Buhler. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Dr. J. Donald Persich practiced family medicine from 1952 until his retirement in 2003. The family of Wolf Pack Athletics Hall of Fame baseball coach Louis “Rags” Scheuermann described Persich as the Loyola team physician from 1960 to 1972, when the university suspended its intercollegiate athletics program for about two decades.
• One anecdote in the Maroon student newspaper illustrates his closeness to Scheuermann. An intramural boxing meet that Scheuermann organized at Loyola in 1964 endured a 45-minute delay because Persich, the attending ring physician, had to help a new mother deliver a baby boy – and he was running late. The event only commenced once Persich arrived.
• Before arriving at Loyola, Persich served in the US Army’s 69th Division as an infantryman during the second world war, according to New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper. He earned the Combat Infantry Badge and two Battle Stars. He later also received the St. Louis medallion given by the Archdiocese of New Orleans to a layperson who has provided outstanding service to a local church or ministry.
• Multiple obituaries in the Times-Picayune provide him special thanks for taking care of the deceased person who was the subject of the write-up, a clear indication of his stature among members of the New Orleans community.
• Perisch died on February 27, 2024, at age 99. His survivors include his wife, six children, 17 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, and his brother.

Nominated by the Scheuermann family. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• In the infancy of Loyola University New Orleans’s golf program, John Donovan O’Connell represented the Wolf Pack at the 1956 NCAA championship. O’Connell described in a number of places as a “one-man team.” Houston won the team championship for that tournament, and the individual titleist was Rick Jones of Ohio State, who hosted the competition.
• He finished second that year in the New Orleans Country Club Invitational golf tournament. At age 19, he finished second only to former National Basketball League player Dale Morey, an LSU alum who was a talented amateur golfer and who was about 39 years old at that time.
• That year, O’Connell won a number of relatively minor trophies as he played in seven states and collective wins over Eddie Merrins, a PGA pro who had been the NCAA runner-up in 1952 and had won SEC titles in 1953 and 1954; Alex Welsh, who won a Big Ten title and once finished fourth in an NCAA tournament; and New Orleans city champion Buddy Majors.
• O’Connell for the most sustained his level in 1957. The Wolf yearbook said he held the team’s number one spot over fellow Loyola golfer Walter Escarra as the squad held “a fair season”. As the Wolf put it, “the Pack pulled a few out of the hat, although some did get away.”
• Later, in 1958, O’Connell came close to a course record at Audubon Park’s links. He shot a 62 – four under par – as Loyola defeated Illinois Wesleyan in a duel. It was his personal best.
• The native of Fort Worth, Texas, recalled representing Loyola at an SEC championship at one point, even though the university’s athletics program didn’t belong to the league. It speaks to the level of respect he commanded during his time at Loyola.
• The executive director of the PGA’s Gulf States section, Robert Brown, assures the Hall of Fame commission that O’Connell’s name resonated among the Louisiana golfing community during the early part of Brown’s career as a young pro. He said O’Connell’s “name and game both were synonymous with all the attributes of golf: honesty, integrity, sportsmanship and respect, just to name a few.”
• O’Connell studied business at Loyola and eventually obtained a degree from the university’s law school. He lives in Metairie with his wife, the former Denise Ducasse, and has four daughters as well as 13 grandchildren.

Nominated by Kathy Gros. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• Suzi Ruiz contributed a ton of service aces, assists and digs to Loyola University New Orleans women’s volleyball teams that won three consecutive conference championships from 2000 to 2002 under the command of Wolf Pack Hall of Fame coach Greg Castillo.
• The 2001 and 2002 teams of which Ruiz was a part won consecutive regional championships and secured consecutive invitations to the NAIA national tournament. In 2018, Ruiz and her 2002 teammates became the first volleyball team enshrined in the Wolf Pack Athletics Hall of Fame.
• She holds the program record for most service aces during a career (310). And she produced what the seventh-most digs for a Wolf Pack career (1,505).
• The 108 service aces Ruiz accumulated in 2001 were the program’s most for an individual season. And the 92 service aces that Ruiz delivered in 2002 are tied for the second-most in an individual season for the program.
• Ruiz has more career aces than Wolf Pack Hall of Fame inductees Samantha Worsham, Mary Seals, Maggie Schaefer and Gina Gill.
• Ruiz’s 4,907 career assists are the second-most in program history. She recorded the third-most, sixth-most and seventh-most assists in an individual season in program history (1,330 in 2002; 1,233 in 2001; and 1,210 in 2003).
• The 1,505 digs that Ruiz logged during her career were the seventh-most in Wolf Pack volleyball history.
• Loyola volleyball won 94 matches and lost 52 during Ruiz’s time with the Wolf Pack. That equates to a winning percentage of 64%. Her final three seasons were all winning campaigns, as the the Wolf Pack won 81 of its 119 matches.
• Ruiz earned selection to the all-region team from 2000 to 2002 and earned three all-conference selections beginning in 2001.
• She has been a longtime coach at the Crescent City Juniors volleyball program.

