Herman Earl 'Suz" Sayger

Herman 'Suz" Sayger Born January 3 1901 Jonesboro, Arkansas died Jan 24, 1975 New Bedford, Lawrence county, Pennsylvania his ashes were scattered over Lake Maxinkuckee per his wishes. Find A Grave Global Grave 237357217

married 26 NOV 1920 Marion coutny Indiana Florence Marie (Borer) Berlekamp born 25 Dec 1894 Tiffin, Seneca county Ohio death AuG 2, 1954 Tiffin, Seneca county Ohio burial Greenlawn Cemetery Tiffin, Seneca county Ohio daguther of Frank George Borer and Louis Elizabeth Bollander. married 1st Mar 30, 1912 Monroe county Michigan Robert G. Beriekamp

married 2nd Ethel May ___

The legendary Herman 'Suz" Sayger / Culver basketball star credited with 113 points in single game

Indiana Daily Student 1914 all-state Basketball team left to right: Worley of Lebanaon, Herman "Suz" Sayger; Homer Stonebroker and Grovers of Wingate and Devall of Lebanon

Consider this: Sayger made several Indiana high school all-state basketball teams as a Culver High School senior in 1914, earned letters in five sports at Heidelberg College in Ohio (even coaching the football team while the regular coach was serving in World War I), played professional football, helped broadcast college football games with Red Barber, and founded a sports syndicate in which he wrote and published 24 books on athletics in conjunction with famous coaches.

But it was in basketball where he left his mark. He didn't start the first game, against Bremen, in his freshman year, but came in to play in the second half and scored four points. He was a starter the rest of his career, leading his team to 44 wins, 10 losses and one tie.

The Culver teams of those days played in what we would call very primitive facilities. Few gyms were used, and most teams rented a large room or hall. But outside courts were also used, as well as hay lofts and church basements.

In 1913 and 1914, Culver played upstairs in a building called Captain Crooks Hall on the north side of Lake Maxinkuckee. The seating capacity was about 50, with the dressing room in a downstairs pantry equipped with two buckets, according to descriptions supplied by the late Bob Rust, the late Paul Snyder Sr. and the late Rex Mawhorter.

The lights were gas burners and every time they were bumped, a timeout had to be called to relight them. At times on cold nights, the floor was covered with a film of ice because stoves didn't produce enough heat. The ceiling was only 14 or 15 feet high, so long, arched shots were out of the question. The wire and walls were the out-of-bounds lines.

"It was hell to play in," remembers Mawhorter.

The hall had to be rented for games and the team was also able to rent the hall two nights a week for practice. The rest of the time, weather permitting, practice was held outdoors.

In the summer, they played in the ice houses. Just getting to out-of-town games presented some problems. Trains were used for most games, which explains why teams like Plymouth played Columbia City, Warsaw, Wanatah and Valparaiso. No transfers had to be made on that line.

When Culver played Winamac, the team had to go by way of Logansport. (The Wakarusa basketball team reportedly once made the trip to play Bremen by horse and sleigh.

And it was up to the home team to pay all expenses for the visiting team. For example, Culver in 1914 left early Friday, March 6, and traveled to Kokomo. The team members ate when they arrived, and then played Kokomo that night. They stayed with families in Kokomo that night, and then on Saturday morning, they boarded the train and got off at nearby Galveston to play a Saturday afternoon game on the way home.

During his sophomore year, in 1911-12, Sayger led the Culver team to the 13th Congressional District title, which is how the tournament was organized in those days. The championship game, played at Rochester, against South Bend High School, ended in a 2-0 forfeit when the South Bend coach pulled his team from the floor after his star player was called for his second "class B" foul for tripping a Culver player. (The rules in those days classified fouls as A and B, with the player being ejected from the game if he picked up two class B fouls.)

At the University of Notre Dame three days later, with more than 100 Culver fans on hand via a special train, the dream of a trip to the state finals was ended by Whiting, 15-12. Sayger scored 10 of his team's points.

