Andre Woolridge to Receive Honor

storminspank

storminspank

Justin VanLaere
Former Hawkeye to be inducted into Nebraska Black Sports Hall of Fame

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Former University of Iowa men's basketball player Andre Woolridge will be inducted into the Nebraska Black Sports Hall of Fame. The event will take place Saturday at the North Omaha Boys and Girls Club.

Woolridge, who was a 1992 graduate of Benson High School in Omaha, is still the state's Class-A career scoring leader (1,911 points). He scored a Class-A tournament record 50 points in his final game for the Bunnies.

After playing one season at Nebraska, Woolridge transferred to Iowa where he played three successful seasons (1994-97). He ended his career as Iowa's all-time assist leader (currently ranks second behind Jeff Horner) with 575 assists.

"The Iowa basketball program would like to congratulate Andre Woolridge for this well-deserved honor," said Iowa Head Coach Fran McCaffery. "Andre had phenomenal success as a high school player and cemented himself as one of Iowa's all-time great point guards."

Woolridge was a first team All-Big Ten and third team All-American by the Associated Press his senior season. He averaged 20.2 points and six assists per game and became the first player to ever lead the Big Ten in both scoring and assists in the same season. Woolridge distributed 193 assists in 1996 and 192 in 1997, which rank first and second, respectively, on Iowa's single-season assists list.

Woolridge continued his playing career overseas, where he played in Turkey, France, Greece and Italy.
 






I played intramural basketball with Andre in the 7th grade, and you could tell back then that he was a special player. We never lost a game.

The funny thing was, we had a kid in the 8th grade that was better than Andre, but he was a big-time thug and got kicked out of school.

Anyhow, congrats to Andre.
 
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The reason Bobby Jackson was he led the academic cheatin' gophers to the title.

What I still don't ever really get is why the NBA never gave him a shot. Evidently wrong skill set with wrong teams over his try outs.

However... I suspect and hope the 'dre has enjoyed making millions over his career in great and wonderful places around the world.

Andre Woolridge is an all-time Hawkeye great and if Jess wouldn't have injured his back and Chris wouldn't have gotten a big head??? who knows how good they would have been his last year.
 


Andre was a solid player, a great Hawkeye and a terrific young man while in Iowa City. Great to see him honored.
 


When he lost the conference POTY to a guy with half his stats, after becoming the first player to lead the conference in points and assists, I was PI$$ED! The guy almost single handedly led the Hawks to an upset win over Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament that season as well...along with B.J. Armstrong, Andre will always be in my top 2 of favorite players...congratulations on the Hall of Fame induction, Andre...very well deserved.
 




Guess my memory is going. I could have sworn that he came here via a juco in KS. :confused:

edit--I guess I was thinking of Val Barnes. I never knew that Woolridge went to Nebraska for a year.
 
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storminspank said:
He averaged 20.2 points and six assists per game and became the first player to ever lead the Big Ten in both scoring and assists in the same season.
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As other have already pointed out, I still can't see how that wasn't good enough for Big Ten POY. I understand Bobby Jackson played on the team that won the conference that year, but Iowa finished tied for second in the league... Where would that Iowa team have been without Dre?

One of my favorite Hawks of all time. Woolridge was crazy good that senior season.
 


gohawkz said:
Guess my memory is going. I could have sworn that he came here via a juco in KS. :confused:

edit--I guess I was thinking of Val Barnes. I never knew that Woolridge went to Nebraska for a year.
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Yeah, you might be thinking of Val Barnes, who I'm pretty sure was a JUCO. I can't remember where he was from, but Wichita, KS does sound right.

Val was another player who could really fill it up when he got hot.
 


The most amazing part of this story is that there is a high school whose nickname is the Bunnies. Also, Woolridge went to the same Omaha high school that Nile Kinnick did? I never knew that before.
 


thejumper5 said:
The most amazing part of this story is that there is a high school whose nickname is the Bunnies. Also, Woolridge went to the same Omaha high school that Nile Kinnick did? I never knew that before.
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Nile Kinnick went to Adel High School as well (his freshman and sophomore years). He is in the Adel HS H-O-F along with my father-in-law.

And congratulations, Andre. We LOVED watching your team play and hope for those days to return.
 


Congrats to Andre, but since no one else has mentioned this, I have to ask...

Why does Nebraska feel the need to have a Black Sports Hall of Fame?
 






storminspank said:
I'm still dumbfounded as to how Bobby Jackson won the Big Ten POTY that season.
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Not to debate this because Woolridge literally carried the Iowa basketball team his senior year. However, Jackson was much better defensively, had a more well rounded game than Dre had. Jackson went on to have a decent NBA career and Woolridge could not get a sniff of the NBA, as good as Dre was Bobby Jackson was a better player, imo.
 
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IowaBanker said:
Congrats to Andre, but since no one else has mentioned this, I have to ask...

Why does Nebraska feel the need to have a Black Sports Hall of Fame?
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Wow, it took 16 posts in before someone made note of that. Anytime there is any sort of racial aspect to a post that is usually what people want to respond to first.:confused:
 


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