Nominated by Amanda Gilliard Disinger. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• An early 2000s era Loyola University New Orleans volleyball player nominated athletic trainer Sidney Stokes for consideration. A 2002 Maroon article said he was actually an employee of Tulane University, but the neighboring school would share him with Wolf Pack athletics.
• In the nominator’s words: “Sidney was the athletic trainer for all sports at Loyola. He traveled with several teams and provided quality care and support to help combat current injuries and prevent future injuries. Sidney would attend doctor appointments at Tulane and help athletes relay the messages to parents from the appointments. He not only provided care but educated the athletes on sports related care. He built positive, long-lasting relationships with his players that continue to this day. He exemplifies the mission and vision statement of Loyola through his actions and words.”
• Former Loyola cross-country runner and 2013 Wolf Pack Hall of Fame inductee told the Maroon in 2002 that Stokes’s advice was gospel to the athletes whom he treated. He said: “When Sidney tells you to do something, you do it, or else you just aren’t going to get better. That’s the bottom line.”
• The volleyball team of the era won four consecutive conference titles beginning in 1999, two consecutive regional championships beginning in 2001, and earned consecutive NAIA national tournament berths beginning in 2001. The 2002 baseball team also won a conference championship, and runners of the era won the equivalent.
• Stokes said he took an interest in becoming an athletic trainer and treating hurt athletes after a hip flexor injury complicated his high school track career. His athletic trainer at the time gave him bad advice, saying it was a bruise that he just needed to ice. Stokes never properly healed from the improperly treated injury, and it inspired him to enter the athletic training profession and provide better care than he got.
• Stokes was the head trainer for the New Orleans minor league hockey team. He assisted the New Orleans Saints and once even worked for a pro baseball team in Australia, according to the Maroon.

Nominated by Amanda Gilliard Disinger and members of the 2002 volleyball team. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas.

• Temika Lomas won the Loyola University New Orleans female athlete of the year award given out by the Maroon in 1999 for her participation on the school’s soccer, cheerleading and track teams.
• For soccer, she earned an honorable mention for the all-league team put out by the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference, where the Wolf Pack competed at the time. She was a well-regarded fullback on a team that won eight matches, lost nine and tied two (among the most successful squads of the era). She also would occasionally score goals despite her defensive responsibilities.
• Lomas had a hand in the first GCAC championship ever won by a Loyola athletics team. She scored a fifth-place finish in the 200-meter dash and participated in relay events to contribute points for Loyola as the women’s track squad clinched the team title. Their men’s counterparts also won the title.
• But to put the achievement in perspective: Loyola that year sent athletes from other sports to participate in and complete events that other opponents did not send as many athletes to. Loyola would score points for each finish regardless of how high that finish was, and the added depth meant the Wolf Pack would get more points than other teams for an event even if none of its athletes came close to winning. Lomas was one of those depth athletes. At least five other women sent to the championship meet did finish first in their respective events.
• At some point she walked onto the 2000-01 women’s basketball team, which went 4-27.
• After Loyola, her career highlights including her serving as a cheerleader or entertainment team member for Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros, the National Football League’s Houston Texas and the National Basketball Association’s New Orleans Hornets. Her nominator said she’s coached soccer, track and cheerleading.

