Top Ten Article Countdown of 2025: Tragedy Strikes Tulane Football
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Through the end of this year, we're counting down your favorite articles. The metric used is the total number of page views by those visiting ON SI Tulane.
Published on December 19th, 2025, media heard the sad news of Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall's father.
The day before Tulane's first-ever College Football Playoff game, coach Jon Sumrall called his mom on the morning of Friday, December 19th and received the news that his dad had passed away during the night. George Sumrall, who had been health issues since earlier this year, was 77. These are excerpts from that story.
"Until this season, George had not missed a game his son, Jon, had coached. Despite his illness, George made it to watch the Green Wave play Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, and the American Association Championship game against North Texas.
"Jon's mother drove her and her husband everywhere they went. In fact, the two of them drove to Gainesville the day after the American trophy game to attend a media conference Jon was holding.
After his passing, coach Sumrall issued this statement on X/Twitter
Visitation and the funeral is set for Tuesday, December 23rd in Huntsville, Alabama. The family asks in lieu of flowers, those interested are invited to contribute to the following organizations, https://illuminations.bible/, https://desirestreet.org/ or https://www.sonofasaint.org/.
On Wednesday, December 24th, the eighth most popular story on our website, ON SI Tulane, as voted on by you, the reader.
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.