This is an entry in a profile series of inductees for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025. The induction ceremony is set for Saturday in Natchitoches.
Joe Scheuermann was a 27-year-old assistant baseball coach at Tulane when he came to Natchitoches in June 1990 to present his father, “Rags,” for induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Curveballs are a part of baseball, and “Rags” delivered a dandy one that night. During his acceptance speech, he announced his retirement as the Delgado Community College baseball coach.
Thirty-five years after following in his dad’s footsteps on City Park Avenue and with 1,207 victories on his record, Joe Scheuermann will join his dad to become the fourth father-son combination in the LSHOF.
That culminates with the Class of 2025 induction ceremony in Natchitoches on Saturday.
While most assume it was a done deal that Joe Scheuermann would replace “Rags” at Delgado, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The younger Scheuermann came back to New Orleans and soon met with then-Delgado president James Caillier.
“I don’t want to have this job because I’m Rags Scheuermann’s son,” Joe Scheuermann told his future boss.
Later that summer, he became the second head coach of what is now the oldest junior-college program in any sport in Louisiana.
Joe Scheuermann was preparing for his 16th season at Delgado when his program — and the entire city of New Orleans — was dealt a blow from Hurricane Katrina's devestation.
The Scheuermanns, with their house and campus under water, evacuated to New Roads. A few days later, in Baton Rouge, he met with Delgado’s chancellor, Alex Johnson.
With the college in financial straits after a lost semester and significant rebuilding costs, the message about the spring 2006 season was simple: “We can’t fund it.” The only way to have a season — and save the program started three decades earlier by his father — was to raise the money himself.
Scheuermann got that program-saving donation from a longtime supporter and friend, and the task of resuscitating a season — and a ballpark, since Kirsch-Rooney Stadium also had been inundated with several feet of floodwaters — began.
“I was looking at whether I should transfer,” said Kyle Beerbohm, a sophomore on the 2006 team. “We came back late in the fall and helped with cleanup and putting the field together. Pitchers were putting up a fence during (batting practice). It was definitely a wild fall and early spring.”
Added Scheuermann: “The fact we played the year after Katrina is probably my proudest moment. It would have been easy for Delgado not to have athletics, but it made them realize how important athletics is for the college.”
One year later, the Katrina freshman class would lead Scheuermann to his first-ever trip to the Junior College World Series, 22 years after “Rags” made his only trip.
“If you ask that ’07 team, they expected to win,” Scheuermann said. “If you expect to win, you win. You can’t hope for anything.”
Omaha, Nebraska, is the goal each year for LSU and other NCAA Division I programs. On the NJCAA Division I level, it is Grand Junction, Colorado.
“Once we got to the World Series, people bought into our program,” Scheuermann said. “Your kids remember the experience and they pass it down the line. Our expectations became Grand Junction.”
Delgado rattled off three straight trips to Grand Junction from 2014-16, then returned for a fifth time under Scheuermann in 2023, finishing fifth.
In May 2024, Scheuermann won his 1,178th game to pass the late Tony Robichaux, a 2022 LSHOF inductee, to become the winningest college coach in Louisiana history. That’s not how he sees it, though.
“I broke the junior-college record for wins in Louisiana,” said Scheuermann, who played at Tulane at the same time as Robichaux played at then-USL. “Every game I’ve won was at the junior-college level. Tony Robichaux did it at the Division I level. That’s not the same.”
On April 13 of this year, Scheuermann registered his latest milestone, career win No. 1,200.
As much as Joe Scheuermann has followed in his father’s footsteps, there’s one thing he won’t do — go on stage at the Natchitoches Events Center and announce his retirement.
“I get asked all the time, when are you going to get out?” Scheuermann said. “I’m 62, I feel great, I enjoy coaching.
“I remember my dad saying, ‘You’ll know when it’s time.’ I really don’t feel it’s time yet. It’s an occupation, but I do it more for the kids and the school.”
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