Long Time TU Sports Information Director, Lenny Vangilder, Reminisces
A Look Back at Tulane Athletics with former SID Lenny Vangilder
It was The Posse.
We asked lover of all things bowling (thus the above picture), long-time friend and former Tulane Sports Information Director Lenny Vangilder what one of his greatest memories was while serving as the behind-the-scenes person for just about every tidbit of Green Wave sports you could imagine. His answer was uncharacteristically succinct for Lenny.
"The hardest I've worked in my career," Vangilder remembered, "but, without a doubt, the most satisfaction in my career, was the Winter of 1992, men's basketball."
That was the year, Tulane basketball coach Perry Clark would introduce to Tulane fans, and eventually the nation, one of the most storied substitution regimens in NCAA basketball lore: The Posse.
Just a few years earlier, there was no Tulane basketball team. University President Eamon Kelly disbanded the program in 1985 after a point-shaving scandal that rocked the college basketball world. Round ball returned in 1988 when Clark was hired to restart the program. Fast-forward to the 1991-91 season. After opening the year with a thirteen-game unbeaten string, the Green Wave's unorthodox method of substituting five players for the five on the floor, had the media in a frenzy.
"Just about every major network and newspaper was either on the phone or on their way to Tulane to tell the story of this unprecedented relaunch of a program and its uniquely structured roster, where the bench was more popular than the starters," Vangilder wrote last year. Lenny fronted a story for the Louisiana Sportswriters Association (LSWA) for Clark, who was elected to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2024.
"Within three years (of being hired)," Vangilder told us recently, "he (Clark) built a (Metro) conference championship that turned into Tulane's first NCAA tournament (team). That team became America's darling. I could go back and pull out a clippings file three-inches deep," referring to all that was written about the Tulane basketball team at that time.
"If they (the media, national and otherwise) weren't meeting us on the road," Vangilder recollected, "they were coming to New Orleans. We're talking pre-cell phone days. I'd come back into my office and I might have thirty voicemail messages. I'd have these incredible numbers of calls to return."
"Back then (with no Internet and Zoom possibilities), ESPN sent Chris Fowler to do a feature," Lenny tells the story. "(In those days) there weren't all the ESPNs: ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN News, ESPN+, ESPNU. There was one ESPN, so when you got on there..."
On January 30th, 1992, Tulane's first chance in the national spotlight came to Fogelman. ESPN came to New Orleans to broadcast live the new darlings of the basketball world battling defending Metro Conference champion Southern Miss. Lenny remembers it well.
"We're in Fogelman," Vangilder thinks back, "Tim Brando (ESPN announcer) and Jimmy V (Valvano) were there. They were here two days before (to talk to Clark and prepare for the broadcast). (The game against Southern Miss) is one of those nights you never forget." The Green Wave would go on to win that game against the Eagles, 98-86.
ESPN's feature on Tulane that basketball season might just give you goose bumps.
Just What is an S.I.D.?
What you may not know, is what a Sports Information Director does. That job is now called Strategic Communications at many schools, including Tulane. They're job is pretty much thankless. They are the ones who get out any and all information about their school's sports programs. From sailing to beach volleyball, they cover it, write a story about it, sometimes take the pictures, and find a way to disseminate the information to the public.
The current group at Tulane does exactly that for us here at ON SI Tulane and any other publication who will take the information from them. Like Lenny was years ago when he started in this business, the men and women who do this thankless job, do it because they love sports. The faceless folks at Tulane now include Jason Corriher, who heads up the krewe, along with Joe Prisco, Connor McGinnis, and Wyatt Streett (yes, with two "t"s). These incredible people make sure every sports outlet in New Orleans and beyond know about Tulane, just like Vangilder did those many years ago.
Vangilder Started his Coverage of Tulane Athletics in High School
Lenny was involved in college athletics starting in the early 1980s, when he began working Tulane University sporting events while still attending Archbishop Rummel High School. He continued that relationship as a student at Loyola University, where he graduated in 1987.
For the next 11 years, Vangilder worked in the sports information offices at Southwestern Louisiana (now UL-Lafayette) then at Tulane.
He still works in television production of many college sporting events, especially at Tulane, and is in fact on the Tulane Hall of Fame committee serving as the chair.
Is This the Golden Era of Tulane Sports?
We asked Vangilder how he looks at this current time in Tulane athletics, where success seems to permeate the entire athletic program. He immediately pointed to the achievements of the Green Wave football program, saying it is the true barometer at Tulane.
"This has been this way long before I came around and will be long after I'll be gone," Vangilder proselytized. "Football drives the bus. Pardon the pun, but a rising tide lifts all boats. When football is good, your entire athletic department becomes better. What has happened the last four years in football has been tremendous for the (Tulane athletic) department."
In fact, for Lenny, moving football games back to Uptown was the biggest plus for TU.
"I have many colleagues and friends who have said football should have stayed in the Superdome," Vangilder told us. "I think bringing football back to campus and being able to reengage with your base has been tremendous. It has its challenges. They have to get incredibly creative to host a football game: the remote parking, now you've got the bubble taking up some parking, but I think that engagement and atmosphere you've created for those six days of the year (is something) you can't quantify."
Currently, Lenny writes, sells, and does production for Crescent City Sports, an online publisher and broadcaster here in New Orleans.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.