Football remains king, baseball is the national pastime and basketball has its own diehard fans in the Teche Area, as in the rest of the country.

But the success of a couple of Teche Area athletes at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore., last week reminds us there are other sports besides the “big three” that fans should keep an eye on locally.

LSU junior Zedric Thomas, a standout at New Iberia Senior High, earned his third NCAA All-America honor this year, adding a seventh-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., last Wednesday to the long jump and triple jump honors he earned in March at the NCAA indoor meet in Fayetteville, Ark.

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Thomas, who also competed in the long jump at the NCAA meet over the weekend, set a personal record of 52 feet, 103⁄4 inches in the triple jump on Wednesday.

The NCAA awards All-America honors to the top 10 finishers in each event.

Tommy Killen, a former Catholic High standout, wrapped up his collegiate career at TCU by placing 18th in the discus competition at the NCAA championships.

Killen, who still holds the Louisiana High School Athletic Association state meet composite record in the discus, which he set in 1995, is the first TCU athlete to win the conference discus championship, having won the Mountain West title in 2009.

Former Centerville standout Samantha Calhoun could be the next area track athlete to join those two in competing at the NCAA meet. Calhoun set school sprint records several times this season at Nicholls State University.

Boxing, once a major sport in the area, has experienced a revival locally with several young fighters beginning to make a name for themselves.

Also looking to make his mark in the ring is Kelvin Price, a former NISH basketball and track star, who is 5-0 in the professional ranks.

The area has produced such tennis standouts as Teddy Viator (St. Joseph’s in Jeanerette) and Zak Blanchard (Catholic High), both of whom went on to play tennis at LSU.

Viator coaches tennis at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Louisiana-Lafayette golf coach Theo Sliman is another local product, having gone from Catholic High to UL-Lafayette and the pros before becoming a coach.

The area’s soccer programs have produced several college scholarship athletes in recent years as well.

There’s an abundance of athletic talent in the Teche Area, and not only in the “major” sports.

CHRIS LANDRY is the sports editor of The Daily Iberian.