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Allstate Sugar Bowl Announces Corbett and Robinson Award Winners

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame announced their Corbett Award winners and the annual Eddie Robinson Award honoree on Thursday. All of the 2009-10 honorees will be recognized at a banquet on Friday, July 23 at the Louisiana Superdome.

The Corbett Awards are presented to the top male and female amateur athletes in the state and are based on achievements from the entire 2009 calendar year through May of 2010. This year's winners are both from Louisiana State University. Susan Jackson, of the LSU Gymnastics team, is the female winner, and Louis Coleman, from LSU's 2009 National Champion baseball team, earns the male honor. It is the sixth time since 2000 that LSU has swept both honors.

All-Time Corbett Award Winners

The Eddie Robinson Award was instituted last year to honor the legendary football coach from Grambling State University; it recognizes an individual who demonstrates the qualities most closely associated with Coach Robinson: outstanding achievement in athletics, academics, sportsmanship and citizenship by maximizing the use of limited resources. This year's honoree is long-time New Orleans prep football coach Eddie Flint.

The Corbett Award was created in 1967 to honor the late James J. Corbett and to commemorate his many contributions to intercollegiate athletics and specifically to the Sugar Bowl. When looking through its history, Corbett Award winners have gone on to great success, including 14 NFL players, six Major League baseball players, four NBA players, including two Hall of Famers, three WNBA players and eight Olympians, including seven Gold Medal winners.

The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Selection Committee, made up of local media members, honors athletes in a wide-range of categories. In addition to Thursday's release of the Corbett Award winners and the Eddie Robinson Award honoree, the organization released its annual award winners on Tuesday. On Saturday, the Committee will announce its 2010 inductees for the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame, as well as multiple Special Award winners.

2010 Male Corbett Award Winner - Louis Coleman, LSU Baseball
Louis Coleman is one of the most decorated pitchers to come from one of the most successful teams in LSU baseball history. A right-handed hurler from Schlater, Miss., Coleman bypassed an offer from the Washington Nationals to return to LSU, and proved to be an integral part of the Tigers' run to the 2009 National Championship.       He was the starting pitcher for LSU's game one victory over Texas in the championship series and also pitched the final two innings of the game three championship clincher, striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth inning to put the exclamation point on the victory. He also was the winning pitcher in LSU's Super Regional triumph over Rice.

In 25 appearances in 2009, which included 16 starts, Coleman recorded a 2.93 earned run average. In 129 innings he allowed 23 walks and struck out 142 - the eighth-highest single-season strikeout total in LSU history and the fourth highest total in the nation that year. He was second in the nation in wins with 14 and fourth in strikeouts. He was a consensus first-team All-America selection and the Southeastern Conference and Louisiana Sports Writers Association Pitcher of the Year. For his career, the 6-4, 190-pounder registered 29 wins (eighth all-time in the LSU annals) and 303 strikeouts (No. 9 all-time for the Tigers).

2010 Female Corbett Award Winner - Susan Jackson, LSU Gymnastics
Susan Jackson  became the first gymnast in LSU history to win the NCAA All-Around national title, capping off her senior season with an individual national title on beam with a 9.9625, a second-place finish on the vault, and a fourth-place finish on the bars at the NCAA Championships in April. The Spring, Texas, product became the school's first recipient of the Honda Sports Award as the nation's top collegiate female gymnast. Jackson was also the recipient of the prestigious AAI Award, given annually to the nation's top senior gymnast as voted upon by collegiate coaches. In addition, she was named the 2010 Southeastern Conference and Central Region Gymnast of the Year.

Jackson  finished her career with three individual titles, a first for the LSU gymnastics program. Her four First Team All-America honors this year make a total of 12 for her career. In addition, Jackson is a two-time SEC vault champion and an SEC beam champion, and as one of the nation's top elite-level performers, she was a four-time member of the USA National Team during her club career. In addition to her school-record performances at the NCAA Championships, she also set the LSU record for all-around titles in a single season with 11. In all, Jackson tallied 45 individual titles in 14 meets - 12 vault titles, 11 all-around, nine bars, seven floor and six beam - to end her career with 74 titles, third most in program's storied history.

2010 Eddie Robinson Award Winner - Eddie Flint, New Orleans High School Football
The second annual winner of Robinson Award is Eddie Flint, a teacher and coach whose career spans six decades. An all-city football and basketball player at Xavier Prep in New Orleans during the late 40's, Flint attended and played football at Xavier University. He started his teaching/coaching career in the 1950's and in 1962 he was named head coach at St. Augustine High School. Under his direction the Purple Knights won the LIALO State Football Championship in 1963, then followed with undefeated state championship teams in 1965 and 1966.

In 1967, Eddie Flint and his Purple Knights carried the hopes of the African-American community when St. Aug integrated the LHSAA, essentially wiping out segregation in prep sports in the state.

Flint's work during the sixties laid the foundation for what would become one of the top high school football programs in the country. It was accomplished without gymnasium and locker room facilities. A public playground a block away from the school served as the team's practice field. Flint served as a defensive assistant on the staff of Otis Washington from 1970 to 1979, helping St. Aug win three more state football titles. Following that stint, he was instrumental in helping coach Wayne Reese rebuild football programs at Washington And Carver High Schools in New Orleans. Currently "retired" at age 79, Eddie Flint continues to work with Reese at McDonogh 35 Senior High School.

-AllstateSugarBowl.org-