Eddie Hickey To Be Inducted Into MVC Hall of Fame
10/23/2008 4:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
The Missouri Valley Conference will honor its past on Friday, March 6, 2009, when The Valley conducts its annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony in St. Louis.
Basketball standout Junior Bridgeman of Louisville, track and field coaching legend John Coughlan of Illinois State, late head basketball coach Eddie Hickey of Creighton and Saint Louis, women's hoops star Lorri Bauman of Drake, basketball icon John Wooden of Indiana State and late coach and athletics director John L. Griffith of Drake highlight the 12th MVC Hall of Fame class.
Bridgeman will be enshrined as a Hall of Fame selection, while Coughlan and Hickey are Coaches Wing choices.
Bauman is an Institutional Great selection, while Wooden and Griffith enter the Hall of Fame as Lifetime Achievement choices.
For the sixth time in seven years, The Valley will conduct its annual Hall of Fame ceremony as part the State Farm MVC Men's Basketball Tournament weekend on March 5-8, 2009.
The 2009 Missouri Valley Conference Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place at Scottrade Center in St. Louis on Friday, March 6. The event will begin with an 8 a.m. breakfast, followed by the induction ceremony at 8:45 a.m.
Tickets to the 2009 Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame Ceremony can be obtained by calling the league office at 314/421-0339. Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.
The 2009 Hall of Fame class includes an All-America men's basketball choice, a 24-time Coach of the Year selection, a men's basketball coach who led his team to an NIT championship, an NCAA record-holding women's basketball standout, a men's hoops coach who won 10 NCAA titles and an athletics director who created one of the finest track and field events in this country.
The 1974 and 1975 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, Bridgeman is one of just seven student-athletes in league history to earn back-to-back MVP honors.
Coughlan led Illinois State to 25 MVC track and field team titles and guided the Redbirds to five NCAA Championship top 25 finishes.
In stints as head men's basketball coach at Creighton and Saint Louis, Hickey compiled 337 wins, including 163 league victories.
At the end of her career at Drake, Bauman was the all-time NCAA Division I women's basketball scoring leader with 3,155 points.
Known for his unparalleled success at UCLA, Wooden served two years as head men's basketball coach, baseball coach and athletics director at Indiana State from 1946 to 1948.
An innovator as well as athletics director and multi-sport head coach at Drake, Griffith founded the storied Drake Relays -- an annual track and field event that features the very best in collegiate and international competition.
“The Missouri Valley Conference has always been progressive in its approach to collegiate athletics, and our Hall of Fame ceremony
provides the stage to honor six individuals who were instrumental in the development of the Conference and its member schools,” said
Commissioner Doug Elgin, who is in his 21st year with The Valley.
“These six individuals all played a significant role -- at the institutional, conference, national and/or international levels -- in the evolution of collegiate athletics. These individuals collectively span a century of greatness, and we're proud to honor them for their accomplishments as
Missouri Valley Conference ambassadors.”
Hall of Fame:
JUNIOR BRIDGEMAN, LOUISVILLE
A native of East Chicago, Ind., Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman is one of just seven players in league history to earn back-to-back Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year awards (1974 and 1975).
A first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference choice in 1974 and 1975, he led the Cardinals to consecutive Valley regular-season crowns and trips to the NCAA Tournament.
A first-team All-America selection in 1975, Bridgeman, whose jersey (No. 10) has been retired by Louisville, powered the Cardinals to the semifinals of the 1975 Final Four, where UL lost to eventual national champion UCLA.
Following his collegiate career, he played in the National Basketball Association for 12 seasons, 10 with the Milwaukee Bucks and three with the Los Angeles Clippers. During his career, he served 11 years as a member of the NBA Players Association.
In 1978-79, he averaged 15.5 points per game to earn the NBA's Sixth-Man Award.
