Gil LeBreton, John James Marshall are 2026 sports journalism inductees in LSHOF
- lasportswriters
- Jan 7
- 6 min read
NATCHITOCHES – Vastly accomplished sportswriters New Orleans native Gil
LeBreton and John James Marshall of Shreveport have been selected for the 2026
Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers
Association.
The duo will be inducted June 27 in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, LSWA president
John Marcase and Hall of Fame chairman Doug Ireland announced Wednesday.
Both LeBreton and Marshall have been broadly acclaimed by the LSWA and national
organizations. LeBreton is the only person named by the National Sports Media
Association as the top sportswriter in both Louisiana and Texas. Marshall has won a
national award from Associated Press Sports Editors and a large collection of LSWA
honors. Both have won the LSWA “Story of the Year” award.
Marshall continues to make wide-ranging impact primarily in the Shreveport-Bossier
metro area, and also around north Louisiana, for his coverage of sports from the
professional level down to high school and amateur competition, and his long-running
sports talk radio show. LeBreton, a distinguished LSU graduate, began his career as
one of the state’s top young sportswriters in New Orleans and Baton Rouge before 37
years covering top-level sports events for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The DSA honor, to be made official this summer in Natchitoches, means LeBreton and
Marshall will be among an elite 12-person Class of 2026 being inducted in the Louisiana
Sports Hall of Fame. They were selected from a 25-person pool of outstanding
nominees for the state’s top sports journalism honor.
The Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism recipients are chosen by the 35-
member Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame selection committee based on nominees’
professional accomplishments in local, state, regional and even national circles, with
leadership in the LSWA as a beneficial factor and three decades of work in the
profession as a requirement.
Distinguished Service Award winners are enshrined in the Hall of Fame along with the
503 current athletes, sports journalists, coaches and administrators chosen since 1959.
Just 77 leading figures in the state’s sports media have been honored with the
Distinguished Service Award since its inception 43 years ago in 1982.
"Gil and J.J. are two of the top sports journalists in the country and deserving of the
Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism,” said Marcase. "Gil may have made his mark in Texas in the fiercely competitive Dallas/Fort Worth
market, but his Louisiana roots run deep and he continues to return home on a regular
basis. He has not forgotten his home state and he has been a welcome and familiar
sight each June at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame festivities and Louisiana Sports
Writers Association meetings held in conjunction with the Hall of Fame since retiring,”
said Marcase.
“Gil's versatility as a reporter and later a columnist served his readers well, and truly
showcased his talents.
"J.J. has been a trendsetter in many ways. There is little he has not done or
accomplished in sports media, from sports information to sports reporting to sports
commentating to being an innovative journalism instructor. Yet, in everything he has
done and continues to do, he does so at the highest level possible,” Marcase said.
“Sports fans in Northwest Louisiana are fortunate that J.J. never left the region and that
he continues to chronicle sports in print online and on the long-running and trailblazing
radio show he hosts with his brother, Ben."
LeBreton and Marshall will be among the 2026 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction
Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Ceremony on Saturday evening, June
27, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Ceremony culminates the 2026
Induction Celebration beginning Thursday afternoon, June 25, with a press conference
followed by a public kickoff reception in the Hall of Fame museum at 800 Front Street in
Natchitoches.
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame 2025 inductee Sylvia Fowles, NFL stars Joe Horn,
Todd McClure and Pat Williams, Major League Baseball All-Star Jonathan Lucroy and
legendary basketball coaches John Brady, Mike McConathy and Dewain Strother make
up a star-studded eight-member group of competitors’ ballot inductees chosen for 2026
induction in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
For the third time this decade, the Hall will present the Louisiana Sports Ambassador
Award, this time inducting Warren Morris into the LSHOF. The Alexandria native and
resident whose walk-off home run won the 1996 College World Series for LSU and
resulted in the Bolton High School product becoming a lifelong spokesman for college
baseball, the CWS and LSU.
The 2026 recipient of the Hall’s Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award will be
announced Thursday and will also be enshrined in the LSHOF.
The 2026 Induction Class will be celebrated June 25-27 in Natchitoches. Opportunities
to purchase admission for the four ticketed events are available at the LaSportsHall.com
website through the www.LaSportsHall.com/induction26 link.
The new inductees will be showcased in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum,
operated by the Louisiana State Museum system in a partnership with the Louisiana
Sports Writers Association. The striking $23 million, two-story, 27,500-square foot
structure faces Cane River Lake in the National Historic Landmark District of
Natchitoches and has garnered worldwide architectural acclaim and rave reviews for its
contents since its grand opening during the 2013 Hall of Fame induction weekend.
