By Les East
Composed for the LSWA
Athlete Ed Daniels was not inducted into the Hall of Fame.
He wasn’t an administrator or coach inducted into the Hall of Fame.
However, he could have easily been all three.
He possessed the organizational and talent-evaluation abilities of Hall of Fame administrators, the discipline and competitive spirit of Hall of Fame athletes, and the game-planning and people-skills of a Hall of Fame coach.
Furthermore, he was a wonderful teammate.
As a recipient of the LSWA’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, Daniels used all of those skills to create a stellar broadcasting career that led to his posthumous participation in this year’s Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame induction class.
June 26–28 will see the enshrinement of the Class of 2025 in Natchitoches. For details on the event, go to LaSportsHall.com.
After graduating from Loyola University and Archbishop Rummel High School, the New Orleans native started his 47-year broadcasting career in 1977 as a sports intern at WVUE-TV in New Orleans.
With the exception of a stint as sports director at KPLC-TV in Lake Charles (1980–81), he once stated that his career goal was always to work in his hometown. He accomplished this by working as a sports reporter and weekend anchor at WDSU and as sports director at WGNO from 1992 until his death on August 16, 2024, at the age of 67.
“He cared about his city and his city’s sports,” said Joe Scheuermann, head baseball coach and athletic director at Delgado Community College, who is also this year’s Hall of Fame inductee. He knew what the public wanted to see.
Daniels developed his defining role as a result of that pulse. His arrival at WGNO was akin to a talented young athlete joining a new squad that would offer him a nurturing environment in which to grow.
When the manager of the WGNO station suggested creating a half-hour NFL show, Daniels came up with a cleverer but less obvious notion.
Daniels suggested to the station manager that they put on a high school football show. Let’s do something entirely local, unique, and engaging that no one else is doing.
Following this heated discussion within the station, Friday Night Football, which set a new standard for coverage of prep football in Louisiana, debuted in 1992 and quickly became popular.
Daniels co-anchored the program and served as its producer alongside Christian head coach J.T. Curtis, who has now amassed the most on-field wins of any high school football coach in American history.
Curtis has shown to be a reliable commentator, and Daniels had as good a sense of broadcasting skill as his co-anchor did of football potential, despite the fact that the idea of one head coach being given such a forum raised eyebrows, especially at the top of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association.
Daniels’ photographer and right-hand man for Friday Night Football was Robert O. Shields.
Ed was already planning for the following week as soon as the Friday Night Football broadcast concluded, according to O Shields. He was already examining the major matchups that will take place the next week.
Daniels would be on the phone with high school coaches, preparing previews of their upcoming games, scheduling feature stories for the week, and compiling the names of contenders for player of the week and scholar-athlete of the week while O Shields drove the two to cover a Tulane or LSU game the following day.
Once district play started, Daniels would tell his photographers covering games to stay until the end of a close game, especially as the playoffs drew closer.
O Shields remembered shooting at East St. John in Reserve during a district game. As was his custom, Daniels watched the first half and then went back to the station to complete producing the show.
He would occasionally phone to inquire about the status of the game, and when he discovered that it was nearing its conclusion, he urged O Shields to stay. For both of those teams, that River Parish matchup is crucial.
O Shields remained to the very finish of the game, which ended up requiring four or five overtimes.
According to O Shields, he was quite proud of Daniels because it meant a great deal to the locals.
The football show later became a one-hour program due to its popularity, and twelve years ago, it gave rise to Friday Night Fastball, a spring edition that had Daniels and Scheuermann talking about baseball, softball, and collegiate softball.
According to Scheuermann, it’s what people wanted. People want their children to be protected. He knew what people desired.
In 1997, 2014, and 2018, Daniels received the National Sports Media Association’s Louisiana Sportscaster of the Year award. In 2014, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the New Orleans Press Club.
In 2013, he and classmate and lifelong media partner Ken Trahan were inducted into the Rummel Hall of Fame. Daniels revealed to his new buddy that he was an only kid and had recently lost his father when they first met at Rummel in 1975. They quickly became longtime friends.
