Meet the 2018 Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame class

Commuters driving home from work on in the spring of 1956 on Madison Avenue would sometimes catch a glimpse of an outdoor basketball game in the parking lot at Manual High School. Many of them would pull their cars into the lot to watch those pickup games until sundown.

On one side was Oscar Robertson, fresh off leading Crispus Attucks to back-to-back state championships and the reigning Mr. Basketball, with teammates like Albert Maxey and Bill Brown. On the other side were Manual players. Carl Short, the school’s single-season scoring champion at the time, was one.

“Oscar would bring five or six guys and we’d have five or six guys and we’d play every evening for a while,” Short said. “It was black vs. white, but nobody looked at it that way. We were just looking for somebody to play against. Nobody was on Oscar’s level. It was Oscar and then a great big gap to everybody else. He was super.”

While Robertson and his Attucks teams dominated the landscape at the time, Short was a standout player in his own right. The former Manual star will be honored as part of the 2018 Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame induction class, which was released by the Hall of Fame on Tuesday. The 57th class will be officially inducted on March 21.

Short, who grew up in the Fountain Square area as one of 12 kids (and the oldest of six boys), set Manual’s single-season scoring record as a senior in 1955-56 by averaging 20.6 points and 13.2 rebounds to lead the Redskins to a 15-7 record. The 6-4 Short was second-team All-City as a senior; the first team was led by Robertson and Brown of Attucks, along with Herschel Turner of Shortridge, Jerry Lawlis of Washington and Eddie Hannon of Tech.

“When you are young, you hope to be recognized as a good basketball player,” Short said. “I was probably 9 or 10 when I started playing. Garfield Park was only about a mile from our house so we played a lot there or the Concord Center. Most people then had a rim on their garage so we’d find a place to play.”

Short started out in college at Butler, though he decided the idea of playing both basketball and football was not for him. He transferred to Newberry College in South Carolina, where he led the school to its first NAIA national tournament appearance. He scored a school-record 1,949 points, averaging 28.7 points and 12.3 rebounds as a senior, and has his number retired by the school.

“Butler was not the fit for me,” Short said. “Coach (Tony) Hinkle wanted me to play football and I didn’t really love football like basketball. The Newberry coach kept in touch with me and that’s where I ended up going.”

Short was drafted by the Cincinnati Royals in 1961, but ended up serving in the U.S. Army. He had a tryout with the Indiana Pacers before its first ABA season in 1967, but he was already 29 at the time and attending graduate school at Indiana State and coaching at Thorntown.

Short coached at Thorntown from 1966-69 and Whiteland from 1970-72 before teaching and coaching in the Indianapolis Public Schools system for 26 years.

Here is the rest of the Hall of Fame induction class:

Steve Brett: Brett was a two-year starter and captain at Loogootee before starting three years at Indiana State from 1968-71. He went on to win 467 games in a 37-year coaching career, winning 11 sectionals and two regionals, and he made one state finals appearance. Brett won 223 games at Bloomfield from 1978-93 and led Loogootee to the Class A finals in 2005.

Harold Cox: Cox was an Indiana All-Star alternate in 1954 at Kokomo, graduating as the career leading scorer. Went to play at the University of Evansville, leading the team to its first NCAA College Division national championship as a senior in 1959. Cox coached 17 seasons at Portage, Kokomo Haworth and Castle, winning 185 games.

Marty Echelbarger: After winning a state title as a senior at Muncie Central in 1963 and playing at Hanover College, Echelbarger won 452 games as a coach at Southwestern (Shelbyville), Owen Valley, Brebeuf Jesuit, Princeton, Frankfort and Heritage Hills. He won nine sectionals and recorded 20-win seasons at four schools.

Rod Freeman: Freeman averaged 23.3 points as a senior at Anderson in 1968-69 and earned Indiana All-Star honors. He scored 1,260 career points and had a school-best 886 rebounds. Freeman was a three-year starter at Vanderbilt. He was drafted in 1973 by the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA, Memphis Tams of the ABA and the New York Giants of the NFL. He played one season with the 76ers before starting a career in business.

Bill Greve: Greve scored 1,777 career points at Waveland, leading the teams to sectional titles in 1952 and ’53. He averaged 31 points per game as a senior in 1954-55. Greve went on to play at Purdue, where he averaged 11.1 points and 7.3 rebounds. His brother, Keith, is already a Hall of Fame member.

John Heaton: The 1958 Bloomfield graduate won 418 games over 33 seasons as a coach. He led Shelbyville to 211 wins, 11 sectionals, five regional titles and a trip to the 1986 state finals from 1983-2000. He also coached at Eastern Greene, Southwestern (Shelbyville) and Silver Creek.

Jimmie Howell: Howell enters this season at Lapel with 582 coaching wins. Howell played at Lapel before he was a three-year starter at Charleston Southern, graduating as the program’s career assists leader. He coached at Mt. Vernon from 1981-95, led Muncie South to a sectional championship and coached at Brownsburg from 1998-2004 before returning to Lapel, where he won a Class A state title in 2005 and 2A championship in 2016.

Larry Parks: Parks led Arlington of Rush County in scoring for three seasons, graduating with 1,497 points to set a county record in 1958. He was a three-year letterwinner at Eastern Kentucky, where he averaged 13.5 points and 9.8 rebounds as a senior to earn all-Ohio Valley Conference honors.

Earl Smith Jr.: The 1952 Gary Roosevelt graduate had a 56-year career in Gary schools. He was the first black head coach at Froebel, Emerson and Wallace, winning 323 games over 26 seasons total. The 1977 Emerson team won the inaugural Hall of Fame Classic. At the University of Iowa, Smith Jr. starred in football and track and field.

John Wellemeyer: He scored a school-record 1,623 career points at Huntingburg, averaging 25.4 points and 11.3 rebounds as a senior in 1966-67. Wellemeyer was a three-year starter at Evansville, playing on the 1971 College Division national championship team. He scored 1,200 career points at Evansville.

David “Poncho” Wright: A two-time all-state player at Marshall and 1978 Indiana All-Star. He averaged 21.4 points as a junior and 24.3 points as a senior. Wright went on to the University of Louisville, where he was the sixth man on the 1980 national championship team. He also played on the 1982 Final Four team and played professionally overseas for three seasons.

Bob Lovell: Lovell is the recipient of the Indiana Pacers Silver Medal Award for contributions to Indiana high school basketball other than as a player or coach. Lovell has hosted Network Indiana’s “Indiana Sports Talk” since its start in 1994. He has also served in coverage of the IHSAA state finals, IHSAA state pairings broadcasts and numerous other functions. Lovell was an all-conference player at Plainfield and four-year letterman at Franklin College. He was the basketball coach at Franklin College (1977-81) and IUPUI (1982-94).

Gene Thomas: Thomas is the Centennial Award winner. The 1918 Fortville graduate in 1923 Indiana graduate is the only four-sport letterwinner in IU history (basketball, football, baseball, track). He coached the 1926 Marion state championship team and coached Kalamazoo Central to state titles in Michigan in 1932 and 1939.

The induction banquet will be held on March 21 with a reception at the Hall of Fame in New Castle and a banquet at Primo Banquet Hall in Indianapolis. For reservations, call (765) 529-1891.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

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