Louisiana Athletics Reveals 2025 Hall of Fame Class

6/7/2025 11:00:00 AM | Athletics

Six-member class to be officially inducted on September 5 at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium

By: Dan McDonald | RaginCajuns.com

LAFAYETTE – Five student-athletes who still hold school records or reached milestones during notable UL athletic careers, and an administrator who worked behind the scenes to better and promote Ragin’ Cajun athletics for a half-century, make up the 2025 UL Athletics Hall of Fame Class, the Board of Directors of the Ragin’ Cajuns Letterman Club announced today.

Entering the school’s Hall of Fame – the highest honor the university’s athletic department can bestow on a former athlete or staff member – are Brett Baer (football), Kevin Brooks (men’s basketball), Corey Coles (baseball), Richard Ainley (golf), Haley Hayden (softball) and Dr. Ed Dugas (administrator).

The six-member class will be formally inducted into the UL Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, Sept. 5, in a ceremony in the McElligott Club of the new Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium. Tickets for the event will officially go on sale this summer.

The class will also be recognized during Louisiana’s football game against McNeese on Saturday, Sept. 6 at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium.

The University’s Hall of Fame recognizes men and women who distinguished themselves as student-athletes and have made significant contributions to their professions and their communities. They are nominated and selected through a process that is overseen by the board of directors of the Ragin’ Cajuns Lettermen Club, an organization of former student-athletes who have lettered in their sport.

In 2015, new eligibility criteria for the Hall of Fame were adopted to allow the nomination of coaches and administrators, as well as alumni whose collegiate careers were shortened by the chance to pursue professional sports careers.

The 2025 inductee class:

Brett Baer (2009-12) – Football
Baer provided maybe the most iconic single play in Cajun football history, with his 50-yard field goal on the final play giving UL a 32-30 victory over San Diego State in the 2011 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl in the program’s first-ever bowl game. He is the most accurate field goal kicker in NCAA history — more than a decade after finishing his career, he still holds the NCAA record for highest field goal percentage in a career (90.0%, 45-of-50). Baer earned first-team All-Sun Belt honors at both kicker and punter as a senior in 2012 when he scored 113 points, only one off the school record for points in a season, when he had 53 PAT’s and a school-record 20 field goals and averaged 42.0 yards per punt. He was second-team All-Sun Belt as both kicker and punter in 2011 and led the Cajuns in scoring both years. He holds UL’s career record of 45 field goals and shares the mark for consecutive field goals (18) while standing second among all-time kick scoring leaders and eighth overall among all scorers. Baer scored 22 points in his two bowl games, also a UL record, with two field goals and three PAT’s in the 2011 bowl win and a school-record 13 points – three FG’s, four PAT’s – in UL’s 43-34 win over East Carolina in the following year’s 2012 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.

Kevin Brooks (1987-91) – Men’s Basketball
Already a member of the Louisiana Basketball Hall of Fame, Brooks averaged more than 20 points a game in three different seasons, joining the legendary Bo Lamar as the only Cajuns to accomplish that feat. He ranks fourth in UL history with 2,294 career points and ranks 14th in rebounding with 719, and is one of only two players in Cajun history with 2,000 points and 700 rebounds in a career. A three-time All-American South Conference selection after earning second-team and Newcomer of the Year honors as a freshman in 1988, Brooks was also a four-time All-Louisiana pick including two first-team selections and the state’s Freshman of the Year honor in 1988. He averaged 21.6 points per game as a senior in 1990-91 when he led the Cajuns to a second straight 20-win season. Following that year, Brooks was a first-round pick in the 1991 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks – still the third-highest draft pick in Cajun history – before being traded just after the draft to the Denver Nuggets. He played three years with the Nuggets before a lengthy international career mostly in Australia where he led the Adelaide 36ers to two NBL national titles and earned Grand Finals MVP honors in 1988. He retired as a player in 2004 and began what is now a two-decade coaching career in the NBL, including nine years with his former 36ers team.