A recipient of the Coach Wooden Key to Life Award, he is the owner and President of Manna, Inc. and ERJ Inc. which currently oversees the administration and operation of 163 Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburger Restaurants in five states and 24 Chili's Restaurants in four states.
Coaches Wing:
JOHN COUGHLAN, ILLINOIS STATE
A native of Elmhurst, Ill., John Coughlan is the most decorated track and field/cross country head coach in Redbird history, having guided the ISU men's program for 23 seasons and the women's squad for eight campaigns.
Retiring from Illinois State following the 2000 MVC Outdoor Championship, he led the Redbirds to 25 league championships and
mentored 291 MVC individual champions.
The 24-time Valley Coach of the Year, he took district coach-of-the-year honors nine times and the 1995 national coach-of-the-year laurel.
On the national level, he shepherded 195 student-athletes to the NCAA Championships in 18 different track events, producing 37 All-Americans. Illinois State placed in the NCAA Championship top 25 on five occasions.
Coughlan served a four-year term as a member of the Executive Committee of the NCAA Division I Track Coaches Association.
He is a member of the Illinois State Athletics Hall of Fame (1993), the Drake Relays Hall of Fame (1997) and the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame (2006).
Coaches Wing:
EDDIE HICKEY, CREIGHTON/SAINT LOUIS
Nicknamed “The Little General,” Eddie Hickey of Creighton and Saint Louis is one of the greatest men's hoops coaches in MVC history.
A native of Reynolds, Neb., Hickey is the only head coach in the 101-year history of the league to lead two different schools to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament.
In his two coaching stints in The Valley, he posted 337 career victories and 163 league triumphs, ranking second all-time in those categories on league charts.
As Creighton head coach from 1935 to 1947, he compiled a 126-71 overall slate and a 73-35 Valley mark. He guided the Bluejays to four MVC regular-season championships, the 1941 NCAA Tournament and the 1942 and 1943 National Invitation Tournaments.
At Saint Louis, he registered an overall record of 211-89 and an MVC mark of 90-36 in 11 seasons (1947-58). He powered the Billikens to three MVC crowns, 1952 and 1957 NCAA Tournament appearances and the championship of the 1948 National Invitation Tournament.
He was selected Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 1952 and 1957.
Elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, he coached at Marquette from 1958 to 1964, leading the Golden Eagles to the 1959 and 1961 NCAA Tournaments and becoming the first coach to take three different schools to the NCAA Division I Tournament.
Institutional Great:
LORRI BAUMAN, DRAKE
A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Lorri Bauman is the tenth Institutional Great selection for The Valley's Hall of Fame.
The Institutional Great distinction honors a player, coach or athletic administrator who competed or worked at a current league school, when the institution was not a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.
A four-year starter at Drake, Bauman became the first woman in NCAA Division I history to collect 3,000 points (3,155) and 1,000 rebounds (1,050), and upon her graduation in 1984, she was the NCAA women's all-time scoring leader.
During her career, she established 17 Bulldog records, set seven NCAA Division I marks and registered nine NCAA Division I Tournament records. In fact, one of her NCAA tourney records -- points in a game (50 versus Maryland on March 31, 1982) -- still stands.
A first-team Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference choice in 1983 and 1984, she was a Wade Trophy finalist in 1984.
Bauman collected second-team All-America laurels from Women's Basketball News Service in 1982 and earned second-team Freshman All-America honors in 1981.
A No. 1 draft pick of the Chicago Women's League in 1984, she is a member of three Halls of Fame -- Iowa Girls High School (1980), Des Moines Register Iowa Sports (1992) and Des Moines B'nai B'rith (2002).
Lifetime Achievement:
JOHN WOODEN, INDIANA STATE
A native of Hall, Ind., John Wooden of Indiana State University is the ninth honoree in the Missouri Valley Conference's Lifetime
Achievement category.
The Lifetime Achievement category honors, when appropriate, former players, coaches, administrators or alumni who competed, worked or attended a current league school.
