Year graduated
1968
Major accomplishments
Scored a record 128 points in the final four games of the 1967 state tournament; Indiana All-Star; Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer
There were no Hoosiers moments for Bob Ford and his Evansville North teammates when they arrived at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis in 1967 for the Indiana high school basketball tournament finals. However, in the next 48 hours Ford, who scored a record 128 points in the final four games of the tournament, which was later broken by George McGinnis in 1969 with 148 points, would learn the true meaning of Hoosier Hysteria.
Ford had never seen a state finals game in person; he had always watched on television. He said, “To walk into that building after seeing it on television and all the stuff that’s written about the state tournament, it’s an awe-inspiring moment. We had seen some big crowds in Evansville, because we played in Roberts Stadium. We saw 10,000 to 12,000 people for sectional, regional, and semistate. But [Hinkle Fieldhouse] with all its history was totally different.”
In the afternoon round, North defeated New Castle, 66-56; and Lafayette beat Fort Wayne South, 79-70. Before a capacity crowd of 14,983, North outlasted Lafayette, 60-58. Ford had 35 points against New Castle, and followed up with 27 in the championship game.
“We had two state trooper cars leading our bus back to Evansville the next day,” said the 6-foot-7 Ford. “For some reason people knew the route we were taking, and there were an awful lot of congratulatory signs along the way. We stopped about an hour after we left Indianapolis to get something to eat. Then as many of us as could piled into the two state trooper cars. We ran the siren so hard it was dead by the time we got to Evansville.”
The team climbed on a big ladder truck and rode through town. “Then we went to Roberts Stadium for a reception,” said Ford. “We had about 12,000 people there. It was really neat, and that’s what Hoosier Hysteria is all about.”
Ford’s scintillating performance in the finals, in which he had 25 field goals and 12 free throws for 62 points, earned him a spot on the late Tony Hinkle’s all-time Indiana high school basketball “dream team.” The former Butler University coach announced his selections in April, 1982: Ford; Fuzzy Vandivier, Franklin; Bobby Plump, Milan; John Townsend, Indianapolis Tech; McGinnis; Willie Gardner, Indianapolis Crispus Attucks; Oscar Robertson, Indianapolis Crispus Attucks; Homer Stonebraker, Wingate; Jim Bradley, East Chicago Roosevelt; and John Wooden, Martinsville.
“That was really an honor,” said Ford. “There were some good players on there who played a lot of basketball. And being put in the hall of fame is probably the greatest honor you can have in the state of Indiana as an athlete.”
Ford, who was born in Evansville on January 26, 1950, was an only child. He didn’t know his father. When he was about eight, his mother remarried and he gained a stepbrother, Randy Wilkinson.
Of his new brother Randy, Ford says, “he was kind of a basketball nut. He loved to play on the weekends. He wasn’t terribly tall, but had a lot of skill. He got me hooked on the sport, because I was big and tall, and kind of awkward at that point. But he helped me out with learning the game and the fundamentals and that sort of thing.”
Randy and Ford bent curtain rods into the form of a rim, and used sheer curtains as a net. They built a little backboard, hung it in the garage, and shot tennis balls into their homemade basket.
“If you can put a tennis ball in a basket that size, a basketball into a hoop is not bad at all,” said Ford.
Ford tried out for his eighth grade team, but was cut. He played intramural basketball for three weeks, until the eighth grade coach asked Ford to join the team, “because you’re not learning anything in intramurals.”
After playing junior varsity ball the first semester of his freshman year at North, Ford was elevated to the varsity, where he remained through ‘68 when he was named high school All-American. In the 1966-67 season, for the first time North won at all four levels of the tournament—sectional, regional, semi-state, and state.
“There probably were four or five teams in Evansville that could have gone all the way to state that year,” said Ford. “It was just a matter of who got out of sectional. We were the fortunate ones.”
Coach Jim Rausch had installed the Tennessee offense used by coach Ray Mears that season, and Ford says “it fit everybody on the club like a glove, working equally well against a zone as it did against a man-to-man defense.
