Written by C. Kent Lowe
Composed for the LSWA
As you may recall, Dan McDonald, a member of the Louisiana Sports and College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame, began his feature article on Herb Vincent, who our friend joined in the CSC Hall of Fame in 2021, with three straightforward words:
Where do I begin?
Four years later, Vincent becomes a member of the class of 2025 and is inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as this year’s Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award recipient. Details on the Induction Celebration can be found at LaSportsHall.com. It will take place in Natchitoches from June 26 to 28.
We have identified the ideal recipient by the award’s definition.
The 40-member Hall of Fame selection committee of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association has been presenting the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award every year to a person who has been instrumental in advancing Louisiana’s reputation nationally and internationally as a sports administrator or leader.
It is named in honor of the 1999 LSHOF inductee, a businessman and inventor who is recognized for having played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Caesars Superdome and the acquisition of an NFL franchise in New Orleans, among other sports-related initiatives.
Having stated that, I must pose the following query once more:
Where do I begin?
Or even better, with whom to begin? Who couldn’t share some information on Herb Vincent with you? Individuals such as members of the media, longtime employees in athletics, renowned coaches, and simply friends. Since many of the people here this weekend have worked with or in some capacity in the media that Herb has assisted in overseeing for decades, it is difficult to find someone who hasn’t met or heard of Herb.
He was employed by the renowned Paul Manasseh as an unpaid writer for the student newspaper at LSU. He quickly joined Manasseh’s guys, a sizable group of sports information specialists who have achieved notable success in the media industry.
According to Jimmy Manasseh, Paul’s youngest son and a successful trial lawyer in Baton Rouge who has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court on several occasions, Herb has been one of my closest friends since I first met him in college. I was a high school student. As a freshman, he was one of the first—indeed, the only—people my dad ever allowed to work in the sports information department. My dad noticed that there was something unique about Herb.
Herb was a favorite of Paul Manasseh’s from the start. He was aware of his potential for success in this industry. This Little Rock kid was taken under his wing and taught by him. Everything. It’s simple for this industry to become ingrained in your DNA when you have someone like him who will do that.
Paul was fortunate enough to witness some of Vincent’s accomplishments before his death in 2000, such as Herb’s return to LSU as Sports Information Director, but it was only the beginning.
However, he played for Manasseh during the first season of the USFL with the 1984 New Orleans Breakers and then the Los Angeles Express before going back to his own university. Although they were both excellent sites for training grounds, the teams were never going to be regarded as the most stable in an already unpredictable league.
And that resulted in Vincent’s first of many successful collaborations.
McDonald oversaw a tiny office as the director of sports information at Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana Lafayette), but the single full-time assistant post was unfilled. He provided an opportunity to return to the game after the USFL disbanded.
“I was extremely fortunate to be around him on a daily basis for that one year,” McDonald added. After the USFL ended, he was essentially searching for a place to land, and we just so happened to have a position available. And I exclaimed, “This is fantastic.” This will be truly amazing. Now, I had always known that this was only going to be a temporary situation; someone from the SEC, a bigger university, or anything else would ultimately approach him, or perhaps he would end up in a conference office.
Even though I anticipated that would happen, I still learnt something new every day I spent with him. From him, I took something. I’m hoping he learned something from me as well. But when he was here, we had a wonderful relationship. It was simply incredible. Because he was there and we were going to do some fairly amazing things for a school the size of USL that had the resources that many of these other institutions had, I truly liked going to work every day.
He joined LSU’s staff in 1988 after the SEC communications department called in 1985–86. He rose from assistant to associate vice chancellor for university relations for the whole LSU campus before returning to the SEC staff in 2013.
And as Jimmy Manasseh notes, Herb Vincent is the most respected person in the circles he lives in.
Herbs Former LSU baseball coach and athletics director Skip Bertman, who brought Vincent back to LSU after he had been away from the school for a few years working for a regional sports network, claimed that Vincent was one of the best individuals he had ever employed. What a man. He was extremely skilled at everything he did. He performed tasks for the sporting department as well as the university. He’s quite good. worthy of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I’m very delighted for him and I love him. He is a wonderful person.
According to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Herb’s school background is really helpful in the SEC office at the moment. And I believe that his Hall of Fame contribution and his ability to get to know people, talk to them, and slow them down when necessary are based on the relationships he has developed. I am included in that. And the volume of communications that reached our office after we hired him, acknowledging his media reputation, I believe, further supports his claim to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
However, have we truly explained to you what makes Herb Vincent a leader that everyone admires and gets along with?
Allow me to introduce Glenn Guilbeau, the recipient of this year’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, to discuss this topic. I might add in his own way.
The veteran LSU and SEC beat reporter stated, “He would go out with the writers after the game and we would always have fun.” But he was always professional, even when we did it. He spoke well with writers. He would provide you background information in addition to what he could say on the record. At that, he excelled.
He was very intelligent when it came to studying damage control from other SIDs. When LSU was at its worst in 1989, the 30-year anniversary of Billy Cannon’s run—a legendary moment in Tiger football history—took place. That week, Herb took Billy to the weekly news conference to distract everyone, and instead of discussing the football losses, everyone started making up stories about Billy Cannon. He was really astute in that regard.
Joe Scheuermann, the baseball coach and athletics director at Delgado in New Orleans, is another member of the Hall of Fame Class of 2025 that Herb worked with and became acquainted with throughout the years.
“I first met Herb when we were students,” Scheuermann recounted. He worked at LSU’s sports information office, while I worked at Tulane’s sports information office. We may have initially met at a women’s basketball game, in my opinion. Unbelievably. However, I believe that to be around 1982 or 83. We go back as long as that. As you may imagine, we have been in a relationship for 42 years. He’s been a friend for a very long time, after all.
When I was in charge of the Sugar Bowl’s public relations, we used to hire visiting SIDs to assist us during the week before the event. We were close friends and Herb was always there. It was there that our connection truly clicked. We would spend a week together, he would come in and work, and we were really close.
So now the personal truth. I was a grad student at LSU in journalism when Herb was an undergraduate and like everyone else became good colleagues and great friends. I was covering LSU for the and Paul Manasseh had me work on a few special projects for the office, so I was there a lot. I would eventually return to Shreveport and Herb would graduate and start his journey.
But in the summer of 1988, I got a call from the LSU Sports Information Director. A guy named Vincent called offering me a job as the men s basketball media contact. I interviewed and was offered the position. It didn t really take long to say yes. So if you media types want to blame anyone for the 37 years I ve at times made your life miserable with basketball or football credentials or a myriad of other things, this guy is the man to blame.
But along the way, we ve shared good times and bad. Athletic achievements of the highest form and some lowlights as well. I ve watched him marry a lovely woman in his wife, Jamey, and all of us got to watch a smart, personable kid named Kennedy turn into a kind and beautiful lady.
To have him in our Hall of Fame is a must. To receive the Dixon Award is perfect. I m still not sure what to write, but hopefully this does justice.
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