Nominated by Pierce Presley. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• Loyola University New Orleans’s 1990 baseball squad was a club team whose members in 1991 restarted the team that had been inactive since the extended discontinuation of intercollegiate athletics beginning in 1972.
• The ‘90 team played 36 games with a budget of about $10,000. Ten of the Wolf Pack’s 12 home games were at Tulane’s facility, and the remaining two were played at Kirsch-Rooney stadium in New Orleans’s City Park. Records on the team’s performance weren’t readily available, but in 1991, the baseball team managed to get back into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
• The ‘91 team, coached by Don Moreau, went 5-27.
• The club schedule mostly consisted of junior college teams, including Delgado and Pearl River, and some National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics programs like Spring Hill. Occasionally, once back in the NAIA, the scholarship-less team clashed with NCAA opponents. Of course there was an inherent talent disparity.
• The most productive members of this era of Loyola baseball were Moreau and Kyle Murray. Moreau’s 252 wins from 1991-2002 are the most all-time. His .416 winning percentage is the second-lowest among the five coaches with the most wins in program history. Meanwhile, Murray’s 59 stolen bases from 1991 to 1993 are the fourth-most in a career.
• The nominator argues that the team is worthy of consideration into the Hall of Fame for taking on the struggles of restarting an intercollegiate athletics program which has since won regular-season conference and conference tournament titles.
• Loyola’s first winning baseball season after reinstatement was a 35-22 team in 2000. The 2002 team that won a conference tournament championship and went to the NAIA regional for the first time in school history is in our Hall of Fame.
• Original team members include Humberto Marchand, Eli Velazquez, Danny Moure, Chris Buddendorf, Andre Garsaud, Mickey Gallagher, Mike Smith, Anthony Clark, Patrick Mooney, David Ferguson, Jay Beatmann and Danny Bourgeouis, among others. Velazquez claims credit for creating the first version of the Wolf Pack logo after reinstatement.
• Can’t resist noting that Marchand made national news recently when Hertz apologized to him and pledged to retrain the entire company’s staff after an employee denied the Puerto Rico native a prepaid vehicle in the mistaken belief that he was from a foreign country and needed a passport.

Nominated by Daniel Moure. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• Erin Schwarzbach served as co-captain of Loyola’s dance team her sophomore and junior years before taking over as captain during her senior semesters. Loyola’s dance team at the time was not offered as an intercollegiate competitive program at the time, though it made that transition in 2016 shortly after Schwarzbach’s graduation. Her supporters say she was instrumental in the push for Loyola to offer dance as a competitive athletics program.
• Schwarzbach arrived at a team that had lost its coach and faculty sponsor. The team had qualified for the national championship competition in Daytona Beach, Florida, though the trip never occurred because of the coaching and faculty sponsor loss.
• As co-captain and captain, she is said to have coached and mentored team members while also creating practice schedules, choreographing routines, purchasing uniforms, securing support volunteers for Mardi Gras parades, and working with the athletic department.
• Schwarzbach’s contributions helped her become the first senior team member to be recognized during the Loyola basketball program’s senior night after she’d pushed for the dance team to be treated in the same manner as other recognized sports.
• Late coach Rickey Hill arrived after Schwarzbach’s graduation to serve as the founding coach of the competitive cheer and dance team after it gained recognition as an official athletics program at Loyola. The program won four consecutive conference championships and earned three national championship competition berths before Hill’s unexpected death in 2021.
• Schwarzbach’s supporters argue that her efforts helped make an intercollegiate competitive cheer and dance program a reality, making her worthy of Wolf Pack Athletics Hall of Fame recognition.

Nominated by Indya Bradley. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• The Loyola University New Orleans men’s basketball program hired Jerry Hernandez to be its first head coach after the school had suspended intercollegiate athletics for 19 years. He guided the Wolf Pack to a record of 97 wins and 282 losses.
• Having come from St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Metairie, Hernandez’s most successful campaign on the court was in 1994-95. The Wolf Pack went 15-13 that year, winning a regional championship and a berth to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II tournament just four seasons into the program’s rebirth, which began with an 0-19 campaign. That was Loyola’s first postseason trip since an NCAA tournament appearance in 1958.
• Hernandez and his players on the ‘94-95 team earned induction into the Wolf Pack Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019. Three of the players he brought to that team – Brian Lumar, Ryan Dichary and Scott Thompson – are inducted as individuals. A fourth player recruited to Loyola by Hernandez, Yussef Jasmine, is also inducted as an individual in our institution.
• None of Hernandez’s teams had access to the athletics scholarships that have helped Loyola’s sports teams recruit some of their best talent since they were implemented in 2004. Nonetheless, he amassed a number of wins that at the time of his nomination was the fourth-most in program history, behind Jack Orsley (173), Orsley’s fellow national title winner Stacy Hollowell (166), and Michael Giorlando (127). The three coaches ahead of Hernandez and the one behind him at No. 5 (Bill Gardiner, 74 wins from 1959 to 1966) had access to athletics scholarships.
• That reality gave Hernandez a lot of responsibilities most college coaches don’t shoulder. As former player and assistant Jarrod Kincaid once said: “I saw him do everything from setting up the locker room for whatever we were doing, or ordering T-shirts, or taping ankles, driving the bus here or there, picking up food for the team. I mean, he did everything.”
• Hernandez spent his last five years at Loyola prior to his resignation in 2004 as the athletics director. He helmed the intercollegiate athletics program until right before its rebuilding that was forced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
• After leaving Loyola, Hernandez returned to coaching in the high school ranks. He retired in 2019 after 45 years of coaching and administrating at both the high school and collegiate levels. He’s been giving talks at schools under his Sports Education Experience Brand and has authored two books: “600+ Little Things that Make a Difference for Boys’ and Girls’ Basketball Coaches” and “The Athletic Trinity,” which is about the relationship between players, coaches and parents.
• His son Jonathan and daughter Katie played men’s and women’s basketball for Loyola in the 2000s.

