Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
By Tom Archdeacon
As halftime spectacles go, Saturday afternoon’s Hall of Fame recognition at Wright State’s Nutter Center game with Youngstown State certainly will be special for Gordie Wise.
But many years ago he was almost part of another spotlight moment during a WSU intermission and that one likely would have wowed Raiders fans even more.
The problem was Gordie’s underhandedness.
It scuttled the halftime moment before it ever happened.
Let’s let him explain.
“I think I’m the only person who can claim to have been the intramural free throw shooting champion at three separate universities,” the 85-year-old Wise said with a chuckle as he sat with his wife Susie at the kitchen table of their Piqua home. “And I’ve got proof of two of those titles right here.”
After captaining the Houston High School team that won the 1952 sectional title his senior year — and for the second straight season having the best free throw percentage of Shelby County prep players — he went to Miami University and won the intramural crown there.
“Made just 90 of 100 though,” he said a bit dismissively.
A few years later — when he was part of the doctoral program at Indiana University — he entered the free throw shooting contest there and won again.
As proof he pulled out a Nov. 12, 1958, clipping from the Indiana Daily Student newspaper that included the headline: “Wise Wins Free Throw Toss.”
That story told how he made 97 of 100 attempts.
In 1966, Wise left his Miami teaching job and came to fledgling WSU as an assistant marketing professor and a few years later competed in the campus-wide free throw contest.
“One of the Wright State basketball players was involved, too,” he smiled. “Both of us ran a good string and finally the intramural director said, ‘If you two guys tie, I’m going to propose having a shoot-off at halftime of a varsity game.’
“But we didn’t tie,” he said pointing to an old trophy setting on the table. “He missed a couple of shots. I didn’t.”
His prowess goes back to his seventh grade days in Houston, where he said “an old coach” taught the players to shoot underhanded and he has ever since.
