Friends of Basketball

John Finnan

Year Inducted: 1976

Category: Friends of Basketball

Schools / Organizations: (Collinsville) North Junior High School

Biography: At the time of his induction, John Finnan was the athletic director and physical education teacher at North Junior High School in Collinsville.  Finnan coached junior high basketball for 42 years and managed the junior high tournaments for 43 years.  John was a co-founder of the Madison County Junior High School Athletic Conference and served as the conference statistician for the 35 years leading to his induction.  He coached 714 junior high school games and his teams won 6 conference titles.  He hosted an invitational tourney pitting the best private and public junior high school teams in the Metro East area for 40 years.  In 1946-47, John’s Webster JH team won the IESA lightweight division tournmanet by winning each of the 4 games at the state finals by 1 point.  He conducted an annual free throw tourney, intramural program and Chrismas Tournament for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students.  He also found time to coach some church league teams.  John died on July 24, 2005.