During his junior year, Culver won 11, lost two and tied one. The season was highlighted by a great three-game series with Rochester, a perennial power in those days. The first game, played on Nov. 27, 1912, ended in a 26-26 tie amid controversy; the Culver scorekeeper had Culver ahead 27-26, but the game was declared a "no-decision" by the Indiana High School Athletic Association.

Culver won the second game, 31-23, played at home on Jan. 29, 1913, with Sayger making 29 of the 31 points. The final game was played at Rochester on Feb. 12, 1913, with the hosts winning 35-27. Sayger tallied 19 points. Rochester later lost a 19-17 overtime decision in the state tourney to eventual champion Wingate. Culver also played in the state tourney at Bloomington, losing a first-round game to Lafayette 27-24. Lafayette reached the final four before losing to Wingate.

Culver was the dominant team in northern Indiana in Sayger's senior year. Playing a tough schedule against teams from LaPorte, Rochester, Elkhart and Kokomo, Culver won them all except for a one-point loss at Kokomo. Two of the wins came against Rochester, one by 20 points.

Sayger had an outstanding year, scoring 561 points (56 percent of the team's total) in 19 games for a 29.5 average. That's a remarkable total in any era, but becomes incredible considering Culver's opponents averaged only 16 points a game. He had high games of 79 points against North Bend, 55 against Plymouth and at least 52 against North Judson (the newspaper account shows 26 field goals, but not the free throws.) But much of his schoolboy career is a mystery, as newspaper accounts and box scores of many of his games are missing.

The biggest mystery is the night of March 8, 1913, in Culver's Crooks Hall when he very likely scored 113 points against a first-year, and obviously outclassed, Winamac team. It was Bob Rust of Culver, the former editor of the Culver Citizen who knew almost everything about Culver, who said that he had been told by the late Edgar "Tone" Shaw, who played for Culver in those years, that Sayger had scored more than 100 points in a game.

Mention was also made in Culver Military Academy's newspaper, the "Vedette," supplied by Sayger's widow, that Sayger had once scored 114 points (not 113) in a game. The information had been furnished to the Vedette by former teammates Rex Mawhorter, Charles Cowen and Tone Shaw.

More "evidence" was supplied in an Associated Press story on Jan. 1, 1952, which was carried in the South Bend Tribune. The article reported that Sayger was going to be honored later that week when Heidelberg dedicated the Sayger basketball court at the university's Seiberling Gymnasium, and added, without any elaboration or more detail, that Sayger had once scored 113 points, on 56 field goals and one free throw, in a high school game.

The 113-point game was also mentioned by Edwin Butcher, retired Heidelberg alumni secretary, at the memorial service for Sayger at Heidelberg on Feb. 1, 1970, a week after Sayger's death. But which game? This was well before the time when basketball grabbed hold of Indianans' hearts, and newspapers often overlooked the games played by the local high schools. Reporters rarely attended games.

There were three games in which Culver, as a team, topped the 113-point mark. Records show a 115-24 win over Plymouth, in which Sayger scored 55 points, and a 137-7 win over North Bend, in which he scored 79 points; both of those games were in his senior year and were reported in a newspaper.

But records can't be found for the 154-10 win over Winamac on March 8, 1913, during his junior year. It is that game, and that night, which may have involved a state-record performance.

Rex Mawhorter, Sayger's teammate who was tracked down in California in 1983, confirmed in a telephone call that, yes, Sayger had once scored 113 points and, yes, it had come against Winamac. Sayger's widow said her late husband sometimes mentioned to her that he had once scored 113 points in a high school game, and some of his friends would talk about it when they visited.

After High School

When the opportunity of a scholarship at Culver Military Academy arose, Sayge accepted it, playing four sports during the year he spent on Lake Maxinkuckee's shore. Although he had never played football before, Sayger made the Academy team as a left end and soon became one of its stars. He also led the basketball team in scoring, averaging 18 points a game.

The Vedette, on Dec. 5, 1914, reported: "Among the men who starred this season is Herman Sayger. This is his first year for football, but nevertheless he showed great ability in several ways. He handles the forward pass with exceptional skill and is a good man on the defensive and offensive. He is very quick and an excellent open field runner. Taken altogether, he is a very good all-round man and has scored a big hit with the fellows. It is expected that he will play a better game of basketball as it is his specialty."

