Kevin McHale, Lindsay Whalen, Khalid El-Amin among first Minnesota basketball HOF

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per the STrib:

After nearly seven years in development and with more than 100 years of history from which to draw, Minnesota finally has a way to honor its best and most significant high school basketball players, coaches and teams.

The Minnesota High School Basketball Hall of Fame, an idea hatched in 2011 by a committee of longtime high school basketball coaches, reporters and afficionados, announced Monday its inaugural class of 14 honorees, led by such notable names at Kevin McHale, Lindsey Whalen and Khalid El-Amin.

The hall, with displays of each selected member, will be housed permanently at Target Center in a joint agreement with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx.

The inaugural class, including nine players and others for coaching, team and sport accomplishments, will be inducted at a ceremony on March 26 at the Court at Mayo Clinic Square. They will be feted at halftime of the Timberwolves game against the Memphis Grizzlies that evening.

The idea to create a hall of fame to honor Minnesota’s long and rich high school basketball heritage came out of the Minnesota State High School League’s preparation in 2012 for its 100th anniversary of the boys’ basketball state tournament.

“Some of us helped pick the top five players and top five coaches for [the anniversary recognition],” said Marc Hugunin, one of 11 members of the committee behind the effort. “Someone on the committee said ‘Hey, how about a Hall of Fame?’ The [MSHSL] wasn’t interested, but we thought we could do this privately.”

http://www.startribune.com/kevin-mc...a-basketball-hall-of-fame-honorees/471646454/

Go Gophers!!
 

FWIW - the MN State High School league already has a hall of fame that recognizes players in all sports. This new Hall of Fame is a basketball-only deal set up by an outside group. You can assign as much importance to it as you see fit.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of having a state hoops hall of fame - My point is that there is no long-standing organization behind this - just a bunch of people who said "let's have a basketball hall of fame." I would attach more importance to this deal if it was connected to the state basketball coaches' association or some other established group - not just a group of people who formed on an ad-hoc basis.
 

I am not old enough to have seen McHale play in HS or even in college but El-Amin to this day is still the most impressive HS player I've seen from this state. I was wowed by some of his performances and his drive to win.
 

I officiated a game for Chisholm and Bob McDonald when his high scoring son was playing. One of the most unpleasant games I ever reffed. Arrogant, obnoxious, and entitled. Still sticks in my mind 25 years later. Did roughly 500 games in my career and they stood out as two of the worst.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

drinks at Northpoint said:
I officiated a game for Chisholm and Bob McDonald when his high scoring son was playing. One of the most unpleasant games I ever reffed. Arrogant, obnoxious, and entitled. Still sticks in my mind 25 years later. Did roughly 500 games in my career and they stood out as two of the worst.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Which son?
Mike, the oldest, was the worst.
Paul was probably the best all around athlete of the kids. Tom was the best shooter. If they had a 3 point shot he would have left Joel in the dust. Joel could score and benefited from open enrollment, which brought a few really good players to Chisholm from around the area.
Bob was one of those coaches who simply expected his opponent to beat his team by being excellent and refused to tell his team to quit seeking excellence. Consequently many teams got crushed on the Range when his kids were playing. I wouldn't call it arrogance, but rather confidence in being excellent.
That being said. I was quite happy when his 1982 team lost to Winona Cotter in the State Championship game. That team had averaged about 100 points per game. Cotter played stifling man-to-man defense.
Love him or hate him, Bob McDonald was a h3ll of a coach.
 


MennoSota said:
Which son?
Mike, the oldest, was the worst.
Paul was probably the best all around athlete of the kids. Tom was the best shooter. If they had a 3 point shot he would have left Joel in the dust. Joel could score and benefited from open enrollment, which brought a few really good players to Chisholm from around the area.
Bob was one of those coaches who simply expected his opponent to beat his team by being excellent and refused to tell his team to quit seeking excellence. Consequently many teams got crushed on the Range when his kids were playing. I wouldn't call it arrogance, but rather confidence in being excellent.
That being said. I was quite happy when his 1982 team lost to Winona Cotter in the State Championship game. That team had averaged about 100 points per game. Cotter played stifling man-to-man defense.
Love him or hate him, Bob McDonald was a h3ll of a coach.
Click to expand...

It was early nineties, I think it was Joel.
Chisholm fell behind early and the Father/son duo behaved like giant asses. The kid almost shot them back into the game before losing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

short ornery norwegian said:
FWIW - the MN State High School league already has a hall of fame that recognizes players in all sports. This new Hall of Fame is a basketball-only deal set up by an outside group. You can assign as much importance to it as you see fit.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of having a state hoops hall of fame - My point is that there is no long-standing organization behind this - just a bunch of people who said "let's have a basketball hall of fame." I would attach more importance to this deal if it was connected to the state basketball coaches' association or some other established group - not just a group of people who formed on an ad-hoc basis.
Click to expand...

I like it. The "Official" State High School HOF is slanted heavily towards coaches and Ad's. One focusing strictly on BB is neat and it's not just 4 or 5 guys sitting in a bar coming up with names. Looks like there's some thought behind this. I'd like to see a similar one at the Xcel for hockey.

Still, Whalen is the most recent? I'd think Isaiah(?) Dahlman and Blake should have been included. Also, would have put the entire Edgerton team in since they're basically legends. But that's what's great about HOF--great chance to argue over players.
 

Mulligan said:
I like it. The "Official" State High School HOF is slanted heavily towards coaches and Ad's. One focusing strictly on BB is neat and it's not just 4 or 5 guys sitting in a bar coming up with names. Looks like there's some thought behind this. I'd like to see a similar one at the Xcel for hockey.

Still, Whalen is the most recent? I'd think Isaiah(?) Dahlman and Blake should have been included. Also, would have put the entire Edgerton team in since they're basically legends. But that's what's great about HOF--great chance to argue over players.
Click to expand...

They said they're going to induct a new class every year, hopefully smaller than the inaugural 14, but they'll cover all the deserving people at some point. And they did induct the entire 1960 Edgerton team.
 

Shama chimes in:

It’s interesting Kevin McHale is part of the inaugural class of the Minnesota High School Basketball Hall of Fame. McHale probably wasn’t even the best big man in the state his senior season at Hibbing in 1976, with that distinction going to Steve Lingenfelter from Bloomington Jefferson.

The gangly 6-foot-10 McHale was an evolving talent as a teenager. He was a better college player at Minnesota than he was a prep at Hibbing. He became one of the NBA’s greatest players during a career that included three NBA titles with the Celtics.

http://shamasportsheadliners.com/

Go Gophers!!
 



WindyCityGopher said:
They said they're going to induct a new class every year, hopefully smaller than the inaugural 14, but they'll cover all the deserving people at some point. And they did induct the entire 1960 Edgerton team.
Click to expand...

I wasn't very familiar with their story. Just had to look it up. Pretty cool.
 


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