Athletic greatness comes in all shapes and all sizes.

It doesn't come naturally, but is achieved from hard work, diligence, and adversity along the journey.

There's opportunity, and there's always struggle.

There is triumph and there is defeat.

And there is always a story behind the glory.

Most people who follow college sports know the name Ron Higgins, a decorated veteran writer covering the Southeastern Conference for decades.

Many of his friends know him better as Mad Dog.

I have no idea how Ron got the nickname Mad Dog, but I never seen him really mad.

But I do know he loves dogs.

He has made it a point to kind of mentor younger journalists that have come up.

Mad dog has done that with a couple of generations of younger sports journalists, and that's what kind of makes him great.

Ron Higgins, a member of the 2024 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame class.

You've been a journalist for 55 years, 45 of those full time, ten years, part time.

Yeah.

If you were me interviewing yourself today, what would be the first question that Ron Higgins asks Ron Higgins, the newest member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame?

How did you.

How'd you get so lucky that you want to know what you want to do when you're six years old?

And then you did it, and you did it all your life, and you never had a doubt that you were going to do it.

And you never had a doubt that if you worked hard enough, you'd be good at it.

But I had it behind me.

How did it happen then?

How do you get in the Hall of Fame?

That's like a that's a last thing I expected.

I mean, last night when they called and told me, I was like.

Like, they said you won the Distinguished Journalism Award.

I said, did you say extinguished?

I said, no with an E instead of a yeah, extinguished.

I said, I said, I'm not done yet.

He goes, no distinguish.

You're not.

You.

Yeah.

You're living on Sports Hall of Fame.

I don't believe it.

And so yeah, I mean I, I asked myself, how do you get so lucky to do this all these years?

You've got the nickname mad Dog.

Yeah.

How did that come about?

What?

I was like, I guess 10 or 11.

There was a teenage newspaper in Baton Rouge called What's Happening?

And so they hired me to write sports.

And so that, I just wanted to game started.

More like they want, like, a column, you know, opinion.

So I thought, you know, I'll call.

I'll call it a football column around the gridiron.

It's an old traditional gridiron game.

I said, I want Brown put Ron Higgins.

I'm on a like a tough football name.

I said, you know what would be good?

I'll start going through mafia names like Mafia, Mad Dog, that's it, Mad Dog.

And so it just stopped.

It has stuck my whole life.

I'm proud of it.

My friends call me Mad Dog.

I'll go an arena somewhere.

I know it's my dog.

I'll turn around.

I felt like, wow.

I played basketball in high school and college.

Same.

Same count.

That kind of effort really out there.

Higgins is carrying on the sports journalism legacy of his late father, former LSU sports information director Ace Higgins.

The name Ace Higgins was so symbolic in the world of sports journalism.

The NBA still has an award named the Ace Higgins Award, but Ron Higgins has really stepped that forward an awful lot and has done some amazing things in his career.

He started early.

Young Higgins had his first byline in the Baton Rouge Advocate when he was 14.

My dad died when I was 12.

A little hard back in the hospital and and, about 13, 14 Texas.

Still it goes, do you think you got an cover story for us?

I think you're after, some miracle job.

I don't have a driver's wife.

Can you, mom, can your mother take and drop you off?

So I did that, and I in.

Remember, I was a Baker Jamboree.

I set up Baton Rouge in a waffle locker room after the game, and coach looks at me, he goes, we need some more.

Tell.

I went, oh, I'm not I'm not your manager.

He goes, who are you?

I said, I'm Ron Higgins with the morning House.

I'm a sportswriter, right in the schedules.

No you're not.

I said, yeah, I'm good.

But then ask me a question.

Then I said, okay.

The first half he ran the ball really well.

Got a nice lead.

Second half he came out and started throwing it.

Was it that because you felt like you were something need to work on, or was it something in defensively you saw?

He goes, he was sportswriter I set up all y'all was.

And so it just from there on it just all through high school it was kind of strange.

In high school I played high school basketball, having him to play a game and then go in the locker room and go to the coach's office in my warmups and call the game into the paper.

But I kind of got you certainly a unique start.

Yeah, yeah.

It was.

Yeah.

The Baton Rouge native has written for seven newspapers, three online websites and a magazine and for stage during a career that now spans six decades, he was named the National Sports Media Association Writer of the Year in Tennessee and the Louisiana Writer of the year in 2008.

He was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Writers Hall of Fame.

In 2011, he probably one of the best dressed sports writers in the southeast.

But secondly, his ability to take and look out for colleagues and other people in the media, bar none, is at the very top, you know, and I mean this in all sincerity, and I'll look you in the eye and tell you, I think your career has been remarkable.

I have found you to be consistently informational, entertaining, insightful, witty, clever, sardonic, penetrating, and opinionated for sure, when it called for it, these things all rolled into one have brought you so many honors, and 11 employers over the course of your full time career.

