- E.A. Diddle
Coach
1922-64
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- Western Kentucky's E.A. Diddle stood alone at the top among the college basketball coaches of the world when he retired in 1964. His 759 victories (against only 302 loses), all at Western, was the highest total ever by a college coach at the time of his retirement.
- Today, he remains in fourth place on the list of all-time winningest college basketball coaches. In addition, he was the first coach ever to guide his teams through 1,000 games at one college.
- Diddle, who died in 1970, at the age of 74, served as head coach at Western Kentucky for 42 seasons. Over that span, the Hilltoppers won 13 Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and eight Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association championships. In addition, his Toppers won or shared the Ohio Valley Conference title 10 times in 16 years.
On September 7, 1922 Diddle left Greenville High School and joined the staff at Western Kentucky as athletic director and coach of all sports.He gave up his duties as head football coach in 1929 and coached the Hilltopper baseball team through 1957.
In addition to his achievements in the victory column, E.A. Diddle will go down in basketball history as one of the most colorful figures the game has ever known. Over the years, the Gradyville, Ky., native became famous for his antics with his red towel, his constant companion on the bench and now a revered Western tradition. An early advocate of the fast break style of basketball and the conditioning that accompanied it, he developed 15 All-America players.
Diddle's seven Western football teams posted an overall record of 38-24-2. That 38-win total stood as a Hilltopper coaching record for 26 years. He guided the fortunes of the Topper baseball program for 31 seasons (1923-57), winning 232 games against only 155 setbacks and three ties. That victory total stood as a school record for 29 years as well. He coached women's basketball for two years and saw his teams go 11-6. Overall, Diddle's teams in those four sports won 1,040 contests for Western.
He earned for himself berths in the following prestigious athletics halls of fame - The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, the Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame, and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
Jimmy Feix
Football
1949-52
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Jimmy Feix holds a unique distinction in the history of Western Kentucky athletics - he is the first Hilltopper ever honored as an All-American in football. The Henderson native earned that honor as a senior quarterback in 1952 when he guided the Toppers to the school's first Ohio Valley Conference football championship on the strength of a 9-1-0 record.
That team went on to make the school's first appearance in a bowl game, taking the championship of the Refrigerator Bowl in Evansville, Ind., by defeating Arkansas State 34-19.
- Feix enjoyed a fabulous career as a Hilltopper gridder. The four Western teams he played on went 24-12-2, a .658 winning percentage. As a senior in 1952, Feix led the nation's college quarterbacks with his 63.1 percent completion percentage, making good on 111 of 176 passes for 1,581 yards and 15 touchdowns. That was also good enough to rank him fourth in the country in passing and sixth in total offense.
At the conclusion of his career on the Hill, Feix was drafted by the New York Giants of the National Football League and went to camp slated as the key backup for veteran Giant quarterback Charlie Conerly. However, a serious injury in the 1953 pre-season forced him to give up football and led to a four year stint in the Air Force.
Jimmy Feix has been a part of Hilltopper athletics almost continuously for the past 42 years. He returned to the Hill as an assistant football coach in 1957 and remained in that capacity until 1968 when he took over the head coaching duties from the retiring Nick Denes. That began his tremendously successful 16-year tenure at the helm of Topper football . He remains the winningest football coach in WKU history with 106 victories to his credit. His 1973 and 1975 teams marched all the way to the NCAA Division II national championship game, taking runner-up honors in the playoffs both seasons.
Feix retired from the coaching ranks after the 1983 season and spent two years in Alumni Affairs before returning to the world of college athletics as the University's Director of Athletics in 1985, a position he held until his retirement this summer.
 Dee Gibson
Basketball / Tennis
1942-43 / 1947-48
RealVideo Clip (2 min. 5 sec.)
- All-American Dee Gibson enjoyed a great career as a very successful two-sport athlete at Western Kentucky.
However, that career, which began when he came to the Hill from Cleveland, Tenn., as a freshman in in 1941, was put on hold after his sophomore year due to World War II. Gibson returned to Western in 1946 and picked up right where he left off, helping to guide the Hilltopper basketball team to some of its greatest seasons ever. For his efforts, he was named to the Associated Press All-America Team as a senior in 1948.
A four-year letterman, he was a guard on Hilltopper teams that posted an overall record of 106-14 - a phenomenal .815 winning percentage. As a freshman, he saw Western put itself on the college basketball map for good, marching through the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Tournaments en route to earning runner-up honors in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in New York City's famed Madison Square Garden.