Nominated by Charles Metzger. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• One of the best long-range shooters to represent Loyola, Jarrod Kincaid set a school record for most three-pointers in a career with 213 between 1995-99. It's since been surpassed by one player, Hall of Fame member Luke Zumo.
• Kincaid's 78 three-pointers during the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons for Loyola set school records at the time. Those marks are now tied for ninth when first renominated for consideration to be inducted.
• It appears he is the only player in Loyola history to make seven three-pointers in more than one game. He had two games with seven three-pointers during the 1997-98 season. That tied a school record at the time, but that mark has now been surpassed and tied.
• These first three entries mean that Kincaid, at one point, had the most three pointers in a game, in a season and in a career.
• Kincaid led Loyola in scoring as a junior with 358 points off 124-for-307 shooting (40.4 percent). He was 78-of-186 from behind the three-point arc (a team-best 41.9 percent) and 33-of-39 off free throws (a team-best 84.6 percent). That year, Kincaid was first-team all-conference for a Loyola team that went 2-26. It was one of two all-conference team selections he earned during his career at Loyola, according to information supplied by former Hall of Fame commissioner Renny Simno.
• Kincaid was second-best in scoring (377 points off 130-of-304 shooting) and made the most three-pointers (78) for a 1998-99 Loyola team that was 15-15. That was the best team Loyola had while Kincaid was at the school.
• Kincaid was once middle of the pack on the all-time career scoring list with 1,104 points in 114 games (9.68 points per game), but since first being nominated for induction but not getting in, he’s fallen outside the Top 20 career scorers in men’s basketball program history. He played 114 career games, and Loyola was 32-86 while Kincaid was representing the school.
• He earned selection to a team of the best men's basketball players at Loyola during the first 20 years that the school had reinstated varsity basketball in 1991. He also formed part of the men's basketball coaching staff during the 1999-2000 campaign, when the Wolf Pack went 6-25.
• Include at the request of his nominator: As time has passed some of his records have fallen down the list and prompted the question as to why his candidacy was not viewed in the proper context with intent to be voted into this prestigious athletic company.

Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas. Nominated by Denise Kincaid

• Forward Cameron Hill averaged 5.5 points per game and 3.4 rebounds per game in 57 games played over two seasons for the Loyola Wolf Pack men’s basketball team. The team went 22-36 (including 13-24 in conference play) during his time in the program.
• He was two-time academic all-conference, Academic All-American, Daktronics Scholar-Athlete, National Association of Basketball Coaches Honors Court selection and conference champion of character.
• Off the court, he graduated summa cum laude and was chosen to the National Honors Society.
• He went on to work for ESPN as a coordinating producer and earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding studio show. Through his position on the board of directors for the Tennessee Interscholastic Athletic Administrator Association, he played a key role in clearing the way for athletes to be able to wear religious headwear while competing.
• He was a top 30 under 30 athletic director and received recognition of educator of the year by Phillips 66. He served on the board of directors for Play Like a Girl, a Nashville, Tennessee-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping girls athletic participants land careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, fields that are primarily male-dominated.

Nominated by Cassidy Hill. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas

• In 125 career games, the 5-foot-10 guard accumulated the fifth-most assists (321), ninth-most steals (133), and ninth-most three-pointers (184). At one point his 470 rebounds were top 10. That leaves him top 10 in three statistical categories for a career, and the coach of rival Southern University at New Orleans once said his team might win the NAIA national title if it had Hernandez running the point. 
• The one-time all-conference player was a member of the school's 2000s All-Decade men's basketball team. That was on the strength of his becoming the first player in the modern men’s basketball program’s history to accumulate more than 1,000 points, 300 assists and 400 rebounds in a career. 
• Loyola was 24-107 while Hernandez played for the Wolf Pack. His career predated the offering of scholarships to men's basketball players in the new era of athletics (1991 and onward). 
• Hernandez, the son of former men’s basketball coach Jerry Hernandez, was recognized as Loyola’s male athlete of the year in 2004.
• He was first nominated in 2011. He was re-nominated in 2016 and 2023.

Nominated by Katie Krajcer Hernandez, Luke Zumo and Michael Giorlando. Compiled by Ramon Antonio Vargas and Felix Gaudin.