Hall of Fame
Lou Wilke, class of 1917, was inducted posthumously as part of the 1995 Hall of Fame class. He died April 30, 1962. Wilke played on the then-famous “65-inch” Ranger basketball team what won the state championship in 1916. His squad then toured the West, winning 80 percent of its games against teams at large and small colleges. The team played in the national basketball tournament in Chicago, Ill., losing there in the second game to Brigham Young University. After graduating from Northwestern, Wilke became the official coach of the Phillips 66ers – an AAU national powerhouse based out of Tulsa - from 1929 to 1931. He and his squads posted a remarkable 98-8 record.Wilke later served as the president of both the Oklahoma and the Rocky Mountain AAU organizations and held other offices in the national AAU before serving as the president in 1953-54. Wilke was the basketball committee chairman for the 1948 Olympics and managed the United States basketball team that won gold in London. He is credited with helping to get basketball accepted as an Olympic sport.
