Colorful, award-winning Lake Charles sportswriter Scooter Hobbs and widely-acclaimed Pineville broadcaster Lyn Rollins were selected as 2018 recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
The honor, to be made official June 30 in Natchitoches, means Hobbs and Rollins will join the elite 11-person Class of 2018 being inducted in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Hobbs and Rollins were selected from a 22-person pool of outstanding nominees for the state’s top sports journalism honor.
The Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism is the most prestigious honor offered to sports media in the state. Recipients are chosen by the 35-member Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame selection committee based on nominees’ professional accomplishments in local, state, regional and even national arenas, with leadership in the LSWA a contributing factor and three decades of work in the profession as a requirement.
Distinguished Service Award winners are enshrined in the Hall of Fame along with the 411 current athletes, sports journalists, coaches and administrators chosen since 1959. Just 60 leading figures in the state’s sports media have been honored with the Distinguished Service Award since its inception 36 years ago in 1982.
Hobbs and Rollins will be among the 2018 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Dinner and Ceremonies on Saturday evening, June 30, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Dinner and Ceremonies are the highlight of the 2018 Induction Celebration beginning Thursday afternoon, June 28, with a press conference at the Hall of Fame museum at 800 Front Street in Natchitoches. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, and golf entries, will be on sale this spring through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Six-time Pro Bowl receiver Reggie Wayne, 18-year Major League Baseball pitcher Russ Springer, NBA champion and two-time Grambling All-American Larry Wright, and 15-year NFL receiver and two-time Super Bowl champion Brandon Stokley are among the eight 2018 competitive ballot inductees chosen for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
The class also includes championship coaches Lewis Cook (high school football, still active at Notre Dame of Crowley) and Jerry Simmons (LSU, UL Lafayette tennis), along with 1975 Bassmasters Classic champion Jack Hains and the late Paul Candies, a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.
Also honored with enshrinement in the Class of 2018 will be the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award winner, to be announced next month.
The selection of Hobbs and Rollins was jointly announced Jan. 19 by Hall of Fame Chairman Doug Ireland and LSWA president Paul Letlow.
Hobbs has been LSWA Sportswriter of the Year five times and Columnist of the Year eight times. He has won 87 first-place honors in LSWA writing contests, along with 51 seconds and 35 thirds. A former LSWA president, Hobbs has been a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame selection committee for over 30 years.
Rollins, a 1973 Northwestern State graduate, is a protégé of the late Norm Fletcher, the Natchitoches broadcaster who won the Distinguished Service Award in 2010. He succeeded Fletcher as the voice of the Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony and has been a co-host of the long-running CST Hall of Fame Showcase recap of each summer’s inductions.
