Clyde Lovellette - Wabash County Museum History Hunters

In this episode of History Hunters at the Wabash County Museum, you will see and hear basketball legend Clyde Lovellette.
Born on September 7, 1929 he became an American professional basketball player and was known as the first of the big men, fostering the trend of the tall, physical and high-scoring centers. Lovellette was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. He was also the first basketball player in history to achieve the Triple Crown - playing on an NCAA championship team, Olympics gold medal basketball team, and NBA championship squad.
While at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, Indiana he came a two-time All-State player. Being recruited to play at Kansas University, Lovellette was a two-time first-team All-American player and led the Big Seven Conference in each of his three seasons. In the 1951-52 season he led the Jayhawks to the NCAA title and was named MVP. That same year he led the United States in scoring and was named the Helms College Player of the Year. Lovellette is still the only player in history to have led the nation in scoring and win the NCAA title in the same year. This performance landed him on the 1952 Olympic team where the USA won gold in Helsinki. That Year also saw him drafted into the NBA as the overall first-round pick of the Minneapolis Lakers.
As a professional basketball player, he played 704 NBA games with the Minneapolis Lakers, Cincinnati Royals, St Louis Hawks, and the Boston Celtics. Lovellette scored 11, 947 points per game and grabbed a total of 6,663 rebounds. He played in four NBA All-Star Games and won championships in Minneapolis (1954) and Boston (1963, 1964).
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