Ex-Tulane pair, Boudreaux to be honored by LABC

• Advocate staff report
• Published: May 9, 2008 - Page: 12C - UPDATED: 12:20 a.m.

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Two important people in Tulane’s basketball past and the most recognizable official in the country with state ties will be honored Saturday when the Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches holds its 34th annual banquet at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Baton Rouge.

Former Green Wave star Paul Thompson and former Tulane coach Perry Clark will be inducted into the LABC Hall of Fame, while Lafayette native Gerald Boudreaux will receive the Mr. Louisiana Basketball award.

The group’s annual banquet will also include recognition of the state’s best high school, college and professional players for their efforts during the 2007-08 season. A limited number of tickets for the banquet are available for $25 and can be reserved by contacting Scott Landry at (225) 205-8594.

For Thompson, Saturday’s induction is the culmination of a journey that began with most people wondering why he chose Tulane.

A star at Peabody High School in Alexandria in the late 1970s, Thompson picked the Green Wave although the program had won just 13 games in the previous two seasons before he arrived.

But Thompson saw it as a challenge and an opportunity.

“It was a losing program and we were a bunch of young guys trying to do our best to build the program,” Thompson said. “It was an uphill battle.”

With Thompson leading the way, Tulane scaled the hill. He burst on to the scene as the Metro Conference Freshman of the Year for the 1979-80 season. He finished his career as the leading scorer and second-leading rebounder in Green Wave history, with 1,851 points (16.5 per game) and 903 rebounds (8.1 per game).

Thompson was a three-time honorable mention Sporting News All-American, four-time All-Metro Conference, three-time All-Louisiana, and two-time first-team NABC All-District selection.

Perhaps most impressively, Thompson helped land Tulane in the postseason for the first time in program history. The Wave was invited to two consecutive NITs, reaching the quarterfinals in 1982 with victories over LSU (83-72) and Nevada-Las Vegas (56-51) before losing to Bradley (77-61). Tulane returned to the tournament a year later, losing to Nebraska in the first round.

“Getting to the NIT my junior and senior years was probably the biggest memory,” he said. “That was pretty memorable. The team came a long way.”

Thompson played three years in the NBA for Cleveland, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. He settled in Milwaukee where he has been a detective in the city’s sheriff’s department for the last eight-plus years.

Clark rekindled his coaching career this season at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, but he will always be remembered for the magic he worked at Tulane from 1989-2000.