Wooden served as head men's basketball coach, baseball coach and director of athletics for two seasons (1946-48).
While earning his master's degree at Indiana State, he compiled a 44-15 record as basketball coach while leading the Sycamores to post-season tournament appearances each year.
In 1947, Indiana State received an invitation to play in the NAIB Tournament in Kansas City, but Wooden refused the invitation citing the NAIB's policy banning African-American players. Clarence Walker, an African-American student-athlete from East Chicago, Ind., was a member of the squad.
In 1948, the NAIB changed the policy, and Indiana State lost to Louisville in the final. In the process, though, Walker became the first African-American to play in any postseason intercollegiate basketball tournament.
Wooden moved on to UCLA, beginning with the 1948-49 campaign. Over the course of his 27 seasons with the Bruins, he posted a 620 victories and led UCLA to 10 NCAA national championships.
A six-time NCAA College Basketball Coach of the Year (1964-67-69-70-72-73), he was also selected as The Sporting News Sportsman of the Year in 1970.
A member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and coach, he was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1964 and the Indiana State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1984.
Lifetime Achievement:
JOHN L. GRIFFITH, DRAKE
A native of Mount Carroll, Ill., John L. Griffith of Drake University is the tenth honoree in The Valley's Lifetime Achievement category.
Griffith wore many hats with the Bulldogs, serving as athletics director, head football coach and track and field coach from 1908-15.
In 1910, he founded the Drake Relays -- the most successful regular-season sporting event held by an MVC school -- which annually attracts over 36,000 fans, 9,000 track and field athletes and 50 Olympians. He served as director of the event from 1910 to 1918.
The director of physical education for the entire U.S. Army during World War I, he was the first commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, serving from 1922 to 1944. He had just been re-elected to another five-year term when he died on Dec. 7, 1944.
Griffith was the first membership chairman of the NCAA from 1933-37, before the NCAA had an executive director or president as it does now.
A four-sport letterman at Beloit College, he is a member of the Helms Foundation Hall of Fame, the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Beloit Hall of Fame.
Basketball standout Junior Bridgeman of Louisville, track and field coaching legend John Coughlan of Illinois State, late head basketball coach Eddie Hickey of Creighton and Saint Louis, women's hoops star Lorri Bauman of Drake, basketball icon John Wooden of Indiana State and late coach and athletics director John L. Griffith of Drake highlight the 12th MVC Hall of Fame class.
Bridgeman will be enshrined as a Hall of Fame selection, while Coughlan and Hickey are Coaches Wing choices.
Bauman is an Institutional Great selection, while Wooden and Griffith enter the Hall of Fame as Lifetime Achievement choices.
For the sixth time in seven years, The Valley will conduct its annual Hall of Fame ceremony as part the State Farm MVC Men's Basketball Tournament weekend on March 5-8, 2009.
The 2009 Missouri Valley Conference Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place at Scottrade Center in St. Louis on Friday, March 6. The event will begin with an 8 a.m. breakfast, followed by the induction ceremony at 8:45 a.m.
Tickets to the 2009 Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame Ceremony can be obtained by calling the league office at 314/421-0339. Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.
The 2009 Hall of Fame class includes an All-America men's basketball choice, a 24-time Coach of the Year selection, a men's basketball coach who led his team to an NIT championship, an NCAA record-holding women's basketball standout, a men's hoops coach who won 10 NCAA titles and an athletics director who created one of the finest track and field events in this country.
The 1974 and 1975 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, Bridgeman is one of just seven student-athletes in league history to earn back-to-back MVP honors.
Coughlan led Illinois State to 25 MVC track and field team titles and guided the Redbirds to five NCAA Championship top 25 finishes.
In stints as head men's basketball coach at Creighton and Saint Louis, Hickey compiled 337 wins, including 163 league victories.
At the end of her career at Drake, Bauman was the all-time NCAA Division I women's basketball scoring leader with 3,155 points.
