Hinkle, "Tony" (Paul D.)
Basketball
b. Dec. 9, 1899, Logansport, IN
d. Sept. 21, 1992
Hinkle won nine letters in three sports at the University of Chicago, where he captained the basketball team for two years and was an All-American guard in 1920. After graduating, he went to Butler University in Indiana to coach baseball, basketball and football.
His teams won more than a thousand games in the course of nearly fifty years. Except for three years when he was in the Navy during World War II, he coached basketball through the 1969-70 season, compiling 561 wins and 393 losses. While in the Navy, Hinkle coached the Great Lakes Naval Training Station team to 98 victories and the 1942-43 national armed services championship.
At one time, fifty-five of Hinkle's former players were coaching basketball in Indiana. Butler's 10,800-seat gym was renamed Hinkle Fieldhouse in his honor in 1965 and, when he coached his last game in 1970, more than 17,000 people crowded in to pay him tribute.