NATCHITOCHES – It was quite the weekend for Tiger Rag Magazine and its editor Glenn Guilbeau at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday night and in the Louisiana Sports Writers Association writing contest on Sunday.
Guilbeau, 63, was inducted into the Hall as a Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism winner along with the late Ed Daniels, a legendary sports television anchor and reporter in New Orleans who passed away at age 66 last year.
Southeastern Conference associate commissioner and former LSU associate athletic director and sports information director Herb Vincent, 63, was also inducted as as the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Administrator Award winner.
Nick Saban first became a great coach in Louisiana, where he returned over the weekend:https://t.co/vw0U8gRK1W
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 30, 2025
Other Hall of Fame inductees for 2025 were LSU football national champion coach and six-time national champion Alabama coach Nick Saban, LSU All-American offensive tackle and Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl champion Andrew Whitworth of West Monroe High, LSU’s most decorated gymnast in history in 108-time winner April Burkholder, LSU national champion boxer Bobby Soileau, Catholic High state champion football coach Dale Weiner, Delgado baseball coach Joe Scheuermann, Louisiana Tech women’s basketball player and WNBA coach Vickie Johnson, NBA player Danny Granger and St. Thomas More basketball coach Danny Broussard.
Then on Sunday, Guilbeau won Columnist of the Year in the LSWA contest. Those who entered the Columnist of the Year category had to include three columns from the 2024 calendar year. Guilbeau’s three entries were from his time as a national columnist at OutKick.com/Fox News before he joined Tiger Rag last September. Two of his columns were on national champion LSU women’s basketball coach and past Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee Kim Mulkey with the other on troubled New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis.
His three winning columns were:
–LSU’s KIM MULKEY OUTCOACHED? CAITLIN CLARK TOO GOOD AND FAST FOR SINGLE COVERAGE
-KIM MULKEY ATTACKS AWARD-WINNING WASHINGTON POST WRITER ON STORY NOT YET PUBLISHED
-THE SAINTS NEED A NEW GM BEFORE THEY NEED ANYTHING ELSE NEW, BECAUSE THIS IS AMERICA
“All we ask of a columnist is to present his opinion, and provide some reasoning behind said opinion,” wrote that category’s contest judge. “This writer gives his readers that and then some — some history, some deft, but not showy word skills, some scene-setting, some perspective, and some humor where warranted. This is truly solid work.”
Meanwhile, Tiger Rag writer Piper Hutchinson placed second in the Breaking News category for her piece on a unique strategy by an LSU campus official.
LSU COMMUNICATIONS OFFICIAL TODD WOODWARD TRIES TO TRADE INFO FOR REPORTER’S SOURCE
The story details how LSU Vice-President for Communications Todd Woodward texted Hutchinson to say that he would provide the information she requested via public records laws, if she gave him the name of an unidentified source in her stories. Hutchinson refused. Woodward was, by law, supposed to deliver the public records to Hutchinson, not strike a deal with her.
“I don’t know what to call it other than disturbing,” public records legal expert Scott Sternberg said in the story.
Placing for Columnist of the Year behind Guilbeau were former Tiger Rag editor Ron Higgins of the Shreveport-Bossier Journal in second, Doug Ireland of the Shreveport-Bossier Journal in third, and Scooter Hobbs of the Lake Charles American Press – honorable mention.
Guilbeau’s column on Loomis’ inadequacies also finished second in the Pro Column category behind Jeff Duncan of the Baton Rouge Advocate/NOLA.com. Duncan’s winning column was also about the Saints, exploring how the organization’s parking issues reflected overall problems under the hood, so to speak.
2nd place column in Louisiana Sports Writers Association contest. Lost to the man @JeffDuncan_ again with his Saints parking column illustrating major issues under the hood.https://t.co/PML9SAqbJC
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 29, 2025
The column by Guilbeau that asked the question if Mulkey was outcoached in the Elite Eight loss to Iowa in 2024 also garnered an Honorable Mention in the College Column category. Hobbs won that one for his humorous lampooning of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry’s stance on the LSU women’s basketball team skipping the national anthem at games.
Guilbeau’s other column on Mulkey ridiculed her uninformed attack on highly decorated Washington Post writer Kent Babb, and that has an interesting footnote. The story that so upset Mulkey before it even came out and that she later threatened a lawsuit over was extremely well received when published last year and did not read as advertised by Mulkey.
STORY THAT KIM MULKEY RIPPED IS PUBLISHED, AND HER CRITICISM MUCH ADO ABOUT VERY LITTLE
In fact, the story was received so well that it recently won one of sports journalism’s best awards – the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) first place. Babb won for best long feature.
His extremely well reported and fair story on Mulkey appears below:
Mulkey referred to Babb as a “sleazy reporter” in a press conference.
For Babb, winning the prestigious APSE first place is not news. He previously won APSE firsts in features categories in 2005, 2010 and 2019. Three of his stories were featured in the exclusive “Best American Sports Writing” anthology in 2013, ‘18 and ’21 and in “The Year’s Best Sports Writing” in 2021.
Babb has also published two widely acclaimed sports books – “Not A Game: The Incredible Rise And Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson” in 2015 and “Across The River: Life, Death And Football In An American City” in 2021.
He wrote the book on Iverson without being granted an interview, which was the case with Mulkey. And that book was a finalist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Babb has been at the Washington Post since 2012 and previously wrote for the Kansas City Star and The State in Columbia, South Carolina.
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