re: Who was LSU's last "freak" (athlete)?

I was a kid when Billy Cannon was a Tiger but I remember a quote that described him as "either the strongest sprinter or the fastest shot putter" they had ever seen.

I would name mid-1930's LSU football player and track star Jack Torrance who held the shot put world record for almost fourteen years as LSU's original FREAK athlete. He set the world record (16.80 meters) in 1934, only three days after the previous record had been set. He raised it twice more that year.

Torrance was one of the five athletes that made up LSU's 1933 NCAA Championship Track & Field team, coached by Bernie Moore He also won the shot put again in 1934 with that first world record. Torrance was on the 1936 U.S. Olympic Team that went to Berlin but he never equaled his personal best and didn't medal but his world record wasn't broken until 1948.




Shot Put World Record Progression ( at Wikipedia.com)

16.48 m John Lyman (USA) 21 April 1934 Palo Alto, U.S.[1]

16.80 m Jack Torrance (USA) 24 April 1934 Des Moines, U.S.[1]

16.89 m Jack Torrance (USA) 30 June 1934 Milwaukee, U.S.[1]

17.40 m Jack Torrance (USA) 5 August 1934 Oslo, Norway[1]

17.68 m Charlie Fonville (USA) 17 April 1948 Lawrence, U.S.[1]