Terry Dischinger
Athlete
Inducted: July 5, 1995
13th Annual Induction Ceremony
Portland, Oregon
(The following appeared in that year’s HOF induction program)
Terry Dischinger scored 1,455 points in three years of basketball competition at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was team most valuable player twice, was all-Western Indiana Conference three years and won the
Wabash Valley Tournament Sportsmanship Award. He was captain of the prestigious 1958 Indiana all-star team that played Kentucky in the annual series between the two states. Following his senior year, Dischinger was selected Parade Magazine all-America.
In football, Dischinger was a two-time all-state end, as well as all-Western Indiana Conference and all-Wabash Valley. He was a four-year letterman in track, where at the 1958 state meet he finished third in the high hurdles and second in the low hurdles.
Dischinger twice was named winner of the McMillan Award as the all-sports MVP for Vigo County schools. He was a member of the National Honor Society and was valedictorian of the Garfield class of 1958.
At Purdue University, Dischinger was Big Ten Conference scoring champion in basketball for three consecutive years. He held the following school records at graduation: 30.3 season average, 28.3 career average and 52 points in single game.
Between his junior and senior seasons at Purdue, Dischinger was a member of the gold-medal U.S. basketball team in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Dischinger had an outstanding nine-year career in the National Basketball Association. He was NBA rookie of the year in 1963 for the Chicago Zephyrs, and he also played for Baltimore, Detroit and Portland.
A three-time NBA all-star selection (1963, 1964, 1965), Dischinger had a 13.8 career scoring average while shooting 50.6 percent from the field and 75.8 percent from the free-throw line.
Following his playing career, Dischinger earned his D.D.S. from the University of Tennessee and his degree in orthodontics from the University of Oregon. Born November 21, 1940, in Anderson, Indiana, he currently is an orthodontist in the Portland suburb of Oswego.