Corey Coles (2001-03) – Baseball
Two decades after his final UL season, Coles still ranks second in UL’s record book in career batting average at .369 behind only Nathan Nelson. He led the Cajuns in hitting in each of his two seasons in 2002 (.368) and 2003 (.371) and also led the team in home runs (nine), RBI (56), hits (89), doubles (18) triples (seven), and stolen bases (13) in his final year in 2003. That year, Coles hit .427 in Sun Belt Conference play with 44 hits in 24 games including 17 extra-base hits and six homers. He led the Cajuns in 2002 in hits (85), triples (three) and stolen bases (24) along with his .368 batting average, helping UL to a 39-23 record and a berth in the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional. Coles was a two-time All-Sun Belt first team selection as an outfielder along with being a two-time ABCA All-South Central Regional pick and a two-time All-Louisiana pick, making second team in 2002 and first team in 2003. He also saw mound time, compiling a 3.38 ERA and earning four saves in his final season. Coles was a fifth-round pick in the major league draft by the New York Mets in 2003 and hit .304 in a six-year professional career mostly with the Mets and Chicago Cubs organizations, and was named to the league All-Star team in 2006 with the Class AA St. Lucie Mets. He returned after his professional baseball career to finish up his UL degree.

Richard Ainley (2000-01) – Golf
Ainley, a native of Kenya who played for his country’s men’s national team at age 16, ranked as UL’s all-time leader in stroke average for a season and a career for two decades. He averaged 71.87 strokes as a senior in 2001, a mark that stood until this past season when Malan Potgieter compiled a 71.15 mark, and finished his career with a 72.48 average which still stands as a school record (Potgieter is at 72.05 with one season remaining). Ainley’s four individual tournament wins is the most in school history, and he is one of only two Cajuns to win the Sun Belt Conference’s individual title (Trey Coker is the other) when he took the league’s medalist honors in 2000. In his two-year career, Ainley posted 23 sub-par rounds and 10 even-par rounds, with a low round of 67 in both seasons. He was a two-time All-Sun Belt Conference selection and was honored as a member of the league’s All-Time Team which was selected for the first 30 years of the Sun Belt’s existence. Also a Sun Belt Academic Honor Roll selection, he was named to both the PING All-America team and the Golf Coaches Association of America honorable mention All-America in 2001, a year in which he was also an All-Louisiana selection.

Haley Hayden (2014-17) – Softball
Hayden is still UL’s all-time career leader in runs scored (251) almost a decade after her final playing season, with that total ranking as one of the top 30 single-season marks in NCAA history (she ranked 24th at the end of her career). She was a four-time All-Sun Belt Conference selection as an outfielder including first-team honors three times (2014, 2015, 2017) and a second-team selection in 2016, and was a four-time NFCA All-Region selection. Hayden, also a 2017 national Academic All-America pick and a four-time member of the Sun Belt’s Commissioner’s List or Honor Roll academically, ranks fourth in UL history in hits (297, 11 short of the career record) and at-bats (758) and fifth in total bases. She compiled a career .365 batting average and a .644 slugging percentage while starting every game (224 games) in her four-year career. She led UL in at-bats all four years and in runs and hits each of her last three years including more than 60 hits in each of her four seasons. She compiled career totals of 49 home runs, 214 RBI and 29-of-33 stolen bases. She also had an errorless senior year in 197 chances, one of only three regulars ever to field 1.000 in a season. Hayden helped lead UL to a 184-39 record and an 83-7 Sun Belt mark in her career along with six SBC titles (four regular-season, two tournament) and three NCAA Regional titles as well as a College World Series appearance in 2014.

Dr. Ed Dugas – Administrator
Best known in UL athletics as the founder and driving force behind the Athletic Network, the website database and online home for all former Ragin’ Cajun athletes and staff members, Dr. Dugas was an integral part of numerous programs and events within the UL athletic department for over two decades. That followed a 39-year career in public education, including 34 years at USL/UL in the Department of Physical Education (Kinesiology) from 1967-2001, where he served as department head in Physical Education, director of graduate studies and director of student teaching in the College of Education. He also served as executive director of the Louisiana Association of Health, P.E., Recreation and Dance for nine years, and served on the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under four different governors. He was selected Outstanding Graduate from USL’s College of Education in 1988, 25 years after graduation. Dr. Dugas retired in 2001 and since then has devoted untold hours to helping promote Cajun athletics along with starting the Athletic Network, organizing team reunions and other special events in several sports, beginning with the Coach Beryl Shipley Basketball Reunion in 2001. He also created two endowed scholarships for students with special needs.

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