As a sophomore reserve guard, he scored 156 points and helped the Hilltoppers earn a return visit to the NIT, winning a KIAC title along the way and going a sharp 24-3 for the season. Gibson returned to the Hill in 1946 and was a key figure in Western's 25-4 mark for the '46-47 campaign, scoring 286 points (an average of 9.9 a contest) and consistently drawing the team's toughest defensive assignments.
Then, as a senior, he was a part of a Hilltopper team that featured a lineup of five men who each earned All-America honors at one time during their careers. That team rolled to 28 victories in 30 games, a tremendous .933 winning percentage, still the best ever in the long and storied history of Western Kentucky basketball.
Gibson was also one of the outstanding tennis athletes in the history of that sport on the Hill. A three-year letter winner (Western had no tennis team in 1943), he was undefeated at No. 1 singles as a collegian.
After a two-year stint with the Tri-Cities Blackhawks of the National Basketball League, Gibson was employed in a private business for a number of years before returning to Western in an administrative capacity in 1965. He retired in 1989.
 Clem Haskins
Basketball
1964-67
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- Clem Haskins ranks as one of the most honored athletes in the history of Western Kentucky University. A three-time All-American, he is one of only three Hilltopper basketball players ever honored as "consensus" All-Americans (1967).
He remains the only athlete in the history in the history of the Ohio Valley Conference to be named the league's "Player-of-the-Year three straight years.
The night of Jan. 30, 1965, Haskins put his name in the Western and OVC record books in a big way, scoring a school record and league record 55 points in the Toppers' 134-84 victory over Middle Tennessee.
|The three WKU varsity teams "Clem the Gem" played on were a sizzling 66-15, a whopping .815 winning percentage.
Haskins, who came to the Hill from Taylor County High School in Campbellsville, stepped right in as s sophomore and helped the Hilltoppers rebound from a disappointing season the year before to an 18-9 mark and a berth in the National Invitation Tournament.
As a junior, Haskins and his teammates blossomed into the class of the OVC, taking the conference championship and finishing in third place in the NCAA Mideast Regional Tournament.
The veteran Hilltoppers opened the '66-67 campaign with a loss and then reeled off 21 straight victories to climb as high as number two in the wire services polls. That team (23-3 overall) took another OVC crown, but was eliminated in the first round of NCAA play by Dayton (in overtime), the eventual runner-up in the national championship tournament. Haskins chipped in with 22.6 points a game.
Haskins was a first-round draft choice of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association and played nine seasons in the NBA - three at Chicago, four at Phoenix and two at Washington. He averaged in double figures six times.
He returned to the Hill as an assistant basketball coach in 1977 and took over as head coach in 1980. He put in six years directing the Topper program, posting 20-win seasons on two occasions and earning Sun Belt Conference Coach-of-the-Year honors in 1986.
- Haskins is also a member of the Kentucky High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
Adele Gleaves Haswell
Gymnastics
1973-76
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One of the first women ever on athletic scholarship at Western, Adele Gleaves was the first woman to claim a national championship for the Hilltopper sports program.
A native of Louisville who attended Seneca High School, she took the national title at the National Women's Intercollegiate Gymnastics Championships in the all-around competition in 1973. Her effort there (bettering a field of 143 participants for the national title) earned her a berth in the World University Games in Moscow that same year. The NCAA did not sponsor women's championships at the time.
Gleaves, who originally attended the University of Louisville and transferred to WKU to take advantage of Western's mass communications program, narrowly missed a berth on the 1972 United States Olympic Team (by a mere six tenths of a point) and served as an alternate.
- However, she did win both gold and bronze medals in the 1971 Pan-American Games in Columbia in South America. She also participated in the 1970 World Championships in Yugoslavia and in the Hapoel Games in Israel.
During her competitive career, she also represented the United States in international competition in England, Switzerland and Canada.
As a senior on the Hill, Gleaves led Coach Ray Rose's team to a 6-1 mark, including victories over Kentucky, Memphis State, Georgia and Alabama.
Following her graduation in 1976, she remained on the Hill to coach the Lady Topper gymnastics team the following year, leading her charges to a 7-1 mark in dual competition and runner-up finishes in both state and regional competition.
Prior to coming to Western, Gleaves won the United States vaulting championship while still a high school senior (1971). She was also a two-time Kentucky high school gymnastics champion. She was named the High School Athlete-of-the-Year in 1971 by the Louisville Chamber of Commerce's Athletic Council. Gleaves' success as a high school athlete has also
earned her a berth in the Kentucky High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
She was also a successful competitor in the world of beauty pageants, winning the 1974 Miss Western title and competing in the Miss Kentucky pageant several times. Gleaves died March 21, 1989, in Louisville at age 35.
