The Utah Sports Hall of Fame will induct its class of 2015 on Thursday, and there is only one surprise.
The nominees: Kelly Downs, the former Major League pitcher; Ed Eyestone, the two-time Olympic distance runner; Scott Mitchell, the NFL quarterback; Cael Sanderson, the Olympic wrestling champion; and Wayne Estes, the late Utah State basketball legend.
Wait, what? Wayne Estes? How did he get in there? Not in the Hall, but in this class?
Shouldn’t he have been inducted decades ago?
Estes left Utah State and this life in 1965 — a half century ago. He averaged 33.7 points per game as a senior. He was named to the All-American team posthumously with future NBA stars Rick Barry, Bill Bradley, Gail Goodrich and Cazzie Russell. If he had lived, he probably would have starred for the Los Angeles Lakers, who owned his draft rights.
On Feb. 8, 1965, on the very night he would die, he scored 48 points to become the 18th college player to surpass 2,000 points. He totaled 2,001 points in just three seasons, at a time when teams played fewer games, freshmen weren’t allowed to play and there was no 3-point shot. Estes played in only 75 games, averaging 26.7 points and 11.9 rebounds per game.
How good would the 6-foot-6, 230-pound Estes be if he had played in today's version of the game? Just for fun, let’s look at it this way: Utah State has played an average of 34 games per season the last 10 years (Estes averaged 25). If Estes had played in 34 games for four seasons while maintaining the same scoring average, he would have finished with 3,631 points.
By comparison, Keith Van Horn is the all-time scoring leader at Utah, with 2,542 points in 122 games (an average of 20.8). Jaycee Carroll is Utah State’s all-time scoring leader with 2,522 points in 134 games (18.8). BYU’s all-time scoring leader is Tyler Haws, with 2,720 points in 139 games (19.6). Pete Maravich is college basketball’s all-time scoring leader, with 3,667 points in just 83 games.
Granted, chances are Estes’ scoring average would have slipped if he had been allowed to play as a freshman (he averaged 19.5 points for the freshman team). On the other hand, he died after playing only 19 games as a senior, when he was averaging 33.7 points per game. And, as already noted, there was no 3-point shot in the '60s (Estes was a good outside shooter).
As freshmen, Carroll played in 32 games and averaged 14.7 points; Haws 35 games/11.3; and Van Horn 25/18.3. They also benefitted from making 3-point shots — Carroll made 369 of them, Haws 162 and Van Horn 206. We’ll ignore the 3-point advantage, but let’s say Estes played as a freshman and matched the average number of games and points of those three players as freshmen — make it an even 16 points and 30 games, which adds up to 480 points. If Estes had lived, he also would have played 10 more games as a senior, which, at 33.7 per, adds up to another 337 points. That totals 817 additional points for a career total of 2,817, even without the 3-point shot.
As most Utah fans know, Estes was electrocuted by a dangling power line at the scene of an automobile accident less than two hours after his final game, leaving us to speculate on what might have been.
But doesn’t that make Estes a huge oversight for the Utah Sports Hall of Fame? Why is the Hall just getting around to inducting him?
Well, Doug Toole, chairman of the Hall, explained it this way: One of the induction requirements is that candidates must live in Utah for 10 years. Estes, who was from Montana, lived in Utah about four years. Voters for the Hall were prompted to make an exception when Estes was honored earlier this year by Utah State on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death. The school named its new basketball and volleyball facility the Wayne Estes Center. There is a tribute to Estes in the foyer of the building.
“What happened was that (Estes) was brought back to our attention by the USU celebration,” says Toole. “So the committee looked at it. They gave special consideration to him since most of his stardom occurred while he was in Utah. They waived (the rule) since he didn’t have a chance to live here. We had forgotten what a big star he was and what a role model he was to kids.”
So Thursday Estes will be inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, along with Downs, Eyestone, Mitchell and Sanderson.
As one Hall of Fame official said, “We just decided it was time.”
Doug Robinson's columns run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Email: drob@deseretnews.com