LOUISVILLE, KY - MARCH 22: Hack Tison #31 of the Duke Blue Devils drives to the basket against the Loyola Ramblers during the semifinal game of the NCAA Men"u2019s Basketball Tournament held at Freedom Hall on March 22, 1963 in Louisville, Kentucky. Loyola defeated Duke 94-75 to advance to the finals. (Rich Clarkson/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) | NCAA Photos via Getty Images

When Duke great Hack Tison died recently, we did a bit of a write up about him, but most of what we knew about him came from other people’s stories and recollections.

We don’t know if you can say this about what is essentially an obituary or remembrance (on the other hand, why not?), but Jim Sumner’s column about Tison probably gets to the essence of what sort of player and man he was.

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A brief excerpt:

“Few teams had one competent player that big in those days. Really good teams started 6-5 centers. UCLA went undefeated in 1964 and their starting center was 6-5 Fred Slaughter. St. Joseph’s was a national power. Their starting center was Cliff Anderson. He averaged 14.6 rebounds from 1965 through 1967. He was 6-4.

“In other words, starting Buckley and Tison together was unicorn stuff.

“And it worked. Mullins was Duke’s best player, by far. But both Buckley (13.8 ppg, 9.0 rpg) and Tison (11.8 ppg, 7.6 rpg) made second-team All-ACC. Tison shot 50% from the field. He scored 27 points in a one-point loss to Kentucky, 23 points in a win over Clemson, 24 points and 15 rebounds in a win over North Carolina. 19 points and 10 rebounds in a win over NC State.”

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For the full article, check out Jim’s Substack piece on Tison.

By the way, Tison was generally listed as R. Haskell Tison, as Jim notes. The R was for Rhett.

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