During the summer of 1915, Sayger worked at a freight office in Indianapolis, coming in contact with some Purdue men. With his trunk packed and his pipe bought (as was the advertising image of college men in those days), he was planning on heading for West Lafayette for his college career. But on Sunday, two days before he was to leave for Purdue, he decided to take one last sail on the lake, leaving at 9 a.m. with the wind at his back and returning at 3 p.m., paddling back to his starting point.

Greeting him on the dock was Coach Ike Martin of Heidelberg College, who had been waiting for him since 10 a.m. When Sayger learned that he could make most of his way at Heidelberg by working, he changed his mind and instead of leaving for Purdue on Tuesday, he traveled to Tiffin, Ohio, on Monday.

He arrived in Tiffin, he wrote, with $4.50 in his pocket and no dorm room or books. Two days later, disgusted with his lot (the first night at Heidelberg he reportedly slept on a dorm floor), he started for the train station and was ready to go home. But an assistant coach talked him out of it, offering Sayger a place in his own home for that night. And that's where Sayger stayed the rest of the school year.

At Heidelberg, he was named all-Ohio in both football and basketball. His 39 points against Hiram in 1919 still stands as the sixth highest point total for a single game. When Coach Martin went into the service in 1917, leaving Heidelberg without a coach, Sayger was selected to guide the team.

Willis Gebhardt, the right end on that team, recalled there wasn't too much question about choosing the interim coach. "It seemed to be the natural thing for Sayger to take over. He was liked by everyone. He had a magnetic personality. He didn't have any enemies." Gebhardt said Sayger had no trouble whatsoever. "We lost one game 3-0 and tied Oberlin. We won all the others. We were not a bunch of fellas who were factionalized."

The school annual credited Sayger for the success of the team, saying he had "unusual qualities of leadership" and "won the confidence of the players."

"I was very close to Sayger," Gebhardt said. In fact, Gebhardt tutored him in mathematics. "I just wanted to do something nice for him. I had great respect for Herman Sayger.

"He was a terrific basketball player. He could really dribble down the floor. He could get around two players wihtout any trouble at all," Gebhardt said Sayger was about 160 pounds and 5-foot-10. "His cleverness and agility" were the keys to his ability.

Gebhardt said Sayger played football, basketball and baseball. "He was an all-round athlete." In baseball, he was usually the catcher, but sometimes he traded places with the team's star pitcher. In 1917, Coach Martin took Sayger along to play professional football at Massillon, Ohio. To protect his eligibility, Sayger's widow said, he was called "the kid." It was here that he first met Knute Rockne.

In 1918, Sayger too went ino the army, but still kept active in sports by playing basketball and football at Camp Dodge, Iowa. After graduating from Heidelberg in 1920 and coaching a few years in high schools, he was an assistant at the University of Akron for three years, coaching football, basketball and track. During that time, he also served as advisory coach to Frank Nead's professional Akron Indians and as a scout for Jim Thorpe and his Canton team.

In 1924, he was appointed coach and athletic director at Heidelberg College. He served for seven years, taking a losing athletic program and turning it into a winner. Two of his football teams went undefeated, playing against schools with much larger enrollments.

During this time, he organized the Tiffin Downtown Coaches, which may have been the first athletic booster organization in the country. After retiring from coaching because of health problems, he started Sayger Sports Syndicate.

In the fall of 1935, when Ohio Oil Co. contracted to broadcast all of Ohio State's football games, Sayger was signed as associate announcer, with Red Barber of WLW, Cincinnati, as chief. The pair worked eight games together, Barber relating the running account and Sayger contributing atmosphere, "side-lights," chats from the dressing rooms, talks from the grandstand, and so on. He carried a short-wave sending set wherever he went and was thus able to interview spectators in the boxes, players and coaches on the field and benches, and relay these interesting bit to the main wire in the radio room, and thence to the air fan via WLW.