How did all that happen?

I just a lot of them.

I went back again.

I was like, it was a fast track.

I mean, I mean, I didn't know I was going to lead the state for a while.

I left the state for almost three decades and went to Commercial Appeal in Memphis.

But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I started with the Tiger Rag in their second year of existence.

Went to the Shreveport Times for about two years, the Shreveport Journal for like about 8 or 9 months, which was one of the greatest stretches of my life right there with the journal, which are the advocate for a year.

Then went to the Commercial Appeal in two different stints.

That was split up, some time with the Mon people Register.

And let me interrupt you just for a second, because I want to point out that ten times you were the Tennessee sportswriter of the year.

Yeah, ten times in that state, which has a lot of talent in and and a lot of schools to cover.

Congratulations on that.

That's phenomenal.

We are all in with they really have good writing and like Louisiana good a lot of schools to cover, you know, of out of Memphis, Memphis State or University of Memphis.

Now, it was Vanderbilt, there was Tennessee.

There's a lot of smaller schools in between.

But I got to cover.

They blessed me.

But I said, we want you not we want you to cover the Southeastern Conference.

And, you know, we'd like you for you to cover, one of the teams in our area, if they played the best game that we are, area Mid-South, man, Ole Miss just be state, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Tennessee.

And so much time.

I got to see a great game every week and be allow me to be, almost like an SEC beat writer.

Before it was even invented.

And I covered it, so to speak, and they let me do it on my own.

Then once they trust me, stuff like this, I'll give you an example.

The SEC tournament played basketball, being played twice in Memphis.

The second time I played there, I went to matter.

Like October said, I want to write the SEC tournament special section.

I think it was the whole thing.

I it the whole thing.

And I said, here it is.

This is what I want to do.

I mapped it out on the back of a plane ticket.

Then I'm just taking the football trip.

I'll sit on the plane.

I said, this is what I said.

This was what I want to do.

I said, this is the schedule.

I want to schedule it.

I'm I'm going to every school in the conference, but this is how I want to do it.

Yes.

Okay.

And while Higgins has covered three Super Bowls, 18 men's Final Fours, three women's Final Fours, three Summerall Olympics and more than 70 bowl games that just barely touches the surface of his career.

He loves, absolutely loves basketball, but he's I think he is best known nationally for his work in football because of what what LSU has done and he's he's been on top of that for a long time.

Now, in his spare time, he has become a background actor in numerous movies and TV shows shot in South Louisiana.

Colleagues of Ron Higgins gave him the ultimate role in 2024, naming him a recipient of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame's Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism.

What has been the most intriguing, the most challenging, the most impactful story that you've ever written?

Probably one of the best stories I did was with the Times-Picayune.

Nola.com.

Joe, yesterday, a young man that was a mental high school New Orleans football player and, his story was that he came from a tough background.

Broken home sister had a drug problem.

Mother was not stable, not a bad person, just not stable.

And, eventually found a coach that got him to a junior college in Mississippi.

And he played well there, and he got a scholarship UT Martin, and he played well there.

And then his mother called him one day, said, listen, I don't know what my do.

Your sister's kids, they're your sisters, kids, your nephew.

There he goes.

They need some, you know, guidance in mean and, and so you start thinking about, you know, you know, over several months come up.

How could I take these kids back up here to school with me and play football and raise him and go to school and graduate?

Not going to do that.

And eventually went and got him.

And he was up there of like 5 or 6 months when he mother called and said, Joe, I'm Joseph, I want to tell you this.

He got a I'm living in the car, I'm homeless.

I'm, I'm in the car and casino in the parking lot in New Orleans.

Casino.

And he goes.

Okay, I'm all right.

You come live with me.

That's just how I was to put them on a bus.

Put on a bus.

Got to Memphis, and he picked her up, and it was just like he just, you know, I almost cry when I saw she was so thin.

She had been eating.

Yes, but when we got to Martin, Tennessee, which was above Memphis, everything fell into place.

The mother got healthy again.

He started raising the kids, and the whole football team kind of pitched in because they knew what he was doing.

A lot of attorneys in New Orleans saw that story because Joe want to officially adopt those kids.

And he goes, I don't know how I can afford it.

I'll know how to do it.

And a lot of attorneys for that New Orleans and they all came forward and call me and said, we up.

We wanted help him free of charge, do it.

And it happened.

And now he raises them.

He's married.

And it's, it makes it makes me feel good that that I can have that kind of impact.

And you never intend to.

It just worked out that way.

And I just.

I, you know, sometimes that's what journalism can do, and it can make something better.

If you enjoyed this conversation, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum as exhibits and stories about Louisiana sports, Great Natchitoches is where history and fun blend with our state's rich sports culture.

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