Laddie Gale
From Hoopedia
Lauren "Laddie" Gale (April 22, 1917 — July 29, 1996) was an American collegiate and professional basketball player.
A native of Oakridge, Oregon, Gale led tiny Oakridge High School to the 1935 Oregon state tournament semifinals. He was named to the All-Tournament first team.
The 6'4" Gale played forward for the University of Oregon under head coach Howard Hobson. He was the second-tallest player on the team (behind 6'8" Urgel "Slim" Wintermute), which was dubbed "The Tall Firs." Gale led the Ducks in scoring in 1938 and 1939, earning all-Pacific Coast Conference honors in each season. In 1939, Gale led the Ducks to the national championship in the first-ever NCAA Division I Men's Tournament. He was named to the 1939 Helms Foundation All-American team, the year in which he scored 408 points, breaking the conference record previously held by Stanford's Hank Luisetti.
After graduation, Gale played professionally in 1939 and 1940 for the Detroit Eagles of the National Basketball League. He left the Eagles in to serve in World War II, reportedly after being the first Oregon draftee selected by lottery.
After the war, he was a player-coach with two industrial league teams: Salt Lake City's Deseret Times and the Oakland Bittners. The Bittners, starring Jim Pollard and Don Barksdale, were one of the top semi-pro teams West of the Mississippi during this time.
Gale retired from basketball in 1949. He died in Gold Beach, Oregon on July 29, 1996.
Laddie Gale was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977 as a player for his stellar collegiate play, for being the first college player regularly to employ a one-handed shot, and for helping to popularize the sport of basketball in the American West. He was an inaugural inductee of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and is also a member of the University of Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame.
