Year graduated
1979
Major accomplishments
State champion in 1975 and 1976; Leading scorer in the final four games of the 1976 tournament with 96 points; The second player in history to win a state title, receive the Trester Award for mental attitude, and become Mr. Basketball in the same year (1976); Starter at North Carolina as a junior and senior; Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer
Bats swirled around Dave Colescott and two of his sisters, Linda and Susie, as they sat in Hinkle Fieldhouse on March 22, 1969, watching their father Jack’s Marion Giants basketball team play an important game against Indianapolis Washington. For the second year in a row, Jack Colescott’s team lost a squeaker in the afternoon round of the state high school tournament finals, 61-60. Marion had lost the year before in the same setting, falling to Indianapolis Shortridge, 58-56. Dave Colescott remembers that a third sister, Nancy, was on the floor as a cheerleader and that his mother, Marge, was sitting right behind her husband, where “she needed to be.” Colescott recalls that it was hard to watch the game, because it was so close and the clock didn’t work.
“After the game I was disgusted,” he said. “I was just 12 years old and I wanted to be with my father, and I couldn’t get to him. I made a pledge that when I got [to the state finals], we were going to make sure we did it for him. We felt really bad for my dad, because he put his heart and soul into the players, and he ran a first-class team. The team went to church together— they were perfect role models—things you don’t see as much as you’d like to. They were my heroes.”
Jack Colescott, who is in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, was quick to say, “You don’t think Dave is prejudiced, do you?”
Colescott interjected, “My dad is very humble. I’m not as humble as he is. I guess unassuming would be the right word, but he basically built the program in the early ‘60s and up until what it became, one of the great powerhouses of Indiana high school basketball.”
Colescott, who also was a state champion in 1975, didn’t get to play for his father, because Jack retired as Marion coach in 1971. He wanted his son to have as normal a high school basketball career as possible without worrying about the pressure of playing for his father. In the meantime, the Marion athletic director’s job became available and Jack took it.
“Dave didn’t have to worry about his dad showing any favoritism,” Jack said. He was involved in hiring the new coach, and ironically, he chose Bill Green—the man who had coached Washington to an unbeaten season and state championship in 1969.
Jack and Bill were Indiana Central alums (the school is now named the University of Indianapolis), and knew each other well. “I thought we made a good choice, and Dave was fortunate to play for a guy that would bring out the best in him,” said Jack, who is retired and living with his wife in Gas City, Indiana.
Colescott laughed when he heard his father’s comment about the man who wound up winning five state titles at Marion: ‘75, ‘76, ‘87, ‘88 and ‘89, giving him six overall, the most by any coach in history.
“For the first two years I played in high school I didn’t forgive [Green] for what happened to Marion in 1969,” he said. “I quickly learned to love and respect him very much.” Colescott says all he remembered about Green at the ‘69 tournament “was his loud sweater. I thought he was a hippie or something.” In 1969, Green wore purple sweaters, Washington’s color. At Marion he wore yellow sweaters, Marion’s color.
“And talk about changing your life,” said Colescott. “He got me into country music. Every day he’d come in and listen to that stuff. We were into rock n roll. He would say, ‘The rednecks are going to rule the world someday’ He loved basketball, fishing, hunting, listening to country music, and loud sweaters.”
During the 1976 state finals, in which unranked Marion beat Jeffersonville, 49-47, and Rushville, 82-76, the Giants played a song by Waylon Jennings, “Luckenbach, Texas,” in the dressing room for good luck. They finished 23-5. In 1975, the Giants wound up 28-1 after defeating Lebanon, 73-65, and Loogootee, 58-46, in the state finals.
After the 75 championship game, Green said, “I was particularly happy for the Colescott family, because Jack took a couple of outstanding teams to the state and lost both times in the closing seconds. Jack probably should have had a gold ring, and now he has the satisfaction of watching his son Colescott win a state championship ring.”
