Dick Groat
From Hoopedia
Richard Morrow Groat (born November 4, 1930 in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania) is a former two-sport athlete best known as a shortstop in professional baseball. He played for four National League teams, mainly the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals, and was named the 1960 Most Valuable Player after winning the batting title with a .325 average for the champion Pirates.
Also an excellent basketball player, he was twice an All-American at Duke University. He played one season as a guard in the National Basketball Association.
At Duke Groat was twice an All-American (1951 and 1952), and was named the UPI National Player of the Year in 1952 after setting an NCAA single-season scoring record with 839 points. On May 1, 1952 his #10 was the first jersey to be retired in the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and it remained the only jersey retired by the school until 1980.
After college, Groat played one season as a guard with the Fort Wayne Pistons of the NBA. In 26 games, he averaged 11.9 points, but his basketball career was cut short by military service. When his enlistment was up, he returned to the Pirates rather than to the Pistons.
While in the Army, however, Groat continued to play basketball. In 1954 he and Don Byrd led their Fort Belvoir team with 34 points each in a 101-90 victory over Aberdeen Proving Grounds in the preliminary game before the NBA All-Star Game in Madison Square Garden.
Since 1978 Groat has served as a radio color analyst for the University of Pittsburgh men's basketball games.
In 2007 Groat was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
