Legend of Bevo Francis

Nowadays, most of us can't name the first person to score one hundred points in the college basketbook. Back in the fifties, when BiVO Francis was playing at Rio grand College, he was a household name and everyone knew BiVO. Here's the story behind this incredible evict. Welcome to daily sports History, I mean than reece your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Bibo Francis became a national sensation at a tiny Rio Grande College in southeastern Ohio. Born in a small town, BiVO Francis was one of six children in a working class family where his father was a miner and his mother was a farmer, and BiVO helped out wherever he could. But when he was younger, he suffered from niemi, which caused him to miss two years of school. This was something that challenged him throughout his athletic career and his life before becoming a legend in the game of basketball. He had the first working himself and get himself healthy enough to play. He eventually grew to be six ' nine, very large even in today's age. By in the nineteen fifties, most sinners in the NBA weren't even six ' nine, but it wasn't his height that made him so good. It was actually his shocked He continuously worked on it, practicing for over eight hours a day, but Francis worked his way to high school as good as he could in the classroom. By his freshman year, he was ruled in eligible to a transfer to a new school, and even rumors that his parents were given a house so he could move closer to the school and play for thirteen. But the next season he made the varsity team again was declared ineligible before the first game due to issues with his grades. Then we get to his junior year of high school. He's given the number thirty two, as the coach Knew Oliver, expects him to average at least thirty two points. He comes close, averaging thirty points, and they then team to a twenty three to two record. But then he turned twenty was no longer eligible to play in high school, but his coach took a job at Rio Grand College and got him accepted into the school. And the school was a very small school with only ninety four students and only thirty eight men, with holes in the ceiling that would leak and it seeded less than two hundred fans. But this is where Vivo Francis would set the college basketball world on fire. His coach had a plan to make Vo Francis a national name. He would spend some of his own money to make sure that Francis scoring totals were posted every week for the n C Double A and put together a thirty nine game schedule of low level competition featuring junior colleges and in ai A schools. And on January ninth, nineteen fifty three, is the day that shot him into the national spotlight. He scored a hundred ens points versus Ashland Junior College. And it wasn't just his size, it was his shooting that gave it away. A scout said that he shot so well that if they had a three point line, he would have made one hundred and thirty five points and would have averaged for the season over sixty points a game. But when the season ended, he averaged forty five points a game and broke the single season record for a college player for most points in a season. But the end did not honor this record, as he was playing lower competition and not facing had a quit four year schools. That didn't stop him from continuing to score out of the gym, and the next season they made sure they played in cuble A schools, including a game at Madison Square Garden with almost fourteen thousand fans as Rio Grand had a winning street a forty, but they lost to Adelphi University, snapping the Winden Street where France has only had thirty two points. But Francis broke his scoring record and averaged forty six points that season, a record that still holds to this day for the highest average four a four year college. After this season, he was offered a contract from the Harlem Glowtrotters for twelve thousand dollars a year. He played on the white jersey team that they always played, known as the Boston Whirlwinds, and he said himself, we would play for two quarters and then just clown around the rest of the gate. And by nineteen fifty six he was drafted in third round by the Philadelphia Warriors, but he turned down the contract and opted to play against the Globe Trotters. By the nineteen sixties, he retired from basketball and worked in on Ohio steel mill for twenty years. Fortunately, the steel mill closed six months before his pension, but he finished his life reliving his glory days with his wife in the same house they bought in nineteen fifty four. He always said he wasn't a singer or a movie star. There was a time where everyone in the country could say they knew BiVO. Thank you for listening to the day's daily sports history. If you like this, please give us a like or a follow wherever you're listening, and come back tomorrow for more daily sports history.