D-D Breaux was just 25 years old in 1978 when she was asked to lead a Title IX-created gymnastics program that was little more than an afterthought on the LSU campus.
The women’s team was evolving from a club sport to a varsity sport then, budgets were low, and practices were held in musty corners of the Huey P. Long Gymnasium. “I had to convince people for every single thing I wanted,” Breaux says.
Breaux has molded generations, but she doesn’t seem to like dwelling on the past. She tells her current athletes about the program’s rocky rise to prominence not to reveal unforeseen layers of herself and her story, but to push them to be better, to remain positive in the face of adversity, to never let up.
Now in her fifth decade at LSU, Breaux is known affectionately as the “Dean of Coaches,” and former LSU athletes from all sports call, text or drop in on her, in many cases long after their own mentors have moved on. “When they come back, they remember me, and they know I’m still here,” she says.
That endurance has made Breaux the longest-serving tenured coach in SEC history, regardless of sport. And it was this same gymnastics legend, clad in a #10 Breaux football jersey and fighting off a cold, who stood tall, fist aloft in a purple sky, leading the student section in cheers during the LSU-Texas A&M game in Tiger Stadium.
Read the latest cover story from inRegister magazine about Breaux’s legacy and impact on LSU.
