Grambling’s living legend Wilbert Ellis, a Lincoln Parish icon for years, is headed into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Ellis, whose coaching accomplishments in baseball are just part of his remarkable story, is going in as part of the LSHOF’s Class of 2024.
It is headlined by superstars.
NFL record-setting passer and Super Bowl XLIV MVP Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints joins LSU women’s basketball great and eight-time WNBA All-Star Seimone Augustus along with mixed martial arts icon Daniel Cormier of Lafayette in a star-studded nine-member group of 2024 “competitors” ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
The LSHOF Class of 2024 also includes 1992 Olympic wrestling gold medalist Kevin Jackson, a former LSU All-American, along with Perry Clark, who guided Tulane basketball to unprecedented success in the 1990s, and McNeese football great Kerry Joseph.
Also elected for induction next year are high school football coach Frank Monica, who won state titles at three different south Louisiana schools, and Ray Sibille, a Breeders’ Cup-winning thoroughbred jockey from Sunset who ranks among the nation’s elite as a rider.
The class also includes Ellis, who becomes the second-ever recipient of the Louisiana Sports Ambassador Award. During his coaching career and since, Ellis has made local, statewide and national impact not only in his sports field but also in other endeavors.
The LSHOF’s Class of 2024 will be enshrined at the Hall of Fame’s home in Natchitoches to culminate the 65th Induction Celebration. The dates for the three-day celebration will be announced soon.
A 40-member Louisiana Sports Writers Association committee selected the 2024 inductees. The panel considered 149 nominees from 28 different sport categories on a 35-page “competitors” ballot.
Also spotlighted next year will be three other Hall of Fame inductees, a winner of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award and two recipients of the 2024 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 announced later this year.
The complete 12-person Class of 2024 will swell the overall membership in the Hall of Fame to 492 men and women – athletes, coaches, administrators and sports media members — honored since its founding in 1958.
The Ambassador Award was created by the Hall’s parent organization, the Louisiana Sports Writers Association, and was first presented to network broadcaster Tim Brando as part of the LSHOF Class of 2020. The award honors long-term exemplary contributions to the perception of Louisiana by an individual who has ties to the state’s sports landscape. The Ambassador Award carries membership in the Hall of Fame. The award is not presented annually, but occasionally, as the Selection Committee chooses, said Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland.
“Throughout his life, as a coach and in many ways since then, Wilbert Ellis has been a tremendous representative of our state and his beloved Grambling State University. Our selection committee believes he is the ideal person to be the second winner of the Ambassador Award as a man who has been nationally prominent in his field while constantly benefiting Louisiana through words and deeds,” said Ireland. “Coach Ellis has bolstered our state’s identity and its well-being.”
Ellis, a 2006 American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame inductee, is nationally regarded as one of the country’s finest representatives of college baseball, and beloved by Grambling alumni for his expansive yet now unofficial role at the university. Ellis spent 30 seasons as the Tigers’ head coach and a grand total of 43, including as assistant coach, for the Grambling baseball program.
He retired in 2003 after posting a 743-463-1 record with three Southwestern Athletic Conference titles, five SWAC Western Division crowns and three NCAA Tournament appearances. Ellis was Grambling’s second baseball coach after serving as an assistant to program founder Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones,
He has been a trusted advisor for generations of presidents, athletic directors and coaches at Grambling, and in community and governmental affairs. Ellis was instrumental in the establishment of the Eddie G. Robinson Museum in Grambling, and the school’s Grambling Legends sports hall of fame. He still conducts baseball clinics for kids in Lincoln Parish and serves as an NCAA Regional site supervisor.