His widow, who knew him from her grade-school days in rural Tiffin and started working for him shortly after her high school graduation in 1933, remembered those days when he illustrated books on athletics and she was the fill-in artist. Once, she said, he sent a book to be approved by a coach on his board of directors and received the reply: "Sayger, you know more than we'll ever know." He sold the books to colleges and traveled extensively. He came up with the idea of a pocket handbook of 350 to 400 schedules of college teams, taking it to a friend at Ohio Oil (now Marathon) at nearby Findlay with the idea of circulating the schedules. An advertising man was called while Sayger was still in the office and a project was born; the schedules were distributed to college alumni. Mrs. Sayger also said that he was the first to write an all-sports pictorial magazine, which was called "Sports Spotlight." He is also credited with publishing the first set of hand signals for football officials.

He took pictures on his travels, and when he sometimes had trouble getting film back on time from a nearby camera store, he bought the store in 1933. By 1940, the business included cameras and advertising specialities. He took over a printing plant and moved it downstairs. The company made photo cuts for newspapers and provided photostating. "There was no end to what he did," Mrs. Sayger said.

"I loved everything he tried," she added. "We had so much in common. He was a great person to work for. People loved him. He was so kind, and always thought of the other fellow." His time was still occupied by writing and composing music, but, as Mrs. Sayger said, "he got into lots of things. He was never idle. He took correspondence courses in everything. He was a tremendous worker"

"He loved athletics and music," said Mrs. Sayger, who was married to him only a few years before his death (he had been a widower). "He practiced by the hour when he was growing up, dividing his time between athletics and music."

In fact, he picked up his nickname of "Suz" after band leader, John Philip Sousa, because when he wasn't practicing basketball, he would march down the railroad track at Culver pretending he was playing an instrument. Someone said, "There goes a little Sousa," and the name stuck.

After her husband died in 1970 after contracting pneumonia on the way to a national football coaches convention in New York City, Mrs. Sayger continued the business.

All in all, it was quite a career for the young man from Culver who thought so much of the benefits of athletics that he started an award at Culver High School. He wanted the recipient each year to be a senior athlete who exemplified not only athletic ability but good sportsmanship and was well liked by his teammates. Moreover, the award winner was expected to do well in life after his high school athletic career was over.

But when the high schools at Culver, Monterey and Aubeennaubee Twp. consolidated into Culver Community High School, the Culver High School award went by the wayside.

Herman Sayger never got over his love for the Culver area, and when he died in 1970, his wish was granted: His ashes were spread over Lake Maxinkuckee.

Is Indiana man inventor of the 3-point shot?

Kyle Neddenriep
5:52 p.m. EDT March 24, 2015
Star librarian Cathy Knapp contributed research for this story.

Herman Sayger died in 1970. He was 75. Newspapers in Indiana and Ohio thoroughly reported his accomplishments as an athlete, coach, businessman and innovator.

There were many. Sayger counted legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne among his many friends, along with famous athletes like Red Grange, Tris Speaker and Jim Thorpe.

Sayger grew up in Culver, Ind., where he was one of the state's first high school basketball stars. As a junior, Sayger scored 113 points in a game against Winamac, a state record that still stands.

Sayger went on to star in football, basketball, baseball and track at Heidelberg College, in Tiffin, Ohio, where he also coached. He quit coaching at 35 and started a business in Tiffin called Sayger Enterprises, which he ran as a combination camera store / printing shop / publishing business/advertiser.

He developed the first football hand signals for officials and published them. He was also among the first to print pocket schedules for college teams.

Culver High School named an annual award for Sayger for its top athlete.

In 1952, Heidelberg named its the Selberling Gymnasiym gym court "Sayger Court"

At his memorial service on Feb. 1, 1970, Heidelberg president Terry Wickham called Sayger a "dreamer" and "a bit of a mystic."

"There was never a generation gap between Sayger and young people," Wickham remarked at the service. "He spoke with them naturally because he never got over being a young person."