Known for his unparalleled success at UCLA, Wooden served two years as head men's basketball coach, baseball coach and athletics director at Indiana State from 1946 to 1948.
An innovator as well as athletics director and multi-sport head coach at Drake, Griffith founded the storied Drake Relays -- an annual track and field event that features the very best in collegiate and international competition.
“The Missouri Valley Conference has always been progressive in its approach to collegiate athletics, and our Hall of Fame ceremony
provides the stage to honor six individuals who were instrumental in the development of the Conference and its member schools,” said
Commissioner Doug Elgin, who is in his 21st year with The Valley.
“These six individuals all played a significant role -- at the institutional, conference, national and/or international levels -- in the evolution of collegiate athletics. These individuals collectively span a century of greatness, and we're proud to honor them for their accomplishments as
Missouri Valley Conference ambassadors.”
Hall of Fame:
JUNIOR BRIDGEMAN, LOUISVILLE
A native of East Chicago, Ind., Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman is one of just seven players in league history to earn back-to-back Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year awards (1974 and 1975).
A first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference choice in 1974 and 1975, he led the Cardinals to consecutive Valley regular-season crowns and trips to the NCAA Tournament.
A first-team All-America selection in 1975, Bridgeman, whose jersey (No. 10) has been retired by Louisville, powered the Cardinals to the semifinals of the 1975 Final Four, where UL lost to eventual national champion UCLA.
Following his collegiate career, he played in the National Basketball Association for 12 seasons, 10 with the Milwaukee Bucks and three with the Los Angeles Clippers. During his career, he served 11 years as a member of the NBA Players Association.
In 1978-79, he averaged 15.5 points per game to earn the NBA's Sixth-Man Award.
A recipient of the Coach Wooden Key to Life Award, he is the owner and President of Manna, Inc. and ERJ Inc. which currently oversees the administration and operation of 163 Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburger Restaurants in five states and 24 Chili's Restaurants in four states.
Coaches Wing:
JOHN COUGHLAN, ILLINOIS STATE
A native of Elmhurst, Ill., John Coughlan is the most decorated track and field/cross country head coach in Redbird history, having guided the ISU men's program for 23 seasons and the women's squad for eight campaigns.
Retiring from Illinois State following the 2000 MVC Outdoor Championship, he led the Redbirds to 25 league championships and
mentored 291 MVC individual champions.
The 24-time Valley Coach of the Year, he took district coach-of-the-year honors nine times and the 1995 national coach-of-the-year laurel.
On the national level, he shepherded 195 student-athletes to the NCAA Championships in 18 different track events, producing 37 All-Americans. Illinois State placed in the NCAA Championship top 25 on five occasions.
Coughlan served a four-year term as a member of the Executive Committee of the NCAA Division I Track Coaches Association.
He is a member of the Illinois State Athletics Hall of Fame (1993), the Drake Relays Hall of Fame (1997) and the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame (2006).
Coaches Wing:
EDDIE HICKEY, CREIGHTON/SAINT LOUIS
Nicknamed “The Little General,” Eddie Hickey of Creighton and Saint Louis is one of the greatest men's hoops coaches in MVC history.
A native of Reynolds, Neb., Hickey is the only head coach in the 101-year history of the league to lead two different schools to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament.
In his two coaching stints in The Valley, he posted 337 career victories and 163 league triumphs, ranking second all-time in those categories on league charts.
As Creighton head coach from 1935 to 1947, he compiled a 126-71 overall slate and a 73-35 Valley mark. He guided the Bluejays to four MVC regular-season championships, the 1941 NCAA Tournament and the 1942 and 1943 National Invitation Tournaments.
At Saint Louis, he registered an overall record of 211-89 and an MVC mark of 90-36 in 11 seasons (1947-58). He powered the Billikens to three MVC crowns, 1952 and 1957 NCAA Tournament appearances and the championship of the 1948 National Invitation Tournament.
