BATON ROUGE — Former LSU national champion sprinter and Olympic gold medalist Esther Jones is among eight state sports legends to be elected to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as part of the induction Class of 2007.
Jones led the Lady Tigers to four outdoor national championships and two indoor national titles from 1988-91 and finished her four-year career as the most decorated athlete in the history of LSU track and field with four individual national titles, 10 SEC titles and 21 All-America honors.
Jones swept national titles in the 100 meters and 200 meters at the 1990 NCAA Outdoor Championships, while also leading the Lady Tigers’ 4×100-meter relay team to national titles during the 1989 and 1990 outdoor seasons. She anchored the 4×100 team that set a collegiate record in 1990 with a time of 42.50 ? a mark that stands to this day.
The Chicago native followed a prolific collegiate career by representing her country at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, where she won a gold medal as a member of the United State’s 4×100-meter relay team. She also competed for Team USA in the 200 meters and 4×100-meter relay at the IAAF World Outdoor Championships in 1991.
For her many achievements on the track, Jones became just the sixth woman to be honored with the James J. Corbett Memorial Award in 1990, which is presented annually to Louisiana’s top amateur athlete. She was also presented with the Honda Award that same year for outstanding achievement in women’s collegiate athletics.
Also being elected as a part of the induction Class of 2007 are football stars Stan Humphries, Brian Mitchell and Pat Swilling, recently enshrined Baseball Hall of Fame member Willard Brown, women’s basketball pioneer Kim Perrot, Tulane basketball All-American Warren Perkins and Louisiana high school basketball coaching legend Joel Hawkins.
Inductees were chosen by a panel of 30 Louisiana Sports Writers Association members that considered 126 candidates in 22 different sports categories. Their enshrinement will increase membership in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame to 253 men and women since the shrine was established in 1958.
The eight new inductees will be honored June 21-23 during the 2007 Hall of Fame Induction Celebration in Natchitoches, home of the Hall of Fame since 1972, with Brown and Perrot being enshrined posthumously. Recipients of the LSWA’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism and the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award will also be honored.