Kansas State University Athletics
K-State Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1990
- Class:
- 1959
Considered one of the most decorated players in school history, Bob Boozer is the only Wildcat to earn consensus first team All-America honors twice in a career and one of just 10 to have his jersey honored by the school. He was the landslide leading vote-getter for the school’s All-Century basketball team.
A 6-foot-8, 220-pound forward from Omaha, Neb., he played three years for Hall of Fame head coach Tex Winter from 1956-59, helping the Wildcats to an incredible 62-15 record, a trip to the 1958 Final Four and consecutive Big Seven/Eight titles in 1958 and 1959. He averaged a then school-record 25.6 points per game as a senior en route to leading K-State to the Big Eight regular season title with a perfect 14-0 mark and the No. 1 ranking in the final regular season poll of 1959.
The first Wildcat to play on an Olympic team, he was part of the gold-medal winning 1960 U.S. Olympic team that was enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010 and considered the greatest in Olympic history. He was the No. 1 pick of the 1959 NBA Draft by the Cincinnati Royals and went on to play 11 years in the NBA for six different teams, winning a NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1971.
