Friends of Basketball

 

George Doggett

Year Inducted: 1988

Category: Friends of Basketball

Schools / Organizations: Collinsville High School

Biography: There was an empty seat on the Collinsville Kahoks’ basketball bench during the 1987-88 season. It was the first time George Doggett had missed a Collinsville basketball game since he witnessed the Kahoks’ 42-34 win over Sparta on Dec 7, 1946. Hall of Fame coach, Vergil Fletcher wasn’t the only addition to that bench in 1946. Shortly before his death on Dec 16, 1987, Doggett learned he had been selected to join Fletcher in the IBCA Hall of Fame. Doggett’s widow, Peggy related, I know it means everything to him. His eyes got really big when he found out he made it.” Gone was perhaps the greatest Kahok fan who ever lived. Known by many as the “man with the black book,” Doggett always sat at the end if Kahoks’ bench, whether it be home or away, painstakingly recording every worthy team and individual basketball statistic. The last time Doggett sat in his familiar place, wearing his familiar purple Kahok windbreaker, was in March of 1987 when Collinsville dropped an emotional 48-47 decision to East St. Louis Lincoln in the Collinsville Class AA Sectional. Doggett had worked that final season as the Kahoks’ statistician, aware of the cancer and bone disease, but revealing none of it. When his health worsened late that summer, it became apparent there would be an empty seat on the Collinsville bench. Doggett called libraries from Chicago to St. Louis to gather information of the Kahoks from the sport’s inception to the day he arrived at Collinsville. “If anyone deserves to be a friend of basketball, George Doggett gets it,” Fletcher said. “He’s been a loyal fan and a loyal friend.”