Lauricella among shining stars of prep’s ‘Golden Age’

Holy Cross High School has produced many of the city’s great prep running backs. One of them was a young Harahan boy who became a boarding student as a fifth grader in 1939 named Francis Edward Lauricella.

Known by his classmates and college football fans throughout the nation as “Hank,” Lauricella became a national icon in 1952, his senior season at the University of Tennessee, when he led the Volunteers to a national championship.

A Sugar Bowl defeat to the University of Maryland cost him the Heisman Trophy. That award went to Princeton’s Dick Kazmaier, whose team did not compete in a bowl game.

Lauricella, who died on March 25 at age 83, was one of Louisiana’s greatest backs during the post-World War II years at Holy Cross.

During that era, the local Prep League produced a bevy of great backs, including O.J. Key, Tony DiBartolo, Ray Coates, Norman Hodgins, Al Widmer and John Petitbon of Jesuit; Roy Hoffmann of St. Aloysius; Eddie Price and Les Kennedy of Warren Easton; Don Fortier of Nicholls; Ridley Boudreaux of Fortier and the Holy Cross foursome of Hillary Chollet, Eddie Heider, Joe Heap and Lauricella.

From 1940 through 1948, New Orleans schools won seven state championships.

In his senior season of 1947, Lauricella scored 14 touchdowns in eight regular-season games, five of which provided the Tigers’ winning margins.

Among the halls of fame into which he has been inducted are the College Football Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Football was an integral part of Lauricella’s life, but serving his hometown of Harahan was most important. He spent 32 years in the Louisiana Legislature in the House and Senate before retiring into the family’s real estate business on a full-time basis.