Peyton Manning and Les Miles, two of the biggest names in sports, were among those inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Saturday night in Natchitoches.
In all, 11 honorees joined the hall Saturday.
New Orleans born NFL standout Peyton Manning led the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos to Super Bowl victories and is recognized as one of the NFL's All-time greats.
Manning was selected by the Colts as the first overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft.
He attended Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, and led the Greenies football team to a 34–5 record during his three seasons as the starter.
Manning played college football for the University of Tennessee Volunteers and became Tennessee's all-time leading passer with 11,201 yards and 89 touchdowns and won 39 of 45 games as a starter, breaking the Southeastern Conference (SEC) record for career wins.
Former LSU baseball coach and A-D Skip Bertman hired Les Miles after Nick Saban left for the Miami Dolphins.
"He's the winningest coach in the history of LSU, so he did his job, regardless of the fact whether he ate a piece of grass or misspoke at anytime," said Bertman.
Miles won 77-percent of his games while at LSU, including a national championship in 2007. Manning led the Colts and Broncos to Super Bowl victories and goes down as one of the NFL's All-time greats.
But CEO of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation Ronnie Rantz says the most deserving member of this class may be Danielle Scott, who is a five-time USA Olympic Volleyball Standout and won two medals.
"No US women has ever done that," said Rantz. "And then she played professionally for a long time and was so good in the decade from 2001 to 2010 she was voted as the number one indoor female player in the world."
Former La Tech quarterback Matt Dunigan also entered the state's Sports Hall of fame. Rantz says Dunigan is a 2006 Canadian Football League Hall of Fame inductee.
"He played there 15 years and won a bunch of Grey Cups and he's like the John Maddon of Canadian Football in Canada. He lives in Dallas and flies back and forth every weekend, Canada doing games in studio, he's a big personality," said Rantz.
Peabody Magnet High School basketball coach Charles Smith was also enshrined Saturday. Other highlights of the 2019 class were former Southern Baseball Coach Roger Cador and Leesville's T-Berry Porter who was Louisiana's first professional rodeo cowboy..