 Graphic By: New Orleans Saints Da Boot Sports 8/16/2024 Article courtesy of: Crescent City Sports By: Lenny Vangilder Ed Daniels, a New Orleans native who launched the city’s first-ever high school sports television show as part of a five-decade career telling the stories of Louisiana sports, died Friday from complications after a cardiac event last month. He was 67.Daniels spent 11 days in a Los Angeles-area hospital before being flown back to New Orleans on August 5. Before the term multimedia journalist became commonplace in the media industry, Daniels had his hands in the three major forms of journalism. Daniels’ primary home was television, where he spent more than 40 years coming into the homes of New Orleans sports fans – first at WDSU-TV and the last 33 years at WGNO-TV, where he would become the station’s first and, until now, only sports director. In 1992, just after Daniels’ arrival at WGNO – which was still an independent station at the time – he launched Friday Night Football, the first-of-its-kind show in New Orleans focusing on highlights of that night’s games. Hall of fame coach J.T. Curtis has served as co-host and analyst on FNF since the show’s inception. Never afraid to express an opinion, Daniels was a sports columnist for the Clarion Herald for nearly two decades – where he took over the columnist space of his one-time boss at WDSU, Buddy Diliberto – and served as a regular contributor to Crescent City Sports and its previous iterations since their launch in 2008. On radio, he spent his Saturday mornings for the better part of three decades co-hosting the Three Tailgaters show on a variety of frequencies – most recently at 106.1 The Ticket – with his high school and college classmate, Ken Trahan. Additionally, he served a stint as a radio analyst for Saints preseason games, New Orleans Night Arena Football games and University of New Orleans men’s basketball broadcasts. While many sports departments in the area would focus their attention on professional and college sports and national stories, Daniels made it a point to promote the efforts of high school athletics. FNF’s success led to two other shows – Friday Night Sports, which covered winter events, and Friday Night Fastball, which featured baseball, softball and other spring sports. Daniels’ impact on high school sports wasn’t limited to television. In 2011, Daniels and former Riverside Academy coach Timmy Byrd teamed up to launch the Allstate Sugar Bowl National Prep Classic basketball tournament. Originally a tournament for 16 boys teams, the event grew to five different brackets for boys and girls last winter. The success of the basketball event spawned similar events in baseball and 7-on-7 football. An in-season event for volleyball is scheduled to debut this fall. Additionally, when many of the LHSAA select and non-select state championships were split at different locations, the organizing group behind the National Prep Classic hosted girls basketball state semifinals and finals at the Alario Center in February 2022. Daniels’ career at WGNO featured much more than covering prep sports. Before the station began its news operation in 1996, he served as host of a game show, “N.O. It Alls,” produced by former NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff. Additionally, when Minor League Baseball returned to New Orleans in 1993 in the form of the Zephyrs, WGNO acquired television rights and Daniels served as the TV play-by-play voice of the team during its early years. Daniels was a three-time recipient (1997, 2014, 2018) of the Louisiana Sportscaster of the Year, voted on by his peers and awarded by the National Sports Media Association, and received the Press Club of New Orleans’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. Archbishop Rummel High School, his alma mater, honored him in 2013 with induction into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame – an honor he shared with his classmate and lifelong friend, Trahan. He is also a member of De La Salle’s athletic hall. The outpouring of support for Daniels after his cardiac event was immense. A rosary on the evening of July 31 at St. Philip Neri, where Daniels and his wife Robin were parishioners, drew hundreds of voices praying together for a recovery. Others like LSU coach Brian Kelly and Tulane coach Jon Sumrall – who could almost always count on having Daniels in attendance at their media availabilities – mentioned Daniels by name to open their first news conferences of preseason practice. Daniels graduated from Rummel in 1975 and earned his communications degree from Loyola University in 1979. In addition to his wife, Daniels is survived by five children and five grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending. John 14:6 - "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior) *John 3;16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. A huge Thank You to Cardio Health Solutions owned by Ron Sancho for sponsoring and believing in our publication!
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