Howard Hurt -- No. 21 -- was my first "favorite" Duke player.
He was a 6-3 guard from Beckley, WVa., who was part of Coach Hal Bradley's last great recruiting class -- along with center Doug Kistler, guard Jack Mullen (a 26-year-old Navy veteran), Johnny Frye and walk-on John Cantwell, who was the player Bradley was interested in instead of Billy Packer (actually, it's a long, copnvoluted story ... just say that Bradley's inability to decide whether to offer his last scholarship to Cantwell or Packer cost us Packer). Forward Carroll Youngkin from Winston-Salem was actually recruited a year earlier, but had to sit out his first year for academic reasons, so he ended up in the same class.
It's kind of funny ... Duke won the ACC regular season in 1958 with a senior-dominated team of no-names that was supposed to finsh fourth in the league (UNC had four starters back from its national title team, and started the year No. 1; Maryland was in the top 10 the second week of the season; NC State started at No. 12 and stayed ranked all season). Yet, the voters picked Everett Case as Coach of the year -- he coached a team that was picked higher than Duke preseason and finished with a worse record. When the vote was taken Duke was No. 10 in the nation ... NC State was No. 20. How did that work?
Anyhow, the next season, starting five sophomores -- usually Kistler, Youngkin and the 6-3 Hurt up front with Frye and Mullen in the backcourt -- Duke finished 7-7 in the ACC and 13-12 overall -- and the voters picked Bradley as coach of the year???? (BTW, that year Case took his team to 22-4, first in the ACC and No. 6 in the nation ... I don't get that vote either).
Bradley left after that season and Vic Bubas inherited Hurt and the rest of those sophs. As juniors, they were once again right at .500 in the regular season, finishing 12-10 (7-7 in the ACC). But they caught fire in the ACC Tournament, upset UNC in the semis, then upset Wake in the finals to win Duke its first ACC title. They beat Princeton (Duke's first-ever NCAA win) and St. Joe's to reach the East Regional finals before losing to NYU. A year later, Mullen was ineligible, but sophomore Art Heyman joined the other four holdovers to finish 22-6 and No. 10 nationally.
Hurt averaged 15.7 points as a soph; 13.4 as a junior and 12.3 as a senior. he made second-team All-ACC in all three seasons. He was versatile enough to play forward (as he did most of his first two years) and guard (as he did as a senior).
Hurt later became the basketball coach at Enloe High School in Raleigh. While there, he tutored future Duke standout Randy Denton.
Thanks for bringing his name up ... like I said, he was my first Duke hero.