Arnie Ferrin, former Utah basketball star and athletic director, has died

Arnie Ferrin, named the Most Outstanding Player in the University of Utah’s victory in the 1944 NCAA basketball championship game, died Tuesday. He was 97.

A graduate of Ogden High School, Ferrin also led the Utes to the 1947 NIT championship. He played for two title teams with the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA and later became the general manager of the Utah Stars of the ABA and Utah’s athletic director.

For more than three-quarters of a century, Ferrin has been viewed as a legendary Ute athlete and a prominent figure in college basketball. He was the chairman of the Division I Basketball Committee in 1988, presiding over the 50th championship game in NCAA history. Ferrin remained the only freshman named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player until 1986, when Louisville’s Pervis Ellison won the award.

Arnie Ferrin.
Arnie Ferrin.

He was inducted into the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 and was Utah’s first inductee into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor in 2012. Ferrin’s No. 22 has been retired by Utah. Well into his 90s, Ferrin remained a visible fan of Ute athletics, particularly the basketball and gymnastics teams.

The 1944 Utes have staged many reunions and public appearances over the years. “It’s been a common bond that’s kept us together,” Ferrin said in 2004, during a 60th anniversary observance.

Ferrin scored 22 points in Utah’s 42-40 victory over Dartmouth for the 1944 NCAA title at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Utes had lost to Kentucky in the more prestigious NIT, but filled a vacancy in the NCAA Tournament after an auto accident involving Arkansas players forced the Razorbacks to withdraw.

The Utes went to Kansas City for the NCAA event, then returned to New York for the championship game.

(Danny Chan La | The Salt Lake Tribune) Members of the 1944 Utah NCAA basketball champions pose for a photo in 2004. From left, Wat Misaka, Herb Wilkinson, Arnie Ferrin and Fred Lewis.
(Danny Chan La | The Salt Lake Tribune) Members of the 1944 Utah NCAA basketball champions pose for a photo in 2004. From left, Wat Misaka, Herb Wilkinson, Arnie Ferrin and Fred Lewis.

In 1947, Utah beat Kentucky for the NIT title. Ferrin then played three seasons for Minneapolis, initially in the Basketball Association of America (the league’s last three years are considered part of the NBA’s official history). He was a top-five scorer for each of the Lakers’ title teams in 1949 and ‘50.

“We really didn’t understand the significance,” he once said of being an NBA champion. “I’m not sure we even had a party, and we obviously didn’t get a ring.”

Ferrin gave up pro basketball after three years because he didn’t view it as a secure, financially rewarding profession.

An outstanding golfer, Ferrin once played in the finals of the State Amateur.



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