“I had a team that somewhere in the middle of the year got the feeling that if we were going to go anywhere, and the coaches did this, that most of the offense had to come through me as center, either as a passer or a scorer. The other guys really caught onto that. As it turned out everybody got a chance to score quite a bit, because the defenses would pack the inside. When I caught the ball, the defense would collapse and that gave me opportunity to pass out to the guards or forwards to take a wing shot.”
Steve Holland was North’s point guard. He had 35 points in the state finals. Preston Smith, a strong defensive player, was the other guard. Jim Hildebrandt and Ron Jesop were the forwards. “Ron played down on the baseline and was a football player, first and foremost, so his bulk and strength inside really helped out,” said Ford.
North lost to Evansville Reitz in the sectional championship game in Ford’s senior year. The Indiana All-Stars lost twice to Kentucky in 1968. “Was it my best experience as a player in terms of playing, probably not,” Ford said. “But it was very enjoyable playing with the other kids from around Indiana. If you remember, the game in Indianapolis never finished. There was a riot towards the end of the game. There were problems with the officiating, and some of the fans got out of control.”
Ford says he had bushel-baskets full of letters from colleges seeking his services. He narrowed his choices to Indiana, Purdue, Kentucky, and Tennessee. “I think it was probably the coaches more than anything else that convinced me to be a Boilermaker. I liked the players who were there, and of course, Rick Mount was there during that time. It seemed Purdue was the right fit, not only athletically, but academically. In high school, I had been involved in music, and at Purdue I sang in the glee club all four years. I traveled with the glee club when I wasn’t playing basketball”
Ford wasn’t eligible as a freshman, but he did get to see the Boilermakers lose to UCLA in the championship game of the 1969 NCAA tournament at Louisville. “Our seats were, well, you couldn’t have been any higher; but we were in the building, and that was all that was important.”
Ford did not get to play in an NCAA tournament. In those days, teams had to win the Big Ten season title to make it. “We were in the hunt my sophomore year,” he said. “We were not too bad my junior year, but in my senior year we were awful. We ended up 12-12 that year” Purdue lost to St. Bonaventure, 94-79, in the NIT in Ford’s junior year.
Despite not making it to the NCAA tournament, Ford calls his Purdue career “everything I hoped it would be. I got a good education, and I saw tons of the country through our travels as a team. In the summer of 1970 I participated in the World University Games in Italy We came in second to Russia, so we got a silver medal In 1971, we played in Cali, Columbia, in the Pan American Games. Unfortunately, we were the first American team not to make the medal round.”
Dave DeBusschere and Bill Bradley were the starting forwards for the New York Knicks of the NBA when Ford was drafted, so he opted to sign with the Memphis Tarns of the ABA. He played nine games and averaged 1.6 points before being cut in December, 1972.
“I had my shot at it,” said Ford. “When you get to that level, you find out pretty quick what your limitations are. I was challenged height-wise and quickness-wise”
It was about at that time that Ford began doing color commentary on television for Purdue games, a task that he still relishes. “I’m sure there are some of the alumni who have been watching games in Mackey Arena a lot longer than I have,” he said. “I haven’t missed very many, though. I enjoy the basketball and staying close to those young people.”
After being released by the Tarns, Ford made a quick move to the TV business. His first job was in sales for Channel 18 in Lafayette. After a year he moved to the Olympic Broadcasting Co. in Chicago as executive producer of its two sports franchises; the Chicago Bulls of the NBA, and the Chicago Cougars of the World Hockey Association. He was there six years. For the next 20 years Ford was in operations and programming for Lafayette TV station WLFI. In 2005, he became director of distribution for Farm Journal Electronic Media in Lafayette.
Ford and his wife, Paula, have three grown children: Rob, 28; Andrew, 23; and Kara, a sophomore at Purdue. Andrew was a walk-on basketball player at Purdue and received a scholarship in his senior season.
If his mother hadn’t remarried, Ford admits his life “might have been totally different. Without my basketball experience, both in high school and college, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It taught me about life, hard work, dedication, determination, all those good things.”