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*Full disclosure – The author (and his lovely wife) are graduates of LSU-Shreveport circa – uh – far too many years ago.
The City of Shreveport and its largest university received some very positive news over the past week.
The LSU-Shreveport college baseball team put the school and the city into the national headlines and the college record books just over one week ago.
The LSU-S Pilots (the riverboat variety) won the NAIA Baseball World Series for the school’s first-ever national team sports championship.
LSU-S won every single game they played this season.
Going 59-0 in 2025 just obliterated every season-best won/loss record for all other teams playing in the NAIA, the NCAA’s Division 1, II, and III, and the National Junior College Athletic Association.
The 2025 LSU-Shreveport “Perfect” Pilots baseball team went 33-0 at home, 14-0 on the road, and 12-0 in the playoffs. That’s every game played during the months of February, March, April, and May without a single loss.
No other college baseball team at any level has ever posted an undefeated season.
Until now.
LSU-Shreveport has waited 58 years to enjoy this type of moment
It took the Louisiana legislature a few decades to even approve the idea for and fund the construction of LSU-Shreveport.
The state’s third largest city already had Centenary College (a private liberal arts school). Public universities such as Louisiana Tech (65 miles to the east in Ruston) and Northwestern State (70 miles to the south in Nachitoches) were the closest state schools to the Shreveport-Bossier City area.
LSU-Shreveport opened its doors in September, 1967 to 807 students.
The school’s first two buildings (the Science building and Library) were constructed in a former cotton field located in what was, at the time, a rather sparsely populated area on the southeastern fringe of Shreveport’s city limits.
LSU-S began as a two-year college but quickly became a four-year university within just a few years after opening.
It was and still is primarily a commuter school for local students. There is very little student housing available at LSU-Shreveport today.
Those of us attending classes at LSU-S during the 1970’s celebrated the opening of a third building on the campus.
The student-named “Snack Shack” was comprised of a couple of portable buildings linked together which functioned as the school’s book store and the students’ (cough) cafeteria.
The LSU-S Snack Shack (an air conditioned meet-up spot for the nearly 3,000 students in the 1970’s) was just a row of vending machines serving cold sandwiches, junk food and soft drinks.
Sports at LSU-S? Ha ha – yeah, right!
I remember coming to visit a gentleman in the LSU-S admissions department prior to starting school as an incoming freshman in the 1970’s. I asked him, “When do you think we will have some college sports teams on campus?”
The man looked a bit uncomfortable as he suggested that LSU-S expected to be playing college sports “within just a few years – probably before you graduate!”
That sounded great! However, he was quite wrong.
The university cut a deal with the Louisiana Army National Guard in Shreveport to utilize the military facility’s multi-purpose building for student intramural basketball games.
Fort Humbug is located a few miles north of the LSU-Shreveport campus.
I can personally attest that Fort Humbug’s hardwood floor used for basketball was quite dusty and slippery. That was because several Army tanks were occasionally being driven in and out of one portion of the building for storage each week.
The plus-side of playing basketball inside of that facility was feeling secure while standing at the free throw line and seeing multiple Army tanks lined-up across the baseline and along the sidelines.
It wasn’t until November, 1990 that LSU-Shreveport fielded the school’s first college athletics team as the men’s and women’s basketball teams tipped-off.
LSU-S had secured funding to construct a Health & Physical Education building during the 1980’s.
It featured a full-court basketball configuration and bleacher seats holding several hundred students and fans.
The first LSU-S baseball team would finally come along two years later in March, 1992.
The team’s home games weren’t on the school’s campus, though.
With the financial assistance of Shreveport’s C.E. Byrd High School, enough money was raised to jointly fund and construct a baseball field on the LSU-S campus.
Pilot Field finally opened in spring, 1994.
The baseball field is still jointly used by the college and the high school today.
Funding woes nearly strikes out the LSU-S baseball team and the school itself
State funding cuts in Louisiana forced the students at LSU-Shreveport to make a surprising decision during the spring of 1997.
By a solid margin, the LSU-S students opted to reject a proposed increase in the athletics fee from $10 to $30 per semester to pay for the school’s existing sports.
Once a commuter school…???
The “No” vote forced LSU-Shreveport to cut its men’s and women’s basketball programs due to a lack of funding. However, the LSU-S baseball team (which had lower operating costs than the basketball programs) was able to survive on the school’s remaining (but very tiny) athletics budget.
The Pilots’ basketball teams eventually returned to the hardwood six years later in 2003 after the LSU-S Student Government Association finally approved a fee hike dedicated to help pay for athletics.
In both 2006 and 2012, there were serious rumblings coming from the Louisiana state legislature in Baton Rouge which nearly resulted in a merger of LSU-Shreveport into the Louisiana Tech University system.
