Harvard Schmidt (September 25, 1935 – April 7, 2020) was an American professional basketball player and coach. A , small forward from

Kankakee, Illinois Kankakee ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. Located on the Kankakee River, as of 2020, the city's population was 24,052. Kankakee is a principal city of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley, IL MSA, Kan ...

. Schmidt attended the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

, where he played from 1954 to 1957 for the

men's basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

team. He also coached the Fighting Illini men's basketball team for seven years from 1967 to 1974. Schmidt averaged 12.3 points per game for his collegiate career, playing in 65 games. He was selected in the second round (11th pick overall) of the 1957 NBA Draft by the

Minneapolis Lakers The Los Angeles Lakers franchise has a long and storied history, having played and won championships in both the National Basketball League (United States), National Basketball League (NBL) and the Basketball Association of America (BAA) prior to ...

. Schmidt was appointed by his

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

on March 29, 1967, to succeed

Harry Combes Harry Combes (March 3, 1915 – November 13, 1977), a native of Monticello, Illinois, served as head men's basketball coach at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois between 1947 and 1967. Biography Combes played hig ...

who had been his head coach a decade earlier and was pressured into resigning ten days prior by the university which was threatened with expulsion by the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

over a slush fund scandal. He compiled a record of 89 wins and 77 losses. He died on April 7, 2020, at the age of 83.Schmidt 'righted the program’ in aftermath of slush-fund scandal at Illinois
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Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Harv 1935 births 2020 deaths Amateur Athletic Union men's basketball players American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Illinois Basketball players from Illinois Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball coaches Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball players Minneapolis Lakers draft picks New Mexico Lobos men's basketball coaches Sportspeople from Kankakee, Illinois Small forwards