Howie Crittenden
American basketball player (1933-2013)
Howard Royce Crittenden (March 3, 1933 – August 30, 2013) was an American basketball player, best known for his college career at Murray State University and in the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU).
High school and college career
Crittenden first gained fame as a high school player for the Cuba High School Cubs who, despite an enrollment of only around 100 students, captured the 1952 Kentucky state championship, defeating the much larger Louisville Manual High. Crittenden was named all-state his last two years and a high school All-American in his senior season.
He then moved to Murray State, where over his four-year career Crittenden scored 2,019 points (19.4 per game), graduating as the Racers' all-time leading scorer (since eclipsed). Crittenden was the first player in school history to eclipse the 2,000 point mark – and the only one to do so without the benefit of the three-point shot. Crittenden also holds the school record for free throws made with 731, a mark that still ranks among the best in NCAA history. Crittenden was inducted into the Murray State athletic Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Kentucky basketball Hall of Fame in 1972.
AAU career and later life
After graduating in 1956, Crittenden was drafted by the New York Knicks in the tenth round of the 1956 NBA draft. However, in a move not uncommon in the early days of American professional basketball, he instead signed with Caterpillar Inc. to play for their AAU team the Peoria Caterpillars.
“Howie Crittenden” enters the record as american basketball player (1933-2013). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Howie, Crittenden and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15992881. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933, 2013, 1952 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Howie Crittenden” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.