By the time the Giants reached the outskirts of Marion after that ‘75 victory, it was past midnight, but an estimated 10,000 people lined the road into town. The players rode around the town square on fire trucks, then headed to their gym, where it was so crowded they had to stand on folding chairs.
“I’ve never seen such pandemonium,” said Colescott. “Even my grandfather, who was around 85 and never got to go to the games because of his health, was in the crowd.”
The following year Jack decided to have Green keep the team in Indianapolis after the championship game so the fans could get home at a decent hour and be fresh for a celebration the next afternoon in the gym. Jack says the emotional reaction of the fans those two years is what Hoosier Hysteria is all about. “It’s hard to put into words, but Hoosier Hysteria, wherever the name came from, aptly describes Indiana basketball, high school level.”
Colescott was the second-leading scorer in the final four games of the 1975 state tournament with 68 points (teammate Kevin Pearson was high with 72), and he was the leading scorer in the final four games of the 1976 state tournament with 96 points. Colescott helped Indiana win two games over Kentucky in the All-Star series.
Receiving the Trester Award was an overwhelming experience, says Colescott. “It was almost too much. Why me? My cup is full, winning state two years in a row, then to have that on top of it, which I think was a tremendous honor to be told you’re the winner of the mental attitude award, because that was emphasized to me as a young guy. That’s probably why I never got a technical or thrown out of games. I was not afraid of my father, but it was very clear that you had to do it the right way. I was always told to keep my mouth shut and play.”
Jack Colescott knew Purdue recruiter Bob King, and Colescott thought he probably would go there. But the Boilermakers, he said, had four “pretty good guards: Jerry Sichting, Kyle Macy, Eugene Parker and Bruce Parkinson. I thought I was good, but my gosh, I wasn’t any better than those four. Fd love to have played there, but we opted for other places.”
Jack treasures the letter he got from Bob King saying it would be unfair to recruit Colescott with all of the talent ahead of him at Purdue. Michigan, Illinois, and Notre Dame were in the picture for basketball, and Clemson for baseball (Colescott was a shortstop), but he chose to go to North Carolina and play for coach Dean Smith.
“I really liked the people in Chapel Hill and the tradition,” said Colescott. “In high school we won most of the time, and I liked to win and be a part of a great program.” How was his career as a Tar Heel? They were 95-27 in Colescott’s four years, losing to Marquette, 67-59, in the 1977 NCAA championship game. He averaged 4.9 points in 103 games as a Tar Heel.
“I had a storybook career at Marion,” said Colescott, “and I felt it was going to be like that at UNC. Well, there’s nothing better than humbling yourself, whether it’s not playing a lot your first year. I had an All-ACC point guard, Phil Ford, to compete against every day, and I broke my foot the first year.
“Then a tragic thing my sophomore year, that looking back, I think affected me more was my grandfather passed away. It took me a few months to get my head straight, because he definitely was one of my mentors. But I bounced back and started my junior and senior years [and was co-captain as a senior]. I think my role changed from being the one go-to player as a high school senior, to more like it was my junior year at Marion. We were all pretty solid players. I liked playing like that.”
Colescott was drafted by Utah in the seventh round of the NBA draft, and had two tryouts with the Jazz. He was cut the first time, and then broke his ankle playing one-on-one against Matt Doherty, former UNC player and coach. “I always thought I’d be like John Havlicek or Larry Bird waving to the crowd when you’re done playing after a great career. My career ended in a sweaty gymnasium in a pickup game.”
Colescott and his wife, April, who have three children, the youngest of which is named after his grandfather, live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where Colescott is vice-president of sales for Hanes Hosiery. Young Jack, eight, appears to be the one to carry on the Colescott athletic legacy.
“My dad used to tell me sports is just like life, one day you’re going to be on top of the mountain, the next day you can be in the valley,” said Colescott. “I’ve had a lot of good things happen and a lot of things that seemed like bad things at the time. But I think it makes you better a person.”