Year graduated
1944
Major accomplishments
All-sectional as a senior at Pendleton High; Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer
Fifty-nine years after Dick Dickey helped put a spark in the North Carolina State program, the Pendleton High School graduate was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Dickey’s wife, Jean, and five of their eight children attended the induction ceremony on March 23, 2005, in Indianapolis. What made Dickey’s night even more special was the appearance of Monte Towe, an instrumental player in N.C. State’s 1974 NCAA championship, at the dinner.
“Monte knew I was going into the hall, but he surprised me by driving up from New Orleans with his wife to see the induction,” said Dickey of Towe, whom he had recommended to Wolfpack coach Norm Sloan in 1971 after his friend had made the Indiana All-Star team. How Towe got to Raleigh, North Carolina, is an amusing story. Dickey, who died on July 3, 2006 at age 79, had tried to convince Sloan to offer 1967 Indiana All-Star John Mengelt of Elwood a scholarship.
“Norm got the N.C. State job late that year, and didn’t have much time for recruiting,” said Dickey. “I saw Mengelt almost beat Marion single-handedly in the Marion sectional. I told Norm he’d better go after Mengelt. Well, Norm didn’t do anything.” As a college senior at Auburn, Mengelt scored 45 points in a 95-91 victory at N.C. State. It is the highest total by an opposing player against the Wolfpack.
“Norm went up to Mengelt afterward and said, ‘Dick Dickey tried to get me to take you. I just didn’t follow through with it.’” Dickey said that after hearing Mengelt’s reply, “Norm got sick.”
Four years after missing on Mengelt, Sloan asked Dickey to look at a guard who was playing against Towe’s Oak Hill team of Converse. Halfway through the second quarter, Dickey turned to his wife and said that he was looking at the wrong player. A short time later Dickey drove Sloan from Bloomington to Indianapolis. When Sloan asked him if he had found him a guard, Dickey said yes, but not the one Sloan had asked him to watch. Towe was the player he recommended.
Sloan asked how big Towe was. Dickey said 5-foot-7. Sloan said he couldn’t take anybody that little, to which Dickey replied, “Look at the publicity you’d get, Norm. Tom Burleson’s going to be 7-foot-4, and Monte Towe’s 5-foot-7. That’s natural publicity. Besides, Towe can play.” Sloan acquiesced, saying, “Okay, tell him he’s got a scholarship, ‘cause I’m not having you holler at me four more years.”
Every time Towe saw Dickey he insisted he owed him plenty for whatever success he’s had since his high school days. Dickey always replied, “Not really, Monte. All I did was give you opportunity. You made it from there.”
N.C. State was known as the Red Terror when Dickey joined Sloan and Pete Negley of Indianapolis, Charlie Stine of Frankfort, Jack McComas of Shelbyville, and Harold Snow of Anderson in Raleigh in the fall of 1946. On December 2,1947, Case’s team became known as the Wolfpack. Not only did his program have a new nickname, it had a new direction after going 57-72 in the previous seven seasons.
“Timing was everything,” said the 6T’ Dickey, who played forward in college after being a guard who hadn’t shot much on some poor Pendleton teams. “I was lucky. I got there at the right time, and people were ready for a change, you know being after World War II. We came in and started winning. And the fans took us in their hearts.”
In Dickey’s four seasons under Case, who coached Frankfort High School to four Indiana state championships, the Wolfpack had records of 26-5, 29-3, 25-8, and 27-6. The team went to two NIT tournaments in that span, and in 1950 they traveled to the NCAA Final Four in New York City. N.C. State lost to CCNY (City College of New York), 78-73, in the semifinals, then defeated Baylor, 53-41, in a consolation game. CCNY won both the NCAA and NIT titles that year.
Dickey, who captained the 1949-50 team, is one of only three N.C. State players to earn All-America honors three times, and is the only four-time all-conference selection in school history. He led the Wolfpack to four successive Southern Conference titles (N.C. State went into the ACC in 1953). Dickey became the first Wolfpack player drafted by the NBA, Baltimore in 1950.
Instead of going to Baltimore, Dickey opted to play with the Anderson Packers, who had been members of the old National Basketball League, during the 1950-51 season. The Packers’ league didn’t last, so Dickey went to Baltimore in 1951, but soon was sold to the Celtics. He played behind Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. Dickey’s minutes and pay weren’t excessive, so he decided to go to work after one season. He did continue to play independent ball until he was near 40 years old.
How good was Dickey? “The farther from it, the better I was,” he said with a chuckle. “The players of my day didn’t get to watch a lot of TV and film. I remember Norm Sloan calling me one day. He said he was looking at some old film, then added, ‘Dick, you were a lot better than I thought you were.’ I told him I thought that was a compliment.”
Shortly after being named all-sectional for Pendleton as a senior in 1944, Dickey enlisted in the Navy. Three days after graduating, the 5’9'', 150-pound 17-year-old went to Norman, Oklahoma, for training. “I hadn’t grown up yet,” he said.
From Norman, Dickey was sent to California for pre-flight training (he never did get a pilot license). Dickey played on a service basketball team that won 29 straight games. At the same time, Case was coaching a pre-flight team in Ottumwa, Iowa. The Navy decided to let the teams play for a championship, and Case’s team won it with narrow victories in Iowa and in California.
Dickey must have impressed Case, because he got an invitation to join five other Hoosier hotshots in Raleigh after his two-year military service. He ended up going south instead of enrolling at Purdue on the G.I. Bill. Those hotshots changed southern basketball forever, and Dickey was in the forefront of the revolution. On February 25, 1947 the game between N.C. State and Duke was postponed when fire officials closed down Thompson gym in Raleigh the afternoon before the game. Fans had sneaked in through bathroom windows, broke down doors, and hid in the basement in an effort to see the game without purchasing tickets. The gym seated about 1,500, but more than double that would have been packed into the bleachers if the fire officials hadn’t intervened.
“I think that was the start of basketball craziness down there,” said Dickey, who was MVP in the first Dixie Classic held in December, 1949. Dickey also took part in starting the college tradition of cutting down nets after a tournament victory. Case had done that after winning Indiana high school tournaments, so he had his team do it after winning the Southern Conference tournament in 1947.
Dickey, who resided in Marion following his retirement in 1992 after a 30-year stint with Farm Bureau Insurance, returned to Raleigh in 1999 when his alma mater retired his No. 70 jersey. New Castle has a No. 70 Dickey jersey on display in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I don’t know of any other high school hall of fame that would compare with that one,” he said. “People [in the south] have told me they couldn’t visualize it being that big of a draw, and how big basketball was in Indiana.”