He was selected Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 1952 and 1957.
Elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, he coached at Marquette from 1958 to 1964, leading the Golden Eagles to the 1959 and 1961 NCAA Tournaments and becoming the first coach to take three different schools to the NCAA Division I Tournament.
Institutional Great:
LORRI BAUMAN, DRAKE
A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Lorri Bauman is the tenth Institutional Great selection for The Valley's Hall of Fame.
The Institutional Great distinction honors a player, coach or athletic administrator who competed or worked at a current league school, when the institution was not a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.
A four-year starter at Drake, Bauman became the first woman in NCAA Division I history to collect 3,000 points (3,155) and 1,000 rebounds (1,050), and upon her graduation in 1984, she was the NCAA women's all-time scoring leader.
During her career, she established 17 Bulldog records, set seven NCAA Division I marks and registered nine NCAA Division I Tournament records. In fact, one of her NCAA tourney records -- points in a game (50 versus Maryland on March 31, 1982) -- still stands.
A first-team Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference choice in 1983 and 1984, she was a Wade Trophy finalist in 1984.
Bauman collected second-team All-America laurels from Women's Basketball News Service in 1982 and earned second-team Freshman All-America honors in 1981.
A No. 1 draft pick of the Chicago Women's League in 1984, she is a member of three Halls of Fame -- Iowa Girls High School (1980), Des Moines Register Iowa Sports (1992) and Des Moines B'nai B'rith (2002).
Lifetime Achievement:
JOHN WOODEN, INDIANA STATE
A native of Hall, Ind., John Wooden of Indiana State University is the ninth honoree in the Missouri Valley Conference's Lifetime
Achievement category.
The Lifetime Achievement category honors, when appropriate, former players, coaches, administrators or alumni who competed, worked or attended a current league school.
Wooden served as head men's basketball coach, baseball coach and director of athletics for two seasons (1946-48).
While earning his master's degree at Indiana State, he compiled a 44-15 record as basketball coach while leading the Sycamores to post-season tournament appearances each year.
In 1947, Indiana State received an invitation to play in the NAIB Tournament in Kansas City, but Wooden refused the invitation citing the NAIB's policy banning African-American players. Clarence Walker, an African-American student-athlete from East Chicago, Ind., was a member of the squad.
In 1948, the NAIB changed the policy, and Indiana State lost to Louisville in the final. In the process, though, Walker became the first African-American to play in any postseason intercollegiate basketball tournament.
Wooden moved on to UCLA, beginning with the 1948-49 campaign. Over the course of his 27 seasons with the Bruins, he posted a 620 victories and led UCLA to 10 NCAA national championships.
A six-time NCAA College Basketball Coach of the Year (1964-67-69-70-72-73), he was also selected as The Sporting News Sportsman of the Year in 1970.
A member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and coach, he was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1964 and the Indiana State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1984.
Lifetime Achievement:
JOHN L. GRIFFITH, DRAKE
A native of Mount Carroll, Ill., John L. Griffith of Drake University is the tenth honoree in The Valley's Lifetime Achievement category.
Griffith wore many hats with the Bulldogs, serving as athletics director, head football coach and track and field coach from 1908-15.
In 1910, he founded the Drake Relays -- the most successful regular-season sporting event held by an MVC school -- which annually attracts over 36,000 fans, 9,000 track and field athletes and 50 Olympians. He served as director of the event from 1910 to 1918.
The director of physical education for the entire U.S. Army during World War I, he was the first commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, serving from 1922 to 1944. He had just been re-elected to another five-year term when he died on Dec. 7, 1944.
Griffith was the first membership chairman of the NCAA from 1933-37, before the NCAA had an executive director or president as it does now.
A four-sport letterman at Beloit College, he is a member of the Helms Foundation Hall of Fame, the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Beloit Hall of Fame.
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