State college funding issues (always a hot topic in Louisiana) had the Shreveport-based member of the LSU system on the ropes.
Getting anything controversial passed through the nearly 50/50 Republican/Democrat state legislature in Louisiana has always been a hard sell. No formal votes were ever taken on the proposed merger of LSU-S and Louisiana Tech during either of those legislative sessions.
Hopefully, none will occur in the near future.
LSU-Shreveport Pilots baseball hires Coach Brad Neffendorf in early 2020
The meteoric rise in the LSU-Shreveport baseball team over the past six seasons can be traced to the hiring of Coach Brad Neffendorf in early 2020.
Neffendorf came to Shreveport with a solid background as a pitching coach and a great recruiter.
The success of his teams at LSU-S has confirmed his reputation for developing young pitchers and finding top level college baseball talent.
LSU-Shreveport’s baseball team posted a season record of 45-16 in 2021. That was followed by 53-8 in 2022, 47-10 (2023), and 44-11 in 2024.
Coach Brad Neffendorf’s teams made it into the NAIA World Series in both 2021 and 2022.
This year’s 59-0 LSU-S Pilots’ pitching staff finished the season by giving up a minuscule 2.35 earned run average. The team’s ERA was more than one run lower than the second closest team in the entire NAIA in 2025.
LSU-Shreveport’s bats thundered all season long with an eye-popping team average of .365 for the year. Three Pilots players (all seniors) batted over .400 for the season.
Three LSU-S players were named to the NAIA First Team All-America squad this week. Two others earned Second Team honors.
Third baseman Josh Gibson batted .439 with 71 RBI’s and 55 stolen bases. Pitchers Isaac Rohde (16-0 with 2.09 earned run average) and Draven Zeigler (13-0 and a 1.76 ERA) were also first-teamers.
Second baseman Vantrel Reed (with his .378 batting average) and pitcher Cobe Reeves (12-0 with a 2.1 ERA) earned spots on the NAIA’s Second Team.
Did I say that the LSU-Shreveport baseball team posted a classroom GPA of nearly 3.1 for the year?
LSU-S baseball coach Brad Neffendorf put together an incredible college baseball roster which has most of us scratching our heads asking, “Where did he find THOSE guys?”
This year’s baseball team had only three players from the state of Louisiana and just one hailing from the home city. All but one player on the 2025 roster were transfers from other colleges or junior colleges.
Does LSU-S have a big stash of NIL cash in order to find these players?
That is highly unlikely given the school’s minuscule athletics budget and relatively low sports profile in the Shreveport-Bossier City region.
Wanna guess the average home attendance for LSU-S baseball games this season?
If you said, “84”, you win!
Coach Neffendorf’s teams at LSU-Shreveport have won at least 44 games in each of the past four seasons.
High school and college baseball players who are looking for more playing time and exposure (to pursue a possible career in pro baseball or to earn more NIL loot at a bigger school the next year) know that LSU-Shreveport’s program is a surefire resume builder.
Sometimes the players find the school as much as the coaches are able to locate the players.
This year’s 59-0 perfect season at LSU-Shreveport will have even more talented high school, junior college, and underutilized major college players wanting to come play for the Pilots next year.
Coach Brad Neffendorf is likely receiving a lot of attention from NCAA Division 1 programs right now.
The Shreveport and Bossier City area is a great place to live and raise a family. The LSU-S baseball coach is likely fielding many tempting offers to leave town and move up for significantly more money (and pressure).
Take a bow, LSU-S Pilots!
The national attention of having the first college baseball team to record a perfect season has LSU-S players and coaches taking a well-deserved victory lap.
The team was saluted by a joyous crowd of more than 1,000 last week in downtown Shreveport.
The city’s mayor and Louisiana’s governor proclaimed a special day in the team’s honor.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (who also represents the city of Shreveport) advised the team that the President (a former high school baseball player) requested the LSU-Shreveport “Perfect Pilots” to travel to the White House soon to honor their 59-0 season.
Shreveport’s very own national sports personality Tim Brando (an exceptional baseball player years ago) recently commented on the LSU-S team’s amazing season.
“Teams may go undefeated again but not in a sport that requires you to play 50 or more games. The sport that is the most difficult to achieve perfection – is baseball.”
You got that right, Timmy B!
The 59-0 LSU-Shreveport Pilots have just posted a once-in-a-lifetime sports achievement.
Take as long as you wish to enjoy the accolades, Pilots!
This particular alumnus of LSU-Shreveport is soaking it in and enjoying the team’s success almost as much as the 2025 Pilots players and coaches are.
Don’t be surprised if loyal baseball fans in the bleacher seats behind home plate at Pilot Field next spring start a “We want a hundred!” chant at some point during April, 2026.
Why not? It’s 59 games down and just 41 wins to go for the record-setting LSU-S Pilots!