49. Les Witte
Football, Basketball / Lincoln / 1911-1973
QUICK FACTS:
Played for: Lincoln High and Wyoming Cowboys
Best athlete from Nebraska played with or against: A good candidate would be Bernie Masterson, a Lincoln High teammate. Masterson earned All-Big Six honors in football at Nebraska and was a quarterback for the Chicago Bears from 1934 to 1940.
Best moment as an athlete: In 1934, Witte's 26-3 Wyoming team was selected as the national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation, the only collegiate voting poll of the era.
Les Witte had a real dilemma.
After leading Lincoln High to the 1930 state basketball championship, Witte had two choices: follow his six older siblings, who all had attended the University of Nebraska, or join his older brother, Dutch, who had become coach at the University of Wyoming.
Les Witte headed for Laramie but his freshman year wasn't easy, according to his son, Bill. Most of the players on the team were Wyoming natives. Initially, he wasn't welcomed with open arms.
"There was a little ridicule," Bill said. "He almost quit."
Bill Witte said that criticism fueled his father's passion for the game. "He didn't want them thinking he was playing because of the coach being his brother," Bill said.
Soon, no one doubted Les Witte's talents. A left-hander with a nearly unstoppable fadeaway hook, Witte became a three-time AllAmerican (1932, 1933, 1934) and the first collegian to score more than 1,000 points in a career (1,069).
Les Witte died in 1973, and when he was inducted into the Nebraska High School Hall of Fame in 2003, Bill Witte accepted on his behalf. "I could not believe how many people said they remembered him playing," he said.
-- Kevin White
QUICK FACTS:
Played for: Lincoln High and Wyoming Cowboys
Best athlete from Nebraska played with or against: A good candidate would be Bernie Masterson, a Lincoln High teammate. Masterson earned All-Big Six honors in football at Nebraska and was a quarterback for the Chicago Bears from 1934 to 1940.
Best moment as an athlete: In 1934, Witte's 26-3 Wyoming team was selected as the national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation, the only collegiate voting poll of the era.
