Basketball Hall of Fame

Carroll Herman almost overnight brought the Illinois Central College basketball program from near doormat status into respectability.

Prior to his taking the reins, the team averaged just seven wins in the first seven years of its existence. In his first season, 1979-80, the Cougars won 20 games for the first of eight straight 20-win seasons.

In 20 seasons at ICC, Herman, who also served as athletic director, compiled a 381-250 record and took two teams to the NJCAA National tournament, finishing third in 1997. His 1982 team won the state tournament.

Overall, in 32 years of coaching, he produced a 589-354 record at Bowen, Southeastern and Geneseo High Schools and Trenton, Mo., Jr. College and Robert Morris College.

His teams won nine Arrowhead Conference titles, five NJCAA sectional championships, ten Region 24 championships and had eight consecutive 20-win seasons. The Cougars were 1996 Collegiate Conference of Central Illinois champs, and Herman was named Coach of the Year in the CCCI for 1996.

He was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1990 and was named NJCAA Region 24 and District 8 Coach of the year in 1997.

He coached four NJCAA all-Americans and placed over 100 players in four-year college basketball programs.