Former McNeese Director of Athletics Bruce Hemphill passed away Wednesday at his residence at the age of 68.
A Sulphur native and a 1977 graduate of LSU where he was an All-Academic football player for the Tigers, Hemphill guided the McNeese Athletic Department from 2013 until 2020 during which time the Cowboys and Cowgirls won nine Southland Conference regular season championships and five SLC tournament titles.
“I was extremely heartbroken when I heard the news about Bruce’s passing,” said McNeese AD Heath Schroyer who Hemphill hired as the Cowboys’ basketball following the 2017-18 season. “He was a good man who loved McNeese and Southwest Louisiana. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and his loved ones at during this time.”
Hemphill served over 30 years as an athletics administrator at the Division I level. Following a couple of stints in the coaching and recruiting ranks at North Carolina State and South Carolina, he joined the athletic department staff at the University of North Carolina in 1990 and served eight years as Assistant to the Athletics Director and Director of Recruiting.
From 199-2003, he was an Associate AD at the University of Wyoming and in 2003, he returned to North Carolina before being named the AD at McNeese in 2013.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Courtesy of McNeese Athletics