Tonight at 7 on Louisiana Public Broadcasting (KLTS-TV Channel 24 in Shreveport), viewers statewide can enjoy a two-hour special, “Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame: 2023 Celebration,” recapping the July 27-29 induction festivities for the LSHOF’s Class of 2023.
LPB programming is also available live at www.lpb.org and also with the LPB App.
Two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, four-time WNBA All-Star Alana Beard, LSU football record-shattering receiver Wendell Davis and College World Series champion baseball coach Paul Mainieri are part of a star-studded 12-member group of honorees recently inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Beard and Davis are Shreveport natives.
This LPB sports special, produced in partnership with the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, features highlights from the July 29 induction ceremony and many of the festivities surrounding it. Also included are the induction interviews and profile stories on each of the honorees, plus a look at the newly-added memorabilia to the Hall of Fame Museum in Natchitoches.
“As LPB serves as Louisiana’s storytellers, audiences are used to seeing LPB programs featuring our state’s people, history, and culture,” says Clarence “C.C” Copeland, LPB President and CEO.
“A walk through the Sports Hall of Fame Museum will show you that our state’s contributions to the world of sports is another story worth telling! We are excited to expand our sports programming efforts and what better opportunity than this.”
Along with tonight’s premiere, LPB will encore the show on Thursday, August 17 at 9:30 p.m. and Sunday, August 20 at 5 p.m. After the night of the broadcast premiere, the program will be available for on demand streaming for members with LPB PASSPORT – an extended membership benefit.
Along with Manning, Mainieri, Davis and Beard, the LSHOF Class of 2023 also includes New Orleans native Ron Washington, who managed the Texas Rangers to a pair of World Series appearances and helped the Atlanta Braves win the world’s championship; two-time LSU track and field USA Olympian and world champion Walter Davis; and Slidell native, Tulane great and Chicago Bears two-time Pro Bowl running back Matt Forte.
Also inducted were All-American LSU pitcher Paul Byrd, a 14-year Major League Baseball veteran who made the 1999 All-Star Game; multiple national champion and world class weightlifter Walter Imahara, a UL-Lafayette legend whose story began in a Japanese American internment camp in California during World War II; and retired Baton Rouge-Parkview Baptist baseball coach M.L. Woodruff, whose teams claimed 11 state championships.
Rounding out the Class of 2023: two transformational and highly decorated figures in Louisiana’s sports journalism field, Lafayette writer and editor Bruce Brown and longtime New Orleans Times-Picayune prep writer Lori Lyons.
Visit LaSportsHall.com for more information on the Class of 2023 and all 479 people enshrined in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame since 1958, along with information on past and upcoming LSHOF activities.
