NATCHITOCHES, La.- Longtime Sun Belt Conference commissioner Wright Waters will be a 2014 recipient of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award presented by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
 
Waters has been a key figure in NCAA Division I sports, most notably as commissioner of the New Orleans-based Sun Belt Conference for almost 14 years until his retirement in the summer of 2012. Since then, he’s been executive director of the Football Bowl Association, continuing a 40-year career in collegiate athletics that includes administrative roles at UL Lafayette and Tulane.
 
The Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award is presented annually by the LSWA’s 30-member Hall of Fame selection committee to an individual who has played a decisive role as a sports leader or administrator benefiting Louisiana and/or bringing credit to Louisiana on the national and international level.
 
Dixon Award winners are enshrined as Hall of Fame members and are featured in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum.
 
The award is named in honor of Hall of Famer Dave Dixon, the driving force behind bringing the NFL to Louisiana with the creation of the New Orleans Saints franchise. Dixon, who passed away in 2010, is also considered the “father” of the Mercedes-Benz Louisiana Superdome, developing the concept for the innovative domed structure and pushing state officials for its construction in the late 1960s.
 
Waters will be among the 2014 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class to be spotlighted in the annual Induction Dinner and Ceremonies on Saturday evening, June 21, at the Natchitoches Events Center. The Induction Dinner and Ceremonies are the culmination of the 2014 Induction Celebration beginning Thursday afternoon, June 19, with a press conference and the La Capitol Kickoff Reception.
LSU football product Alan Faneca, a nine-time Pro Bowl selection, along with All-Star pitcher Shane Reynolds and New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner/chairman of the board Tom Benson headline the 2014 inductees.
 
Tulane and NFL standout Lionel Washington, Baton Rouge-Catholic High School cross country and track coach Pete Boudreaux, and Olympic gold medalist Venus Lacy, who helped Louisiana Tech win the 1988 women’s basketball national championship, are also in the Hall’s 2014 induction class. Trailblazing basketball coach Beryl Shipley, who guided the UL Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns to national prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and legendary Cottonport football player, coach and official Richard “Moon” Ducote’ will be honored posthumously.
 
Also honored with enshrinement will be Baton Rouge outdoors writer and broadcaster Joe Macaluso, chosen the 2014 winner of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.
 
The 2014 Induction Class 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.
Waters served as a Division I conference commissioner for two decades as part of a 40-year career in collegiate athletics. Before moving to the conference level, Waters served as associate athletic director at UL Lafayette prior to a four-year stint at Tulane as both associate athletic director and interim athletic director. He left Tulane for the Southern Conference, where he was commissioner for seven years and helped that league to unprecedented growth including two league expansions and increasing sports opportunities.
 
He left the Southern Conference in 1998 to take over as only the fourth commissioner of the Sun Belt. Two years later, he became one of only two commissioners in modern-day NCAA history to oversee the addition of football as a league sport in a currently-existing FBS league when the Sun Belt added football, effective in 2001.
 
During his stint with the Sun Belt, the league became a Bowl Championship Series conference, one of only 11 in the country, and Waters helped the league gain a permanent seat on the NCAA Board of Directors, giving the Sun Belt a crucial voice on all important issues in Division I athletics, and negotiated the most expansive television agreement in league history.
 
But it was in football that the league made its greatest strides in his tenure, with Waters integral in convincing many league schools of the benefits of moving to Division I and forming a football league, one that now has two automatic bowl tie-ins. One of those is the New Orleans Bowl, which Waters was the guiding force behind its founding and which now is a fixture in the New Orleans December sports calendar.
 
During his stint, the league added five members and increased its sports sponsorship by five, and Waters was also the driving force behind the league maintaining its headquarters in New Orleans after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, despite many league members pushing for a move.
 
Eleven men have previously been presented the Dixon Award since its inception in 2005. Last year’s winner was New Orleans businessman and sports benefactor Milt Retif, whose influence has been especially significant for American Legion baseball and Tulane baseball in his hometown.
 
The first winner was Randy Gregson, a New Orleans native/resident and former president of the United States Tennis Association. In 2006 the winner was Emmanuel “Boozy” Bourgeois, president of Louisiana Special Olympics since 1972.
 
The 2007 recipients were Don Landry, a longtime collegiate administrator and basketball coach, and Doug Thornton, the executive director of the Superdome.
 
In 2008, the Dixon Award went to world renowned orthopedic Dr. James Andrews, a Homer native, LSU graduate and SEC champion pole vaulter.
 
The 2009 recipients were George Dement, a Bossier City boxing and youth sports activist; and “Mr. Softball” Benny Turcan, a New Orleans native and long-time state ASA softball commissioner.
 
In 2010 the Dixon Award winner was Gerald Boudreaux, the longtime City of Lafayette recreation director best known as one of the country’s top college basketball referees in the last three decades.
 
A year later, the committee honored Elmo Adolph, an Olympic and professional boxing official, and Billy Montgomery, who as a highly-regarded state legislator championed sports causes including construction of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame museum.
 
In 2012, the Dixon Award went to Marksville physician Dr. L.J. Mayeux, the former national president and chairman of the board for Ducks Unlimited renowned for his efforts to restore duck habitat across the nation.
 
The 2014 Induction Celebration will kick off Thursday, June 19 with the press conference and reception. It includes three receptions, a youth sports clinic, and a Friday, June 20 celebrity pro-am golf scramble at Oak Wing Golf Course in Alexandria. Tickets for the Induction Dinner and Ceremonies, and golf entries, will go on sale this spring through the LaSportsHall.com website.
 
Adding to the 302 sports competitors currently enshrined, 12 previous winners of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership award and 53 prior recipients of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, there are 367 current members of the Hall of Fame.
 
The 2014 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  Lisa Babin at 318-458-0166 or lisababin@LaSportsHall.com.  Standard and customized sponsorships are available.