BATON ROUGE – LSU boxing legend Edsel E. “Tad” Thrash, a two-time NCAA boxing champion for the Tigers, died Monday in Raymond, Miss.
Thrash competed in boxing at LSU in 1949 and 1950 and never lost a collegiate match. Thrash and Wilbert “Pee Wee” Moss each won individual national titles in 1949 to lead the Tigers to a boxing national championship that season. Thrash won the national title in the junior lightweight division by defeating Norm Walker of Idaho.
He then became LSU’s first repeat national champion when he defeated Maryland’s Andy Quattrocchi for the 1950 junior lightweight crown while LSU finished fourth place nationally.
Thrash served as an assistant coach for the LSU boxing team while working toward his Ph.D. in Economics before being named head coach for the final year of the LSU boxing program in 1956. He led the Tigers to a record of 7-1-1 in his only season as head coach.
Thrash later served as LSU’s Director of Alumni Affairs and then Executive Secretary and Director of the Board of Trustees of the State Institutions of Higher Learning for the State of Mississippi.
Thrash is a member of the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame. He and Moss returned together to LSU in 2009, throwing out a first pitch at a baseball game at Alex Box Stadium in celebration of the 60th anniversary of LSU’s 1949 boxing national championship.
Services will be held Friday at the Raymond United Methodist Church in Raymond, Miss., with visitation from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and a funeral service at 11 a.m. followed by graveside services at 2:30 p.m. at Pine Ridge Cemetery in Lake, Miss.