 Jim McDaniels
Basketball
1969-71
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A three-time All American selection, Jim McDaniels ranks as one
of the best known of all former Hilltopper athletes.
He is just one of three Western basketball players to be recognized as a "consensus" All-America pick (as a senior in 1971). The 7-0 McDaniels was also the Ohio Valley Conference Player-of-the-Year both his junior and senior seasons. He holds Western records for both single season (878 points) and career (2,238) scoring.
- A product of nearby Allen County High School in Scottsville, he is one of only three Hilltoppers ever to average 20-or-more points a game for three seasons. His 27.6 career scoring average still ranks first in the WKU record books.
As a senior, he was named the Most Valuable Player in both the prestigious ECAC Holiday Festival (leading the Toppers to runner-up honors) in New York's Madison Square Garden and in the NCAA Mideast Regional Tournament in Athens, Ga.
He paced Western to the championship of the NCAA Mideast Regional, gaining the 1971 Hilltoppers the school's only appearance in the NCAA Final Four. At that Final Four, McDaniels led his teammates to a third place finish after narrowly missing a berth in the national championship game following a double overtime loss to Villanova. He was named to the Final Four All-Tournament Team.
The three Western varsity teams he competed on won 62 of 81 games (76.5 percent).
- His junior year, the Toppers blossomed and took the OVC championship, earning a berth in the NCAA Tournament. That team went 22-3 and put together a 16-game winning streak while he was burning the nets for 28.6 points a game.
The '70-71 Hilltoppers will long be remembered as one of the most successful teams in the long and storied history of Western athletics. That team again won the OVC title and advanced to the Final Four. McDaniels scored at a 29.3 clip that season, still a WKU school record.
- He recorded three of the top six single game scoring totals ever at WKU. In fact, Hilltopper cagers have scored 35-or-more points in a single game 40 times through the years - 13 of those by McDaniels.
John Oldham
Basketball
1943 & 1947-49
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John Oldham ranks as one of the most prominent names in the history of Western Kentucky athletics - an All-America basketball player as a senior in 1949, one of the most successful coaches ever on the Hill and later athletics director at his alma mater.
Oldham originally came to Western from Hartford, Ky., as a freshman athlete in 1943. After one year with the Hilltoppers, his college career was put on hold by World War II. But, he returned in 1946 and became a key factor in some of the finest seasons ever by Topper teams.
- The four Western teams he lettered on posted an overall record of 102 wins against only 13 defeats, a phenomenal .887 winning percentage. Those teams made three appearances in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), taking third place honors in 1948.
He was named to the first All-Ohio Valley Conference Team at the end of his senior season after earning All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) honors as a sophomore and All-Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) laurels his junior year.
- He and Eastern Kentucky's Jim Baechtold were the only men honored as both athletes and coaches on the OVC's All-Time Team picked in 1988.
As a freshman in the 1942-43 season, Oldham was a substitute on the Hilltopper team that went 24-3, won the KIAC championship and advanced to the quarter-final round of the NIT.
- He returned to the Hill following the war as a sophomore, and helped the Toppers take KIAC and SIAA titles en route to a 25-4 season.
Oldham played two seasons with the Ft. Wayne Pistons of the National Basketball Association before returning to Bowling Green where he was a successful coach at College High School. He took over as head coach at Tennessee Tech in 1955 and then came back to the Hill in 1964 to succeed the retiring E.A. Diddle as coach of the Toppers.
After a very successful seven years in that position, he retired from the coaching ranks in 1971 and took over as athletics director at his alma mater and served in that role until his retirement in 1985.
Oldham is also a member of both the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Kentucky High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
 Bobby Rascoe
Basketball
1960-62
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Bobby Rascoe earned a reputation in the college basketball circles of the early 1960's as one of the fiercest competitors in the game.
He came to the Hill from Daviess County High School. After a year on the freshman team, he burst on the varsity scene in the '59-60 season in a big way and finished his career in 1962 as one of the top basketball athletes ever at Western.
An All-America selection by both Converse and the Helms Foundation as a senior, he has since been honored with membership in the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame and on the All-Time Ohio Valley Conference Team (selected in 1988).
He was an All-OVC pick in both 1961 and 1962. He was named the Most Valuable Player in the 1960 Sugar Bowl Tournament. The WHAS Kentucky-Indiana Senior Player-of-the-Year as a senior, he earned a berth on the NCAA Mideast Region All-Tournament Team and later played in the prestigious East-West College All-Star Game.
At the time he graduated, he ranked as Western's career scoring leader among athletes limited to three years of varsity play with 1,670 points and now, over thirty years later, he still ranks third on that list. He remains one of only four Hilltoppers ever to average 20-or-more points (20.9, third among the four) for his entire varsity career.