Sayger packed a lot into his 75 years. But at the time of his death, nary a word was mentioned of perhaps his most innovative idea, a plan that decades later would transform basketball to the game we know today.

Was Indiana native Herman Sayger the originator of the 3-point shot?

Herman Sayger spent a lot of time in his youth on Lake Maxinkuckee in Culver. He asked for his ashes to be spread over the lake when he died in 1970.

At her home in Culver, Ind., Sherrill Fujimura can look out her back window to a beautiful view of Lake Maxinkuckee. This is where Sayger, the man she knew as "Uncle Herman" would sail his pontoon boat as a teenager. It is where he wanted his ashes spread when he died.

Sayger came to Culver at age 6 to live with his aunt, Mary Medbourn, and her family when his parents and brother died of ptomaine poisoning in Jonesboro, Ark. Medbourn was Fujimura's great grandmother.

Sayger excelled at basketball, playing in the primitive early days of the sport. According to a 1984 South Bend Tribune article, the 1913 and '14 Culver teams played upstairs in a building called Capt. Crooks Hall . There was a seating capacity of 50 people and the ceiling was only 14 or 15 feet high. A film of ice would cover the floor on really cold nights.

"It was hell to play in," Rex Mawhorter, a teammate of Sayger, told the Tribune in '84.

It wasn't until after his death that the Indiana High School Athletic Association recognized Sayger's 113-point game against Winamac as the single-game record. Sayger also had games of 79 points, 55 and 52. After his senior year in 1914, he was one of five players selected to the all-state team.

"I was a very lucky fellow in 1914, since I was from a small high school to be selected on the All-Indiana basket ball team, along with the noted star from Wingate by the name of Homer Stonebreaker," Sayger wrote in an article for the Tiffin Daily Advertiser in 1932.

Sayger spent a postgraduate year at Culver Military Academy, where he played four sports in 1914-15. Two days before he was to begin classes at Purdue, he took his boat out for a sail on Lake Maxinkuckee. When he docked six hours later, Heidelberg coach I.R. Martin was waiting for him with a last-minute recruiting pitch.

"I took Martin and introduced him to my guardian and after some conversation we decided that I could make most of my way by working," Sayger wrote. "So instead of leaving for Purdue on Tuesday, I left for Tiffin on Monday."

Sayger made his name at Heidelberg as an athlete, making all-conference in football and basketball. In 1917, with his coach called to the service, he was the quarterback, captain and coach for the football team.

After returning from service, Sayger graduated from Heidelberg in 1920. After spending time as an assistant coach at Akron and playing professional football in Massillon and Akron, he returned to Heidelberg. He stayed there for the next seven years, twice leading the football program to unbeaten seasons. Sayger also served as athletic director and organized the first athletic booster club (the Tiffin Downtown Coaches) in an effort to galvanize the community and the college (and raise money for a new football stadium).

Sayger quit coaching in 1930 due to health concerns and started a publishing business, Sayger Sports Syndicate, the following year. But he had other plans as well.

INDIANAPOLIS STAR
History of our Hysteria: How Indiana fell in love with basketball

Sayger is credited anecdotally in various reaches of the Internet for his part as a forerunner for the 3-point shot, though it is often noted that he never put his ideas into play in a game.

He did. Through the Star's research, here is what is known:

In March of 1932 — 35 years before the 3-pointer was popularized by the American Basketball Association and 47 years before it was adopted by the NBA — Sayger put on an exhibition game between Tiffin Junior Home and Tiffin Columbian, a pair of high school teams. Under Sayger's rules, a shot from beyond 25 feet was worth three points and a shot inside of 15 feet worth one point. Anything in between counted for the traditional two points.

Sayger also eliminated the jump ball after each basket, which was the rule of the time. In his opinion, basketball was a game dominated by height instead of skill.

The Tiffin Advertiser previewed the game on March 14, 1932, under the headline:

The story from the Defiance (Ohio) Crescent-News on March 19, 1932, appeared less

The headline from the Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune on March 21, 1932, read:

Tiffin Junior Home defeated Tiffin Columbian, 21-18. The story doesn't indicate how many 3-pointers were attempted, though it appears not many.

