re: Best all time LSU athletes from New Orleans?

Mel Ott must be considered. 12 time MLB all star, led National League in HR’s 6 times. First in National League to 500 HR’s. In HOF. Power hitter who weighed 170 lbs.

Ott didn't go to college, signed right out of high school


Steve Van Buren is the best answer

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He played just eight seasons, after arriving as a No. 1 pick from LSU in 1944, but he retired as the NFL’s leading rusher. He remains third on the Eagles’ all-time list with 5,860 yards, second with 77 career touchdowns. Van Buren was the first Eagle elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in 1965.

Few fans alive today ever saw him play, but Van Buren might have been the best NFL player of the postwar ‘40s. Barroom historians like to debate whether Van Buren or center/linebacker Chuck Bednarik is the greatest Eagle of all time, with modern-era defensive end Reggie White polling well in some precincts.

“Watch those old films and you know that Steve Van Buren was something special,” Eagles coach Andy Reid said Thursday night in a statement released by the team. “He was special in person, too, humble about his own accomplishments and encouraging to others. His memory will be with Eagles fans for as long as this team takes the field.”

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