Herman “Suz” Sayger
From Hoopedia
Herman Earl "Suz" Sayger (b. January 3, 1895 in Jonesboro, Arkansas; d. January 1970 in Seneca County, Ohio) was a scoring machine at the dawn of high school basketball in Indiana. Playing for Culver High School, Sayger set the Indiana high school individual scoring record with 113 points, in a 154-10 victory against Winamac on March 8, 1913. His scoring consists of 56 field goals and one free throw. (Remember that there was a jump ball after each basket until 1936, which sometimes resulted in few possessions for one team.)
It was no fluke. According to Indiana High School Athletic Association records, Sayger poured in the goals on other occasions, with game point totals of 79 and 60.
Sayger went on to star at Heidelberg College in Ohio. He won letters in five sports. When the football coach joined the army in World War I, Sayger took over as player-coach. He graduated in 1920. He coached some at the high school level and then spent three years as an assistant coach at the University of Akron.
Heidelberg hired him as athletics director and head coach of the football, basketball and baseball teams in the 1924. He started the intramural athletics program at Heidelberg. The basketball court there is named in his honor.
Sayger lobbied for a three-point rule, which was tested in 1933. Sayger developed new rules designed to eliminate the center jump and to establish a new scoring system in a game played by high school athletes in Tiffin, Ohio. Sayger's scoring system consisted of an arc fifteen feet from the basket, and an arc 25 feet from the basket. Shots made from within the fifteen-foot arc counted as one point, shots made from between the two arcs counted as two points, and shots made from outside the 25 foot arc were worth three points. Needless to say, the proposal went nowhere.
In The Sayger Award is presented annually to Heidelberg College’s senior male athlete most likely to succeed. Sayger is a member of the Heidelberg College Hall of Fame, elected as part of its inaugural class.
Sayger co-authored and published dozens of books on sports.