Like many of his coworkers, Trahan respected and imitated Daniels’ unwavering work ethic. He likened him to NFL coaches who work late into the night and wake up early the next day, week after week, season after season.
Daniels was as acutely aware of his obligation to provide the greatest product he could as any of the coaches he covered.
Daniels treated LSU’s nationally renowned athletic programs as if they were in his backyard, despite the distance between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Similarly, he treated the initiatives in his backyard as though they were nationally renowned despite their lack of national recognition.
Whether it was at a high school outside of the immediate New Orleans area, the Caesars Superdome, the Smoothie King Center, or a number of college campuses across Louisiana, he would find you and tell your story if you were an athlete, coach, or team whose story deserved to be told.
Scheuermann stated that it made no difference how large or small you were—he covered you.
Broadcaster Ro Brown, a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, first met Daniels and Trahan at Loyola. He then worked with Daniels in Lake Charles, at WDSU, and in a number of other locations, most of which involved prep coverage.
According to Brown, he enjoyed the purity of prep athletics. It wasn’t the top athlete, but it was still a game. Even though the 160-pound nose guard is an all-state lineman and would never play in college, he liked the concept of him playing hard. He enjoyed the sense of community and the connections you made with people you might not have made in collegiate or professional athletics.
The high school coaches were liked by him. They were just regular people who accomplished incredible feats. Most of them didn’t act like professional instructors and didn’t have this air about them. You could speak with them. In the store, you noticed them. At the Mardi Gras parade, you saw them. I believe this is the reason he enjoyed prep sports. Covering it was just enjoyable.
On Tuesday at WWL/WSMB, Trahan and Daniels launched a radio sports talk program called Two Guys. They worked together to cover games of the New Orleans Saints, the University of New Orleans basketball team, and the New Orleans Night Arena Football League.
Daniels was a longtime and original contributor to Ken Trahan’s Original Prep Football Report, which began as a Friday Night Football radio complement in 1995. Archie Manning, a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, joined Daniels and Trahan later that year to host The Tailgaters Show, which is currently broadcast on 106.7 The Ticket.
In addition to being a major contributor to what is now Crescent City Sports from 2008 until his death, Daniels started writing a weekly sports column for the Clarion Herald in 2005.
When the station momentarily de-emphasized sports coverage during Daniels’ time at WGNO, he transitioned to news reporter/anchor. By co-hosting the game show N.O. It Alls, which was produced by WGNO and featured trivia on New Orleans subjects, he further showcased his flexibility.
He served as co-tournament director of the WGNO Baseball Classic and the AllState Sugar Bowl National Prep Classic basketball tournament in recent years.
When Daniels was stricken by a heart attack last August he was in California covering Saints training camp. His sense of professional responsibility made him show up even though his employer didn’t.
Following Daniels’ death, it was quickly clear how much of an influence he had on the Louisiana sports community and beyond.
A Kenner playground that is the site of prep football games was renamed Ed Daniels Field and Archbishop Shaw High School renamed its football jamboree The Ed Daniels Classic. Nearly 80 high school football teams wore helmet stickers featuring Daniels initials.
The Saints, LSU and Tulane all memorialized seats in their press areas honoring Daniels. The NFL recognized him at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.
Trahan is establishing a scholarship in Daniels name at Rummel.
In May, Daniel, Trahan and Brown were inducted in the Loyola Hall of Fame as representatives of the school s widely respected Communications school.
The passion that Daniels had for sports and his career was evident in his life away from work.
He was dedicated to his family wife Robin, their five children, Erin, Stephanie, Ryne, Christopher, and Jonathan, and their grandchildren; he sang regularly in the choir at St. Philip Neri Church; and he routinely called the Saturday before Fat Tuesday the best day of the year as he reveled in his ride in the Endymion parade, generously showering friends and strangers alike with some of the most coveted catches of the Mardi Gras season.
After Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson arranged to have Daniels flown home from Los Angeles, O Shields visited his comatose friend at Ochsner hospital, sensing correctly that it would be his final visit.
O Shields stood over him and I thanked him because he taught me not only to be a professional journalist, but now a husband and a father and just an all-around good person. He did that to my life, professionally and personally, and I thanked him for that.
