Dan Kelly
Kelly joins Athletic Hall of Fame
Basketball standout Daniel Kelly ’71 was inducted into the Iowa Wesleyan College Athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday, October 17. The Awards Ceremony took place during halftime of the football game.
Kelly came to Iowa Wesleyan from Franklin Park, Illinois. As a student, he majored in math and today he holds a position as associate vice president for investments. But it is the numbers Kelly put on the basketball scoreboard that earned him his spot in the Hall of Fame.Read More...
Two of Dan’s personal basketball records at Wesleyan still stand today: career record for free throws made, and season record for free throws made. He holds the number three spot for all-time scoring at the school with 1,723 points, and is in the top 10 for all-time in rebounds and field goal percentage in a season. The teams he played on won more than 70% of their games and were part of the best four-year winning percentage in IWC history.
Kelly was selected as an NAIA All-American in 1970 and 1971. He was named to both the All-Prairie Conference First Team and the All-District 15 NAIA first team. He was a three-time all-conference player in the Prairie College Conference, and led the Conference in scoring his senior year, averaging 23.2 points per game. Dan was one of just eight collegiate players nominated for the George Clarkson award for outstanding amateur basketball player, joining players from the University of Iowa, Iowa State and Drake University on that list. The Des Moines Register included him on the newspaper’s All-Time Collegiate Scorers List in 1980.
Kelly’s teammates say he was truly an all-around player, and former Mt. Pleasant News sports editor Jim Rose referred to him as “Mr. Basketball.”
Kelly was joined on campus for the induction by his wife, Debbie, his son and daughter-in-law, Sean and Jennifer Kelly, and his father, Hank Kelly. Some of Kelly’s teammates, including Tom Booth ’71, Tom Gregorin ‘71, Steve Shumaker ’70 and John Wieting ’71, also were on hand for the weekend festivities.
The Iowa Wesleyan College Athletic Hall of Fame was created in 2003 to honor former student-athletes, coaches, teams or others who have had a significant impact on, or brought special recognition to, Iowa Wesleyan College. This year marked the sixth annual induction ceremony for the Athletic Hall of Fame.
For information on nomination procedures and a complete list of Hall of Fame members, please check out the Iowa Wesleyan College web site, www.iwc.edu.
