LIFE

Local resident Van Buren set to join LSU Hall of Fame

Adam Hunsucker
ahunsucker@thenewsstar.com

You might know Ebert Van Buren from a variety of things.

Maybe you were a patient of his here in Monroe, where Van Buren has been a licensed psychologist for 50 years. Or maybe you were one of the thousands of people he taught to scuba dive at the University of Louisiana at Monroe natatorium.

How you know Van Buren depends a lot on your age. The area’s younger residents might not know that he was a former captain of the LSU football team and one half of the “Van Buren Boys” with the Philadelphia Eagles, the first set of brothers ever selected in the first round of the NFL Draft.

LSU remembered. And the university is making sure everyone else does too.

LSU

Van Buren is among the eight inductees set to be enshrined in the LSU Hall of Fame on September 4 at the L’Auberge Baton Rouge Event Center. LSU athletic director Joe Alleva called Van Buren himself to deliver the news.

“When he called me he said, ’Ebert, this should have happened a long time ago,’” Van Buren said. “We’re going to have a big crowd there, mostly my relatives. I think it’s a big honor and they’re proud also.”

After one look at Van Buren’s football accolades — team captain at LSU, first round draft choice, Pro Bowl appearance — it’s more remarkable to consider he didn’t take up the game until later in life.

Van Buren, who was born in Honduras and came to the United States at eight years old, never played a snap of football until his early 20s. Following his graduation from the now defunct Metairie High School, Van Buren was drafted by the Army in 1943, where he served in the Philippines during World War II and earned two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.

When Van Buren returned to the states following the war, he took up playing sandlot football in Audubon Park in New Orleans with two friends from Metairie High, who just so happened to have scholarships to play at LSU. There weren’t any helmets or pads or even jerseys. This was the game at its most rudimentary level.

Van Buren did enough to get noticed. When his former classmates left for Baton Rouge, they promised to tell then-LSU football coach Bernie Moore about him. Ebert’s brother Steve, an LSU star himself, played for Moore, and when the coach got wind there was another Van Buren brother, he made sure to get him on campus.

“I was green. Bernie Moore told me to go out in the flat for a pass and I ran to the goal line because I knew that’s where you scored,” Van Buren said. “I didn’t know anything but I had a lot of desire.”

He also had a few teammates to win over.

Van Buren weight 165 pounds coming out of the army and had plenty to prove to a team full of touted All-Americans and high school stars. He did that by working harder than anyone else. And hitting everything that moved.

“I played as a freshmen, which was a big deal because freshman didn’t play back then, and we were playing Mississippi State,” Van Buren said. “I ran down on the kickoff and (former MSU star) Harper Davis, he juked right past me, but I was able to catch up with him and when I did I grabbed him and slammed him to the ground as hard as I could.

“That’s the only way to play that game is mean, but you play clean too.”

When Van Buren got to LSU he was the slowest player on the team. He solved that problem by spending one summer running in knee-deep water every day at Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish. By the time he was a senior no one could catch Van Buren in a sprint.

From 1947-1950, Van Buren played fullback, halfback and linebacker for the Tigers and was part of the 1949 team that upset 10-ranked Tulane and played no. 2 Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.

Van Buren was selected seventh overall by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1951 NFL Draft, where he joined his brother Steve. The Van Burens held the record as the only brothers taken in the first round of the draft until it was broken by Peyton and Eli Manning 53 years later.

“I didn’t find out I was the No. 7 pick until someone told me about 10 years after I got out of pro ball. It was different back then,” Van Buren said. “I remember getting to Philadelphia and Steve and I were working out. He asked me if I thought I could make the team and I said yes. He accepted that and was all for me.”

Ebert played three years for the Eagles and made the Pro Bowl in 1952. With his football career over, he returned to finish school at LSU, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1953 and a master’s in 1961.

A chance layover while Van Buren was completing his internships in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi led him to set up his psychologist practice in 1965 in Monroe, where he raised a family of five.

“I used to fly old Southern Airlines up to Monroe and there weren’t any psychologist up here and maybe just one or two psychiatrists,” Van Buren said. “So I thought this would be a good place to start and I’ve been here since.”

At 90 years old, Van Buren had to give up Saturday trips to Tiger Stadium. Now he watches every LSU game from the comfort of home.

When he does make his way back to Baton Rouge with the rest of the Class of 2015, many around the program will tell you it’s been a long time coming.

“I’ve been writing letters since I was probably in college trying to get him in. He’s accomplished so much,” said Karen Oliver, Van Buren’s daughter.

Van Buren has friends and family coming in from all over the country to see his big day, including Pennsylvania and California.

“It’ll be like a family reunion,” Oliver said. “It’s going to be a special day and we’re glad it’s finally here.”

Follow Adam on Twitter @adam_hunsucker