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  L. Butler Hennon
When
L. Butler Hennon was winning basketball games at
tiny Wampum High School, his teams attracted not
only nationwide curiosity but attention in the
Soviet Union as well. Hennon coached from 1933 to
1971, the later years at Ellwood City. His teams won
620 games. Wampum teams won 16 section titles, three
state championships, and a record setting 82
consecutive winning games. So accustomed was Wampum
to winning that it only celebrated after WPIAL or
state championships. Wampum also set a nationwide
scoring record in 1959 with a 154-54 victory over
Neshannock. Hennon adopted some unusual practice
techniques, such as having his players wear
galoshes, weighted jackets, and workmen's gloves.
Dribblers might be half-blinded by taped glasses.
Hennon's theory was that such handicaps in practice
made things easier in the games. His methods were
featured in a Jan. 6, 1958 Life magazine
picture story, and later in a periodical in Russia
where they were building an Olympic basketball
program. The above photo depicts the Wampum High
School 1954-55 state championship team. (left to
right) Francis Bennett, Eugene Bennett, Joe
Schnitski, Bob Mathews, Don Hennon, Coach Butler
Hennon, John Melfi, John Grinnen, Eugene Swogger,
Tom Galbreath, Gabby McMillan. |
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Don Hennon
Admirers who had watched him play muse about how much the three-point rule, which
rewards long-distance shooting, would have benefited Don Hennon. He led Wampum to the first of its three state championships in 1955, when the team went 31-0 in its only
undefeated season. He set a WPIAL, four-year scoring record (1951-55) of 2,376 points that endured until 1993. At the University of Pittsburgh he continued his high scoring and ball
handling wizardry, and developed a hook shot to combat his taller opponents. In 1958 the country's sportswriters and broadcasters selected him for the Associated Press All-American
team, along with future NBA stars Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, and Guy Rogers. Don Hennon passed up professional basketball to study medicine and is now a surgeon in Pittsburgh.
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