By LENNY VANGILDER, Written for the LSWA
Joe Scheuermann was a 27-year-old assistant baseball coach at Tulane when he came to Natchitoches in June 1990 to present his father, “Rags,” for induction in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Curveballs are a part of baseball, and “Rags” delivered a dandy one that night. During his acceptance speech, he announced his retirement as Delgado Community College’s baseball coach.
Thirty-five years after following in his dad’s footsteps on City Park Avenue and with 1,207 victories on his record, Joe Scheuermann will join his dad to become the fourth father-son combination to be inducted into the LSHOF.
That culminates the Class of 2025 Induction Celebration in Natchitoches beginning Thursday and wrapping up with Saturday night’s induction ceremony televised live on Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Information about the Hall’s seven events over three days is available at LaSportsHall.com.
While most assume it was a done deal that Joe would replace “Rags” at Delgado, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The younger Scheuermann came back to New Orleans and soon met with then-Delgado president Dr. James Caillier. “I don’t want to have this job because I’m Rags Scheuermann’s son,” Joe Scheuermann told his future boss.
Later that summer, he became the second head coach of what is now the oldest junior college program in any sport in Louisiana.
Though the reins had been handed down, it was still hard for the new head coach not to look over his shoulder and in the grandstand. “The first 4-5 years I was more worried about making my dad happy than I was about being a coach,” he said. “I coached too much with exterior emotion. The last two years of his life I started to relax a little bit.”
“Rags” passed away in April 1997, a week shy of his 74th birthday.
Joe Scheuermann was preparing for his 16th season at Delgado when his program – and the entire city of New Orleans – was dealt a body blow named Hurricane Katrina.
The Scheuermanns, with their house and campus under water, evacuated to New Roads. A few days later, in Baton Rouge, he met with Delgado’s chancellor, Alex Johnson.
With the college in financial straits after a lost semester and significant rebuilding costs, the message about the spring 2006 season was simple – “We can’t fund it.” The only way to have a season, and save the program started three decades earlier by his father, was to raise the money himself.
Scheuermann got that program-saving donation from a longtime supporter and friend, and the task of resuscitating a season – and a ballpark, since Kirsch-Rooney Stadium had also been inundated with several feet of flood waters – began.
Said Scheuermann: “The fact we played the year after Katrina is probably my proudest moment. It would have been easy for Delgado not to have athletics, but it made them realize how important athletics is for the college.”
One year later, the Katrina freshman class would lead Scheuermann to his first-ever Junior College World Series, 22 years after “Rags” made his only trip.
Omaha, Nebraska, is the goal each year for LSU and other NCAA Division I programs. On the NJCAA Division I level, it is Grand Junction, Colorado.
“Once we got to the World Series, people bought into our program,” Scheuermann said. “Your kids remember the experience and they pass it down the line … Our expectations became Grand Junction.”
Delgado rattled off three straight trips to Grand Junction from 2014-16 and then returned for a fifth time under Scheuermann in 2023, finishing fifth.
In May 2024, Scheuermann won his 1,178th game to pass the late Tony Robichaux, a 2022 LSHOF inductee, and become the winningest college coach in Louisiana history. But that’s not how he sees it.
“I broke the junior college record for wins in Louisiana,” said Scheuermann, who played at Tulane the same time as Robichaux played at then-USL. “Every game I’ve won was at the junior college level. Tony Robichaux did it at the Division I level. That’s not the same.”
But, he added, “It’s something I will always share with him.”
On April 13 of this year – coincidentally, what would have been “Rags” Scheuermann’s 102nd birthday – Scheuermann registered his latest milestone, career win No. 1,200.
How has he gotten to this point? By being himself and convincing other families to do exactly what he did – starting your path on the two-year college level.
“Nobody understands how beneficial it is to go to junior college as an athlete,” Scheuermann said. “We’ve been able to convince Mom and Dad that Delgado isn’t a trade school.
“I’ve placed over 400 kids in four-year programs and continue to get their baseball skills developed and get their education.”
One of them was Sean McMullen, who played at Delgado in 2011 and 2012 before becoming a two-year starter at LSU.
“You never looked there,” McMullen said of Delgado. “(Scheuermann) sat me down and said, ‘How about you give us a shot … If you come here and perform, I will put you in touch with where you want to go.’ I trusted him.”
McMullen became a Pied Piper of sorts for the Dolphins, helping to recruit many of the key local pieces in the program’s three consecutive trips to Grand Junction.
“I told them, if you want to play (Division I) baseball, come here,” McMullen said. “If you hate it, you can leave and just go to college. But nobody does that. This is family. This is different.”
Not one of Scheuermann’s former players has played a day in the major leagues, which may be even a bigger credit to the coaching job he has done in 35 years.
“We’ve been able to do this with blue collar guys,” he said. “We don’t … recruit nationally.”
Scheuermann already is a member of the NJCAA Baseball Coaches and the All American Amateur Baseball Association halls of fame. Tulane’s athletic hall of fame will honor him in September with its career achievement award.
Joe and “Rags” join the trio of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning; “Dub” and Bert Jones, and Glenn and Billy Hardin as the only fathers and sons enshrined in Natchitoches.
“Archie texted me and said ‘welcome to the fraternity,’ ” Joe Scheuermann said. “When Archie Manning sends you that, it kind of hits home.”
As much as Joe Scheuermann has followed in his father’s footsteps, there’s one thing he won’t do – go on stage at the Natchitoches Events Center and announce his retirement.
“I get asked all the time, when are you going to get out?” Scheuermann said. “I’m 62, I feel great, I enjoy coaching.
“I remember my dad saying, ‘You’ll know when it’s time.’ I really don’t feel it’s time yet. It’s an occupation but I do it more for the kids and the school.”
Contact Lenny at lenny@crescentcitysports.com
