Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2026: Fred Stamps

Rickey Bustle admits that he didn't know a lot about the personnel he inherited when he took over as UL's head football coach in 2002.

It didn't take Bustle and his staff long to figure out that they had a weapon at wide receiver, even though Fred Stamps' numbers were average over his first two Ragin' Cajun seasons.

"The thing that I saw, and I told our staff this, he's going to develop and he's going to be great for us," Bustle said. "He had great ball instincts, cutting people off to getting to a ball, flattening it out. That's things you see in the guys at the next level. It's not something that comes natural and sometimes it doesn't make sense until you're a junior or senior."

Fast forward two years, and the New Orleans product is the second-leading receiver in Cajun football history. Fast forward another decade, and he's retiring as an Edmonton Eskimo legend in the Canadian Football League.

"He developed into one of the best wide receivers I've ever been around … Virginia Tech, South Carolina, everywhere," Bustle said. "He was as good as I've ever been around."

Because of that, Stamps will be inducted into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 16, as part of a weekend of Hall of Fame activities that includes the Cajuns' fourth home game of the season against Troy on Saturday, Oct. 17. He will be inducted along with baseball standout Dylan Moore, women's basketball standard setter Tenna Cooper, three-time All-American triple jumper Lawrence Willis and former Cajun football coach Nelson Stokley at the Friday night ceremony.

Tickets for the induction to be held at the McElligott Club at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium are available from the Ragin' Cajun Athletic Foundation at RCAF@louisiana.edu or by calling (337) 851-7223.

Stamps finished his four-year career second all-time at UL in career receptions (180) and receiving yards (2,789), both behind only Hall of Famer Brandon Stokley. He still holds the school record for consecutive games with a reception (44) and is one of three players in school history with a 1,000-yard receiving season (1,002 yards as a junior in 2002, fifth highest all-time).

He averaged 18.6 yards per catch in that 2002 season, the highest average in school history for a receiver with a minimum of 40 catches, and his eight touchdown catches that year led the team in scoring – something that no other wide receiver has accomplished in the 23 years since Stamps finished his career.

And he did all that without ever playing on a winning team or playing in a bowl or postseason game.

"I nicknamed him Ball Hawk, because he was not going to let anyone else catch it," Bustle said. "He had great hands, and great body posture when it came to catching. He was going to box you out if you were a defender, and throw those hands up there and just snag it.

"It didn't take us long to figure out he was a guy we had to get the ball to, and what we did offensively I think exposed him in a good way. We moved him around to different places and got the ball to him. There were some things we were doing that were NFL-type routes, and he really grew into it as a junior and senior."

Stamps led UL in receiving both of those years and earned first-team All-Sun Belt Conference both years, and had a 13-reception, 201-yard game (both second-most all-time) along with three touchdowns in a Sun Belt meeting with Middle Tennessee, and later that year he added UL's third-highest receiving yardage total with 198 yards against ULM.

Stamps was not drafted by an NFL team and had stints on practice rosters with San Francisco, Jacksonville and Baltimore before finding the perfect fit for his talents in the pass-happy CFL where he played nine years – eight with Edmonton and a final year with the Montreal Alouettes.

He was All-CFL four times in the media vote and five times in the players' vote, and had 531 catches for 8,411 yards, both ranking in the CFL all-time top 50. He is the Eskimos' second all-time leader in yardage (7,932) and third in career catches (496) and led the team in receiving five straight years, two of which he led the league.

A picture of consistency throughout his CFL career, Stamps had receptions in 111 straight games (13th best in CFL history) and started 130 of his 133 career games while becoming a beloved figure for the Edmonton franchise – so much that he signed a final contract at his retirement so he could finish his career as an Eskimo.

"It didn't surprise me at all that he did so many good things in Canada," Bustle said. "He took coaching so well, he wasn't a guy that was going to sulk if you got after him because he had high aspirations of playing pro football. He liked to have fun on and off the field and always had a good look in his eye. A lot of guys have a hard time taking hard coaching, but he'd come out of a good program and was brought up the right way. You knew he was going to be special."

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University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics

Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2026: Fred Stamps

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