BOTH TEAMS PLAYED HARD

ULM remembers 'diehard' fan Johnny Huntsman

Adam Hunsucker
The News Star

 

Huntsman, pictured in 2001, stands in front of the original Johnny's Pizza location.

Much has changed at ULM over the past three decades.

Names, mascots, buildings and coaches have all gone by the wayside. What hasn’t is the ever-present line that forms in the press room before any ULM sporting event.

Johnny’s Pizza is as much of an institution at ULM as Bayou DeSiard. One slice always turns into two, and inevitably, the media and athletic department personnel alike are grazing like cattle hours before game time.

Johnny Huntsman, the founder of the Johnny’s Pizza chain and a longtime ULM supporter, died on Wednesday morning in Oak Grove. He was 77.

MORE: Johnny's Pizza founder dies

“I’m going to eat a ‘Sweep the Kitchen’ in his honor,” ULM men’s basketball coach Keith Richard said. “He supported this community and this university as well as anyone and his story will live on forever.”

Huntsman understood the importance of ULM to the northeastern Louisiana region better than anyone. He opened his first store on DeSiard Street across from campus in 1967, where some of his first customers were Dixie White, head football coach of then-Northeast Louisiana State College, and his staff.

White was far from the last ULM coach to darken the door of a Johnny’s Pizza. Huntsman’s work behind the scenes from the NLU era to its current iteration helped the university become a Southland Conference power in multiple sports and make the transition to FBS in 1994, and ultimately, the Sun Belt Conference.

“To be a champion you have to have supporters like Johnny,” said Pat Collins, who coached ULM to the 1987 FCS football national title.

“I had a great relationship with him, and I’ll always be appreciative of the things he did for us while we were at ULM.”

Huntsman, a diehard fan, was a visible presence at ULM games, but many of the contributions he made went unnoticed. Nor would he have drawn attention to them on his own.

The most important thing for Huntsman was doing what he could for his school.

“Johnny would feed our players during the holidays when the cafeteria was closed. He did things like that for us and throughout the university and other sports,” said Mike Vining, who led ULM to 401 wins and seven NCAA Tournaments as men’s basketball coach from 1981-2005.

“A lot of people wrote a check and never physically showed up but Johnny was always there involved in something.”

While people think of Johnny’s as the undisputed pizza king of the area, it wasn’t always that way. Huntsman was forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the 1980s, but eventually built his business back to where it is today.

 

Huntsman garnered many awards throughout his life. He was the 1992 recipient of the Small Business Person of the Year Award and earned the George T. Walker Lifetime Achievement Award from ULM in 2006.

 

“Those of us that have been in business or in charge of something know what it’s like when things are going well, then there’s a catastrophe and you have to start over,” Collins said.

“Johnny had to do it the hard way and he was just a guy you respected the heck out of.”

Huntsman’s funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Friday, June 30 at First Baptist Church of Oak Grove under the direction of Cox Funeral Home. Visitation is from noon until the time of the service.

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