TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
Joe Dean Jr., who followed in his father’s footsteps throughout his career, died on Sunday, August 16, at age 71 after some health issues.
Dean Jr. grew up in Baton Rouge, where his father Joe Dean of Brazil, Indiana, settled after playing basketball for the Tigers from 1948-52. A two-time All-Southeastern Conference player for the Tigers, the elder Dean played pro basketball briefly before getting into business and becoming a marketing executive for Converse, the major athletic shoe company in the 1970s. He settled in Baton Rouge and later became famous for announcing SEC basketball games on regional television and for his signature phrase after a swished basket – “String Music.” Dean then became LSU’s athletic director in 1987 and held that job for 14 years.
Dean Jr. played basketball at Baton Rouge High in the early 1970s as a guard with backcourt mate and childhood friend Jay Dardenne, who went on to become Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State in Louisiana.
“We were the guards,” Dardenne told Tiger Rag. “He didn’t play much defense. He played a lot of offense. I played a lot of defense. Joe could shoot. He was really a great high school player and had a good college career at Mississippi State. We were literally lifelong friends, and our families traveled together on vacations while our kids were little. And we stayed in touch. We were just inseparable.”
Dardenne was to give one of eulogies at Dean Jr.’s funeral on August 24 in Birmingham, where Dean Jr. eventually settled and lived and worked for decades.
“We maintained a friendship as if we were living in the same city, but we’d been separated our whole life after Baton Rouge High,” Dardenne said. “We saw each other regularly and stayed in touch. I grew up with the Dean family, being at their house all the time, just like Ron Higgins.”
Higgins, a Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame sports writer, grew up on College Drive near the Dean home on Ormandy Drive by the Webb Memorial Golf Course and also played basketball at Baton Rouge High in the 1970s.
RON HIGGINS: How Joe Dean Jr. And Joe Dean Helped Me With The Loss Of My Father
“We grew up together, played baskeball together,” Dardenne said. “Joe Jr. and I were very, very close. He was the most upbeat, positive personality type I’ve ever known in my life. He was never down. He was always confident. He was so gregarious and so outgoing and such a positive person. And these last 10 years, he struggled with his health.”
Dean Jr. played at Mississippi State from 1974-76 under coach Kermit Davis, the father of former Ole Miss basketball coach and LSU assistant Kermit Davis, Jr.
Dean Jr. then became a graduate assistant coach along with future LSU basketball coach John Brady at Mississippi State.
The two became friends, and Brady would spend weekends at the Dean home in Baton Rouge. This eventually led to the elder Dean becoming Brady’s chief reference for basketball coaching jobs that ended up with him becoming the Tigers’ head basketball coach in 1997. Dean made the hire.
“It’s hard to explain what the Dean family has meant to me and how my relationship with Joe Dean Jr. has impacted my life,” Brady told Tiger Rag. “And it all started when Joe Jr. and I were graduate assistants together at Mississippi State in 1976-77. We maintained a wonderful friendship all these years. Joe was one of the most positive, most fun and encouraging people I have ever been around. Every time I was around him, I felt better about myself.”
Dean Jr. became an assistant coach at Kentucky from 1977-83 under Joe B. Hall and was on the other side for some famous games between Hall and the Wildcats and LSU coach Dale Brown’s Tigers. Kentucky won the 1977-78 national championship with a 30-2 record (16-2 SEC), but it lost at LSU, 95-94, in overtime on Feb. 11, 1978, even though the Tigers’ five starters fouled out.
Dean Jr. was Birmingham Southern’s basketball coach from 1983-89 and coached at Central Florida from 1989-93.
RIP to a Basketball Legend – Joe Dean Jr
— Christian Schweers (@CoachSchweers) August 17, 2026
My childhood memories are flooded w/ basketball and a lot of those had to do with Coach Dean’s summer camps — “COLONNADE ALL STAR BASKETBALL CAMP AND COUNTRY CLUB, HEY!”
He impacted so many people through his charisma and infectious… https://t.co/KL1tpkzFhT
From 1993-1999, Dean Jr. worked as vice-president for sales and marketing for the Colonnade Group, Inc. in Birmingham and was an SEC basketball analyst, often pairing with Tim Brando. At this time, Brady was the basketball coach at Samford in Birmingham from 1991-97 and stayed close to Dean Jr.
“He always inspired me to be the best I could possibly be,” Brady said. “He truly cared about people and was teh best friend, best husband and best father one could possibly be.”
From 1999-2016, Dean was Birmingham Southern’s athletic director. He always kept up his contacts with LSU, and Dean Jr.’s son Scott worked in LSU’s sports information department in the late 1990s and early 2000s while his grandfather was athletic director. Scott Dean went on to be in private business.
“Joe Dean Jr. influenced many and had a positive impact on everyone he met,” Brady said. “Loved life and loved his family and friends. I am grateful to have been one of those, but I do know he is in a better place now. And he and his dad are having a String Music happy reunion!”
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