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bounce840
04-07-2012, 01:25 AM
This is a classic Duke player. Did anyone know who Howard Hurt is?? A six three guard who played at Duke in the late fifties Howard was a good player. He knew Jerry West and played against him in West Virginia. He is very nice and is very knowledgeable about Duke Basketball. He played in the senior games three years ago.

Olympic Fan
04-07-2012, 12:32 PM
This is a classic Duke player. Did anyone know who Howard Hurt is?? A six three guard who played at Duke in the late fifties Howard was a good player. He knew Jerry West and played against him in West Virginia. He is very nice and is very knowledgeable about Duke Basketball. He played in the senior games three years ago.

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.

chazz101s
04-07-2012, 02:58 PM
Howard Hurt also coached at RJ Reynolds High in Winston-Salem, NC. (First practice, I came late. HH didn't like anybody's being late!)

Never heard the Packer recruitment story before. Thanks! (I still very much miss Billy Packer's TV commentary. ["Often wrong--never in doubt"! as he put it.] Even though he was over-the-top in love with Muggsy Bogues' play, Billy Packer always had really smart things to say. He just plain saw a lot. Makes Clark Kellogg look dumb and sound like the mush-mouth he is.)

And Art Heyman still may be the best player I ever saw in a Duke uniform. Dribble, score big-time, rebound like he was 6'10"--amazing on-court grace.

Oops, sorry--back to Howard Hurt!

OZZIE4DUKE
04-07-2012, 03:43 PM
I still very much miss Billy Packer's TV commentary.
You are the very first person I have EVER heard say this! :eek: I didn't know anyone missed him. :cool:

chazz101s
04-07-2012, 03:59 PM
You are the very first person I have EVER heard say this! :eek: I didn't know anyone missed him. :cool:

Sorry to violate the religion I sense here on the Forum. . . . I loved watching Billy Packer play basketball and I also felt that he was an astute analyst.

I wonder what Jay Bilas (whom I also like to hear and also enjoyed watching play) would say in his heart of hearts?

Nonetheless, you need to talk to more basketball fans from years past!

OZZIE4DUKE
04-07-2012, 04:19 PM
You are the very first person I have EVER heard say this! :eek: I didn't know anyone missed him. :cool:


Sorry to violate the religion I sense here on the Forum. . . . I loved watching Billy Packer play basketball and I also felt that he was an astute analyst.

I wonder what Jay Bilas (whom I also like to hear and also enjoyed watching play) would say in his heart of hearts?

Nonetheless, you need to talk to more basketball fans from years past!
Not really. I've watched him on TV since back in the 70's when he and Jim Thacker were partnered on the CD Chesley/Pilot Life ACC network days. I'm glad he retired. And oh, Pilot Life still sucks! :cool::rolleyes:

ricks68
04-07-2012, 04:19 PM
Sorry to violate the religion I sense here on the Forum. . . . I loved watching Billy Packer play basketball and I also felt that he was an astute analyst.

I wonder what Jay Bilas (whom I also like to hear and also enjoyed watching play) would say in his heart of hearts?

Nonetheless, you need to talk to more basketball fans from years past!

Well, this is one Crustie that has talked to OZ on a number of occasions and do not know how you came up with the term "astute" to describe Billy Packer either. (Not meant to put those exact words in Oz's mouth.) I think that a poll of us could certainly come up with a more accurately descriptive term as far as we are concerned but choose not to waste our time.:rolleyes:

Ricks

Olympic Fan
04-07-2012, 04:52 PM
As another "crustie" (like that word) let me say that my view of Billy Packer evolved. In his early years and through the 1980s, I thought he was an astute observer who ws always worth listening to. The Enberg-Packer-McGuire team on NBC is the best college basketball broadcast crew ever and before that, the Simpson-Packer, then Thacker-Packer team on ACC basketball were superb. But as he got older, he became less analytical and more opinionated. His over-the-top ref baiting during the 2001 Final Four helped spread he "Duke-gets-all-the-calls-mantra".

Duke's rise to national prominance seemed to infuriate him -- the more successful Duke got, the more critical he became. I always wondered if that was a carryover from his recruitment.

He WAS infuriated back in the spring of 1957. BTW, I got a few guys mixed up earlier -- Hurt, Kistler, Frye and eventually Youngkin were ahead of Packer, Mullen and Cantwell.

Packer was the son of Lehigh coach Tony Packer (sorry to mention that school). He grew up dreaming of playing for Duke, since his hero growing up was Dick Groat. One night that spring, Packer called Duke assistant Fred Shabel (who, ironically, had been Groat's backup) and tried to commit. But Shabel told him that Bradley had not decided whether to offer the last scholarship to him or John Cantwell. Packer got so angry that he hung up and told his father that he was committing to Wake Forest -- because he knew the Deacons played Duke twice every year and he wanted to sick it to the Devils. He did, although that was to a large degree because he was in the same class as Len Chappell (a big man that Duke recruited hard).

In the end, Cantwell decided to come to Duke on his own dime (he became a doctor) and that last scholarship went to Jack Mullen. Obviously, Packer became a greater player than either Cantwell (who was never more than a scrub) or Mullen (who was largely a defensive specialist).

chazz101s
04-07-2012, 07:03 PM
Nice explanation of how you turned against Packer. I still differ--Packer is the best analyst I've ever heard. But I'm glad you seem to agree that Packer and McGuire and Enberg were the best announcing team that college basketball has enjoyed. Hm, of those three guys, who knew more BASKETBALL?

Are you sure that Carroll Youngkin was from Winston-Salem? If so, what was his high school?

Thanks again for your deep knowledge of Duke b-ball and willingness to share it here!

Chaz

Indoor66
04-07-2012, 07:20 PM
Nice explanation of how you turned against Packer. I still differ--Packer is the best analyst I've ever heard. But I'm glad you seem to agree that Packer and McGuire and Enberg were the best announcing team that college basketball has enjoyed. Hm, of those three guys, who knew more BASKETBALL?

Are you sure that Carroll Youngkin was from Winston-Salem? If so, what was his high school?

Thanks again for your deep knowledge of Duke b-ball and willingness to share it here!

Chaz

He was from Winston-Salem. Check this article. (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=204863899) Also here (http://goduke.statsgeek.com/basketball-m/players/statlines.php?playerid=387). I do not know which high school he attended.

rcreason
04-08-2012, 01:48 AM
He was from Winston-Salem. Check this article. (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=204863899) Also here (http://goduke.statsgeek.com/basketball-m/players/statlines.php?playerid=387). I do not know which high school he attended.

He went to my alma mater North Davidson High School according to this link http://www.eastwestallstars.com/former_players_games.aspx , this is a coincidence because Hurt's son was the head basketball coach their for many years and Hurt visits NDHS often or at least he did when i attended