"Although under Sayger's rules the baskets scored back of the 25-foot line would count three points, players in the trial game continued to work the ball down the floor to a point close to the basket. This comes from habit, Sayger believes."

So, although it was an exhibition, there is proof that Sayger did put his scoring system to use in a game. And he continued to do so over the next few years, eventually gaining a larger audience.

On March 22, 1935, fans packed the Coliseum in Columbus, Ohio, for the semifinal games of the state tournament. Between the afternoon and evening sessions, Marysville and Columbus North played an exhibition under Sayger's rules.

Ohio State athletic director L.W. St. John, the chairman of the national rules committee, was in attendance, along with many Ohio high school and college coaches. The March 21, 1935, edition of Columbus Dispatch previewed the game under the headline:

The March 28, 1935, edition of the Marysville Journal-Tribune headline read:

If we could only read those slips of paper today. It is unclear how Sayger's ideas were received, although it appears that the elimination of the center jump was more favorable than his new scoring system.

Sayger wasn't done attempting to reinvent the game. On Feb. 1, 1936, he staged a game between the college freshman teams of Ohio Northern and Heidelberg, prior to the varsity game. This time, under Sayger's rules, the teams were allowed to shoot at either basket at any time.

Sayger, likely far ahead of his time in this regard, appeared obsessed with eliminating stalling tactics. From the Sandusky Register:

That idea was a little drastic in 1936, as it would be in 2015. But some of them did eventually ome to fruition. For the 1937-38 season, the center jump after every made basket was eliminated from the college game.

But the 3-point line? It didn't come along until much later, by which time Sayger's experimental games were long forgotten.

Herman Sayger Nickname: Suz Graduation Year: 1920 Sport: Football Induction Year: 1985 Considered on of the most gifted athletes in Heidelberg history, Herman "Suz" Sayger and his athletic feats are legendary.

He was one of those rare people superbly gifted with perfect coordination, a split-second sense of timing and all that it takes to excel naturally in athletics.

Born in Jonesboro, Ark., Sayger demonstrated his magnificent athletic skill while a high school student in Indiana. He was named a member of the All-Indiana basketball team in 1914, the same season in which he set an all-time single game scoring record of 113 points. The record still stands today.

He continued to be a standout at Heidelberg as a student and as an athlete. He was the captain of the 1917 football team and since the college was without a coach, he also assumed that responsibility. He was truly a triple threat man that year as captain, coach and starting quarterback.

Sayger holds the distinction of being one of few athletes who made All-Ohio teams in both football and basketball.

The list of his close personal friends reads like a "Who's Who in Athletics". They include Knute Rockne, Red Grange and Jim Thrope.

An advertising and printing executive in Tiffin for many years, Sayger died in 1970.

As a coach, Sayger's football teams went 29-18-4; his basketball team went 41-33. His name is proudly displayed to all who attend Heidelberg basketball games in Sayger Court.

It's a shame, really, that Sayger's name doesn't resonate in a state that treasures its basketball history. He'll go into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame on Wednesday as a recipient of the Centennial Award, created to recognize high school basketball more than 100 years ago.

Fujimura, who will attend the Hall of Fame banquet, remembers "Uncle Herman" for his magnetic personality. He was recalled fondly in Tiffin, Ohio, and Culver after his death. But his efforts to revolutionize basketball's scoring system went unreported when he died of pneumonia in 1970. "He never really talked about himself," Fujimura said. "He was very outgoing, very nice, but he didn't talk about his accomplishments."

Basketball wasn't ready for the 3-point line in the 1930s. Even when it was officially implemented to college basketball in 1986-87 and high school basketball the following season, only a handful of teams utilized the new rule. Few coaches even wanted it. Eventually, though, it had precisely the impact Sayger figured it would when he created the new scoring rules: It opened up the game.

At long last, there was a place in basketball for the runt.

Evolution of the 3-pointer

Lake Maxinkuckee Its Intrigue History & Genealogy Culver, Marshall, Indiana

Herman Earl 'Suz" Sayger