The three Topper teams he played on won 69.1 percent of their games, winning 56 games while coming up short 25 times.
As sophomore, he averaged 16.8 points a game and helped lead the Hilltoppers to a 21-7 mark, the championship of the Sugar Bowl Tournament, the OVC crown and a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Then, in his junior year, Rascoe powered the Toppers to an 18-8 mark and another OVC title with his team-high 20.1 scoring average.
In his final college campaign, Western went 17-7, won the league title for the third straight year and again appeared in the NCAA.
Following graduation, Rascoe played for several seasons with the Phillips 66ers before joining the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association in 1967. After three seasons with the Colonels, he retired from professional ball and returned to Bowling Green in 1970.
He has been a member of the University staff for the past 21 years and is currently on the Dean's staff in the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences. For four years (1974-78), he
served as an assistant coach on the Hilltopper basketball staff.
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Max Reed
Basketball / Football
1935-37 & 1934-36
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Max Reed was one of the truly dominant athletes on the Western campus in the mid - 1930's, earning honors on both the basketball court and on the football field. The Okolona native helped lead the Hilltopper basketball team to three straight Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) championships (1935, '36 and '37) and a Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) title (1937; the first in a string of six in a row for Topper teams).
An All-SIAA honoree in both 1936 and 1937, he was a member of the 1936 Hilltopper squad that was selected to represent the South in the national Olympic Playoffs. Those games, played at Arkansas, were the first Western athletic events ever "broadcast" - by Kelly Thompson via telephone and public address system back to the Hill!
As a sophomore, he was a part of the Topper team that went 24-3, ran off a school record string of 24 straight victories and took the KIAC championship. That team narrowly missed taking the SIAA crown as well, dropping a two-point decision in the championship game (snapping that victory streak).
His junior year, the big strong Reed helped the Hilltoppers win 26 of their first 27 games (including another impressive winning streak - this one for 20 straight) before coming up short in the title game of the SIAA tourney and then dropping two to Arkansas in that Olympic Playoff to complete the year at 26-4.
Reed's senior year, Western played a schedule shortened by the great flood of 1937. But, the Hilltoppers still dominated the opposition, going 21-2 and taking championships in both the KIAC and SIAA tournaments. They won the last 12 in a row that year.
On the gridiron, Reed was a powerful figure at end and was touted as one of the finest pass receivers, placekickers and defenders ever to play football on the Hill. He earned All-State honors in both 1935 and 1936.
The three teams he lettered on went 18-8-1 (a 68.5 winning percentage) and outscored the opposition by a collective 452-161!
The 1934 Hilltoppers posted four shutouts and a 5-2-1 record. In 1935, Western added three more shutouts and went 7-3-0. In 1936, the Toppers blanked the opposition five times while winning six of nine contests.
 Nick Rose
Track & Cross-Country
1972-76
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Nick Rose may be the most dominant figure in his sport ever to wear a Western Kentucky uniform.
The lanky Briton with the distinctive stride and long, flowing blond locks from Bristol became an institution at collegiate cross-country and track meets around the nation. He earned an individual national championship in cross-country and eight All-America awards during his tenure on the Hill. He also won NCAA national championships in the indoor two-mile (1976).
While with the Hilltoppers, Rose developed into the premier collegiate distance runner in the nation, earning cross-country All-America honors at the NCAA national championship meet four straight years (1972, '73, '74 and '75). In 1972, he became the first Western athlete ever to earn All-America laurels as a freshman.
He led the Toppers to a second place team finish in the 1974 NCAA championship meet, taking the individual championships for himself.
In NCAA championship competition, Rose placed ninth in the 1972 meet, a healthy second in 1973, first in 1974 and second again in 1975, this time in head-to-head competition with Illinois'
Craig Virgin as the two superstars easily outdistanced the field.
The OVC Track Athlete-of-the-Year in 1973, he was elected to the All-Time Ohio Valley Conference Track Team in 1988. Altogether, he won 10 OVC titles in cross country and indoor and outdoor track. He was also named WKU's Athlete-of-the-Year as a senior.
The first athlete ever to run a four-minute mile in the state of Kentucky, Rose also made a name for himself in Olympic competition, participating for his native Great Britain in the 1980 and '84 Olympics.
He has continued to rank among the top distance runners in the world and has participated in the most prestigious meets around the globe. Rose has also set world records, including just such a mark in the half-marathon in 1980.
He lived for a time in Louisville, but has since returned to his hometown, Bristol, England, where he currently resides.
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