BATON ROUGE, La. \u2014 Six individuals who made lasting impacts upon the Fighting Tigers\u2019 esteemed tradition were inducted Friday night into the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony was held at the Manship Theatre in downtown Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n
The 2025 induction class was chosen by the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame Election Board, and it includes men\u2019s basketball coach John Brady, who directed the Tigers to the 2006 Final Four; men\u2019s golf coach J. Perry Cole, who guided LSU to NCAA national championships in 1940 and 1942; gymnast Rheagan Courville Branton, a 23-time All-American and two-time NCAA vault national champion; men\u2019s basketball forward Ronald Dupree, who helped lead the Tigers to the 2000 NCAA Sweet 16; women\u2019s basketball All-American Cornelia Gayden, the most prolific three-point shooter in school history; and women\u2019s basketball All-American Temeka Johnson, the point guard who served as floor leader for LSU\u2019s first two Final Four teams in 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n
Nominees are required to have earned a college degree in order to be considered by the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame Election Board. Brady and Cole were inducted in the Coach\/Administrator category, and Courville Branton, Dupree, Gayden and Johnson were inducted in the Student-Athlete category.<\/p>\n
Brady, a native of McComb, Miss., who was honored as an SEC Basketball Legend in 2018, guided LSU to the 2006 NCAA Men\u2019s Final Four, becoming just the third coach in school history to accomplish the feat. The drive to the Final Four included a win over top-ranked Duke in the regional semifinals.<\/p>\n
Brady, who earned degrees at Belhaven and Mississippi State, coached at LSU from 1997-2008, leading the Tigers to SEC titles in 2000 and 2006, an NCAA Sweet 16 berth in 2000, and the 2006 Final Four bid. He was voted SEC Coach of the Year in 2000 and 2006, and he coached three SEC Players of the Year: \u00a0Stromile Swift (2000), Brandon Bass (2005) and Glen Davis (2006).<\/p>\n
He also coached four SEC Freshmen of the Year at LSU:\u00a0 Torris Bright (2000), Brandon Bass (2004), Glen Davis (2005) and Tyrus Thomas (2006). Brady now works as the color analyst on the LSU Sports Radio Network for LSU men\u2019s basketball games.<\/p>\n
Cole, the LSU men\u2019s golf coach from 1933-43, directed the Tigers to five SEC titles and to NCAA National Championships in 1940 and 1942. His entire LSU career spanned from 1919 \u2013 1960, as he also worked for the university as a math professor, the Dean of Student Affairs and the Director of Student Life.<\/p>\n
Cole was one of the driving forces behind the construction of the War Memorial Tower on the LSU campus, and he helped to create and organize the LSU Athletics Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame in 2012.<\/p>\n
Cole, a native of Galveston, Texas, earned degrees in civil engineering (1912) and mathematics (1926) from LSU, and he was inducted in 2021 into the LSU College of Science Hall of Distinction and the LSU Ole War Skule Hall of Honor. He was a World War I U.S. Army veteran who served as a battalion commander, and he was honorably discharged in 1921.<\/p>\n
Courville Branton, a product of Baton Rouge, was a 23-time gymnastics All-American during her LSU career (2012-15), claiming NCAA vault national championships in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n
She was the SEC all-round and vault champion in 2013 and in 2015, and the SEC beam champion in 2013. Courville Branton was voted SEC Gymnast of the Year in 2013 and Central Region Gymnast of the Year in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n
A four-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll, Courville Branton earned her LSU degree in 2015, and she now works as one of the top sales representatives for GK Elite sport wear.<\/p>\n
Dupree, a native of Biloxi, Miss., played for the Tigers from 2000-03, and he is one of only five LSU players to rank in the school\u2019s career Top 10 in both scoring and rebounding \u2013 the others are Shaquille O\u2019Neal, Rudy Macklin, Bob Pettit and Tasmin Mitchell.<\/p>\n
Dupree was a three-time All-SEC selection and helped lead LSU in 2000 to the SEC regular-season title and an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 berth. He is one of only 16 players in LSU history to accumulate 1,000 points, 200 assists and 100 steals, and he is ranked in the career Top 10 in school annals in points scored (1,726), rebounds (907), games played (129) and double-figure games (88).<\/p>\n
Dupree played six seasons in the NBA, earned an electrical engineering degree from LSU in 2015, and he now works as the General Manager for the Tigers\u2019 men\u2019s basketball program.<\/p>\n
Gayden, a 1995 All-American and a three-time All-SEC selection, is No. 1 on LSU\u2019s career three-point field goals made list with 337, and she is No. 1 in school history for most three pointers made in a single season (105 in 1994-95).<\/p>\n
She holds the LSU record for most points in a game (49 vs. Jackson State on February 9, 1995) and in that contest, she established the NCAA single-game record for most three-pointers (12), a mark that stood until 2018.<\/p>\n
A four-year letterwinner (1992-95), the native of Bogue Chitto, Miss., earned her LSU degree in 1997. Gayden is currently No. 4 on LSU\u2019s all-time scoring list (2,451 points), No. 9 on the school\u2019s career rebounding list (894 rebounds) and No. 5 on LSU\u2019s all-time field goals made list (829 field goals).<\/p>\n
Since the end of her basketball playing days, Gayden has enjoyed a distinguished career in education in the McComb, Miss., school district.<\/p>\n
Johnson, a product of New Orleans, La., was a four-time All-American (2002-05) and the winner of the 2005 Nancy Lieberman Award as the nation\u2019s best point guard. She is No. 1 on LSU\u2019s all-time assists list with 945, a mark that is No. 8 in NCAA Division I history.<\/p>\n
She holds the LSU record for assists in a game (17 vs. Georgia on March 5, 2005) and she posted four 15-assist games during her career. Johnson was an NCAA Regional All-Tournament selection in 2004 and 2005, as she helped lead the Tigers to Final Four appearances in both seasons.<\/p>\n
Johnson, who earned her LSU degree in 2004, was voted the 2005 WNBA Rookie of the Year with the Washington Mystics and won a WNBA championship with the Phoenix Mercury in 2009.<\/p>\n
Johnson founded in 2008 the H.O.P.E Foundation in Louisiana, which provides inspiration to families and communities to help them lead a more emotionally healthy lifestyle. H.O.P.E. provides the tools necessary to increase self-esteem, physical activity and a unified community spirit.<\/p>\n
2025 LSU Athletics Hall of Fame Induction Class<\/p>\n
John Brady \u2013 Men\u2019s Basketball Head Coach (1997 \u2013 2008)
\nJ. Perry Cole \u2013 Men\u2019s Golf Head Coach (1933 \u2013 1943)
\nRheagan Courville \u2013 Gymnastics (2012 \u2013 2015)
\nRonald Dupree \u2013 Men\u2019s Basketball (2000 \u2013 2003)
\nCornelia Gayden \u2013 Women\u2019s Basketball (1992 \u2013 1995)
\nTemeka Johnson \u2013 Women\u2019s Basketball (2002 \u2013 2005)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BATON ROUGE, La. \u2014 Six individuals who made lasting impacts upon the Fighting Tigers\u2019 esteemed tradition were inducted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16079,16076,16080,16078,85,46,630,16077,16075,16073,16074,17760,23284,105,23283],"class_list":["post-26539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-athletics","tag-geaux-tigers","tag-gymnastics","tag-homepage-feature-headline","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-latest-news","tag-louisiana","tag-louisiana-state-university","tag-lsu","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-men-s-basketball","tag-men-s-golf","tag-sports","tag-women-s-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}