Former basketball great to be inducted into Tiger Athletic Hall of Fame

Bill Clarahan excelled as a member of the Arkansas City Junior College basketball team during the 1955-56 and 1956-57 seasons.

Clarahan graduated from Harper (KS) High School in 1955, where he was an all-state basketball player in high school. He came to ACJC at 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds. Two years later, he graduated from the college standing 6-foot-5 and tipping the scales at 210 pounds.

He started as a freshman on the ACJC basketball team that finished the regular season ranked number one in the nation. He helped lead the Tigers to an eighth place finish in the NJCAA National Tournament in Hutchinson his sophomore year and was named a junior college all-American.

Heavily recruited, he decided to accept a basketball scholarship from Hall of Fame coach Henry Iba to attend Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State). He started at forward both years for the Cowboys and was a double-digit scorer much of the time.

After earning his baccalaureate degree from OSU, he became a high school teacher and basketball coach. When he was in his early forties, he was teaching/coaching in Evergreen High School in Colorado and died of a heart attack. They later named the gym, The Bill Clarahan Gymnasium in his honor.

Former Tiger coaching legend, Dan Kahler, who was inducted into the first class of the Tiger Athletic Hall of Fame, had the pleasure of coaching Clarahan.

“I have taught and coached myriad outstanding young people,” Kahler said. “None was a nicer human being then Bill Clarahan.”