Players

Jeff Richey

Year Inducted: 1990

Category: Players

Schools / Organizations:
Crab Orchard High School
Union University (TN)
ABA: Oakland Oaks

Biography: Jeff Richey played four seasons at Crab Orchard High School  from 1958-1962. Richey was all-Little Egypt Conference as a junior and senior. Only his brother, Greg, had scored more points than Jeff’s career mark. Jeff scored 621 as a senior when he won an honorable mention all-state honor. He scored a school record 55 pointsduring a game in 1962. He attended Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, where he broke a 19-year-old career mark with 1,793 points. Richey set a single season mark of 633. For several years he held both field goal and free throw accuracy marks at Union. Three times he was named most valuable player in the league as a junior and senior. Besides being team captain for two years, Richey was the leading scorer three times and assist leader twice.He was also twice named to the all-Union Invitational Tourney team and as a senior was named to the all-Quincy CollegeTourney team. He was voted the outstanding athlete of his graduating class and was drafted by the Oakland Oaks of the ABA. As a member of the 1967-68 Gulf Oil team, Richey played in five Latin America and Caribbean countries as well as 13 European and four Middle-East countries. He averaged 22 points and 9 rebounds. He was 176-98 as a coach, winning five invitational, two regional and one sectional tournament. In 1979 Richey’s Carrier Mills team advanced to the Elite Eight by defeating defending Class A champion Nashville 50-48 in the Carbondale Super Sectional and Richey was named Southern Illinois Coach of the Year.