NEW ORLEANS — Xavier University of Louisiana graduate Leonidas Epps will be inducted Friday (Sept. 28, 2018) into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame in Atlanta. He will posthumously receive the organization's lifetime achievement award.Epps was a 1942 XULA graduate and a member of the 1940-41 Gold Rush basketball team that was 29-0 — the only Louisiana collegiate men's basketball team to finish unbeaten in a schedule of more than five games. He earned a master's degree from Indiana University.
Epps achieved fame as a coach in multiple sports at Clark College in Atlanta from 1949-83. His teams won Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference men's championships in football, basketball, golf and track and field. He also served as athletics director and taught physical education classes. (Clark College became Clark Atlanta University in 1988 after the merger of Clark and Atlanta University.)
According to the book "Louisiana Athletes: The Top Twenty," Epps during the 1940s coached Audrey "Mickey" Patterson-Tyler, who in 1948 became the first African-American woman to win an Olympic medal (bronze, 200-meter dash).
Epps was inducted into the Clark College Hall of Fame (1980), the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1985), the SIAC Hall of Fame (1994) and the Clark Atlanta Athletic Boosters Hall of Fame. Clark Atlanta awards annually an endowed scholarship in his name. Clark Atlanta's gym was named in his honor upon his retirement in May 1983.
Clark Atlanta hosted a men's basketball tournament named for Epps in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Leonidas Sondric Epps Jr. was born Oct. 5, 1918, in Hope, Arkansas, but grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, and graduated from Lincoln High School. He died Jan. 5, 1997.
Ed Cassiere, Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
XULAgold.com
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
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