Four former WKU athletes will be honored for their high school basketball accomplishments this weekend, when they will be inducted into the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame.
Former Hilltopper basketball standouts Dwight Smith, Jim Rose, Gene Rhodes and Harry Todd will be inducted in the hall of fame’s fifth class during a ceremony Saturday at the Historic State Theatre in Elizabethtown.
Smith and Rose will be inducted posthumously.
Smith, a Princeton native, led Dotson High School to the state tournament in 1963 and made the all-tourney team with another future WKU great, Clem Haskins. Smith ranks 33rd in WKU history with 1,142 career points and ninth in career rebounding average at 11 boards per game. The top rebounding college guard of his time, Smith was part of successful Hilltopper teams that were ranked as high as No. 3 in the nation.
Rose helped Hazard High School to three straight Sweet 16 appearances in 1964, ’65 and ’66. He was named all-state in his final three high school seasons and was selected to the Parade All-American team in 1967. His success continued at WKU, where he scored 1,133 career points (34th in school history). He was a key member of nationally ranked Hilltopper teams, including the 1971 NCAA Final Four club.
Todd averaged 30 points and 20 rebounds as a senior at Earlington High School in 1958 and led his team to the 1956 state tournament his sophomore year. He received first-team all-state honors from 1956-58 and shared Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball award in 1958 with Ralph Richardson. Todd led WKU in rebounding for three straight seasons from 1960-62 and finished his career ranked seventh in school history in career rebounds with 924.
Rhodes helped Louisville’s Male High School secure Sweet 16 berths in 1944, ’45 and ’46. He was a first-team all-state player in 1945 and ’46 and was named to the all-state tournament team in 1945. He also later coached at Male and St. Xavier High School in Louisville, where he won the 1958 state title. Rhodes scored 1,029 career points as a player at WKU. His coaching career eventually led him to an assistant position with the Hilltoppers under John Oldham, and he later became head coach of the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels.
WKU is already well-represented in the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame by Clem Haskins, Clemette Haskins, Jim McDaniels and Geri Grigsby (2012 class); Sharon Garland and Jaime Walz Richey (2013); John Oldham and Crystal Kelly (2014); and Bobby Rascoe and Olmstead’s Lillie Mason (2015).
Former Logan Countian Rich Hendrick was inducted into a similar but different hall of fame last year. Hendrick, the only player to start with Smith, Haskins, Rose and McDaniel in those two different eras, was named to theKentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame Class of 2015, which includes all sports, not just basketball.