In a sportswriting career spanning more than five decades, beginning with the Times-
Picayune in his hometown of New Orleans, LeBreton was regarded among the
country’s elite professionals, He spent 37 years as an award-winning sports columnist
with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after he was a beat reporter covering LSU and the
Saints on the staffs of the Picayune and later the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate.
He is the only person to win state Sportswriter of the Year awards (given by the NSMA)
in both Louisiana and Texas.
LeBreton covered 26 Super Bowls, 13 World Series,16 Olympic Games (nine summer,
seven winter), 16 NCAA Basketball Final Fours, soccer's World Cup, The Masters, the Tour de France, the NBA Finals, hockey's Stanley Cup Finals and the Wimbledon tennis championships. He covered sporting events in France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Greece, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina and Canada, as well as in 40 of the 50 states.
His one-on-one interviews included Muhammad Ali (at his log cabin training camp in
Deer Lake, Pa.), Tom Landry, Nolan Ryan, John Wooden, Jack Nicklaus, Lance
Armstrong, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Mike Tyson, Bruce Jenner, O.J.
Simpson, Pete Rozelle and President George W. Bush.
LeBreton's reporting from the Olympic Games won numerous state and national
awards. His stories for the Picayune on Louisiana Olympic hopefuls before the 1976
Montreal Games were honored as the LSWA's top series, the same year that his
column on the one-year anniversary of the WFL's demise was the LSWA's Story of the Year.
In October 2024, the LSU Manship School of Mass Communications inducted him into
its Hall of Fame.
A versatile Shreveport journalist, Marshall has been involved in local media since 1974
when he began covering American Legion baseball games for the Shreveport Times.
He was 15. He has become a four-time LSWA Prep Writer of the Year, a two-time
Columnist of the Year, and with his brother Ben, has twice won the LSWA’s Best Radio
Show contest.
He was a co-winner in 1987 of the APSE’s national Best Feature Sports Story award. In
2023, Marshall won the LSWA’s Story of the Year award. Notably, once the Shreveport
Journal folded, Marshall did not enter the LSWA writing contest for 27 years but has
won multiple awards in the last four years writing for the Shreveport-Bossier Journal.
Meanwhile, ”SportsTalk with Bonzai Ben and JJ” on 50,000-watt KWKH-AM is the
longest running radio sports talk show in Louisiana.
At age 31, he became the youngest to serve as LSWA president. He also served on,
and currently serves on, the LSWA’s Hall of Fame committee.
After graduating from Louisiana Tech in 1981 (where he worked with DSA winner Teddy
Allen as sports editor of The Tech Talk), he began at the Shreveport Journal and went
on to become the Executive Sports Editor in 1988, alongside DSA icon Jerry Byrd as
senior columnist.
As a documentary producer, Marshall won two CASE awards for video production/story
telling. He has been the play-by-play announcer in radio/TV in professional football
(CFL's Shreveport Pirates) and Division I basketball (Centenary College). He was a PA
announcer for the Shreveport Captains for eight years and was a part-time PA voice for
the Houston Astros.
The baseball press box at Loyola College Prep is named for him. Marshall has been
media director/instructor at his alma mater, Loyola, for 29 years, and in 2014 was
inducted into the Loyola Hall of Honor. At Jesuit High (now Loyola), he played
quarterback for the Flyers’ Class 3A state championship team in 1976. He was also an
All-City third baseman.
The 2026 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 25, with a press conference
and public reception. The three-day festivities include two receptions, a youth sports
clinic, a bowling party, and a Friday night riverbank concert in Natchitoches. Tickets for
the Saturday night, June 27 Induction Ceremony, along with congratulatory advertising
and sponsorship opportunities, are available through the LaSportsHall.com website.
Anyone can receive quarterly e-mails about the 2026 Induction Celebration and other
Hall of Fame news by signing up on the LaSportsHall.com website.
The Induction Celebration weekend will be hosted by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame
Foundation, the support organization for the Hall of Fame. The LSHOF Foundation was
established as a 501 c 3 non-profit entity in 1975 and is governed by a statewide board
of directors.
For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Foundation President/CEO
Ronnie Rantz at 225-802-6040 or RonnieRantz@LaSportsHall.com, or Foundation
Director of Business Development and Public Relations Greg Burke at 318-663-5459 or
GregBurke@LaSportsHall.com. Standard and customized sponsorships are available.
@LaSportsHall on X (formerly Twitter)
Instagram: lasportshall
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