With a career scoring average of around 38 points per game, a season
scoring average of over 46 points per game and another season left to play,
Grayson Rigdon of
Benjamin (Texas) has a chance to top the
all-time high school basketball career scoring average next year.
Blehm's total edged by one-tenth of a point the 41.0 scoring average
of future NBA All-Star John Drew, who graduated from
Shields (Beatrice, Ala.) the year before. Those two, along with Kentucky scoring standout
Ervin Stepp of
Phelps (Ky.) with 40.4 points from 1977-80, are the only prep players with over 40 points per game in their careers.
Rigdon
averaged 29.5 points over 20 games as a freshman at
Strawn (Texas). After
transferring to Benjamin, Rigdon scored 855 points in 21 games for an
average of 40.7 as a sophomore. Following a 60-point performance in a playoff win Thursday night, He is currently averaging 47.5 points per
outing with 904 points in 19 games. That's good for an unofficial career
average of 39.1 points per game. He would need to average over 46 points
over the course of 25 games between this year and next year to top
Blehm's career average.
Grayson Rigdon lines up a shot in last year's Texas Class 1A state semifinals. (Photo: Robbie Rakestraw)
While Blehm's average is the official all-time record, the unofficial record is also an interesting story.
Finnell
White of Lowcountry Academy (Charleston, S.C.) lived in Harlem, N.Y., as a freshman in 1986, but according to a story in
The State in
February of 1988, White moved to South Carolina to live with his
grandmother in order to improve his academics and play a little
basketball.
As a sophomore at Lowcountry Academy, White led the
Charleston area with an average of 34.7 points per game over 16 games.
His junior year was even more amazing as he set a national record with
an average of 55.6 points per game.
At 5-foot-10, White was not a
tall player, however he was described as being well-built and capable
of scoring at will. It should be noted that the competition in the South
Carolina Independent Schools Association was not stellar in 1988.
Lowcountry Academy had a roster that included two girls (the school did
not have a girls team) along with a 12-year-old eighth grader. The team
also did not have a gym so it played all of its games on the road. White
often scored close to 75 percent of his team's points.
In a
102-57 loss to St. John's, White had 50 points. In a 67-61 win over St.
Stephen Academy, he had 59 points. In a 90-89 win over Andrews, White
posted 79 points, including a 64-foot shot at the end of the first
quarter. The following game he had 71 points in an 89-80 win.
While
White's exact point total and games played from his senior year is
unknown, his career point total of 1,642 points was reported in the
The
State in March 1988. Subtracting the 555 points he scored as a junior
(as reported by the
Charleston Courier), White had approximately 1,087
points in 1988. Divide that total by his reported scoring average of
55.6 and you get around 20 games. Thus White scored 1,642 points over an
unofficial 36 games for a career average of 45.6 points per game.
White
did not play after his junior year because he had turned 18 and the
SCISA did not allow players older than 18 to play as seniors. White
finished his high school academic career at
Burke (Charleston, S.C.), but he did not play
basketball as a senior.
The vaguery of White's scoring average is
not the reason why it is not included on our list of highest
career scoring averages. The fact that White only played 36 games in his
career is the sticking point. That total is a single season for some
players and a higher minimum number of games is usually a requirement to
be included on career lists.
Most of the players on the list
below played in the neighborhood of 80 games. Blehm, who holds the
record, played 94. Greg Procell, who is No. 9 on the list, played 180.
Wilt Chamberlain is probably right at the minimum qualifying
criteria with 59 games played.
The list below includes all games
played at the varsity level, including those played when the
athlete was younger than ninth grade. As a result, this list will differ
from a similar list in the National Federation of High Schools record
book, which only includes statistics for grades 9-12.
The list
includes a number of future NBA players, including Drew, Chamberlain, Tom McMillen, Tracy Murray, Leon Wood and Charlie Vaughn
The
list was compiled using information from the NFHS record book, state
association record books, the Cal-Hi Sports Record Book by Mark Tennis
and Nelson Tennis and MaxPreps leaderboards. Players are listed
with the number of games played and total points for their career.
Highest career scoring average
Nos. 1-10
41.1 — Steve Blehm,
School for the Deaf (Devils Lake, N.D.), 1970-73 (94/3,859)
41.0 — John Drew,
Shields (Beatrice, Ala.), 1969-72 (98/4,018)
40.4 — Ervin Stepp,
Phelps (Ky.), 1977-80 (80/3,228)
39.7 — Allen Hornyak,
St. John Central (Bellaire, Ohio), 1967-69 (60/2,385)
39.4 — Bennie Fuller,
School for the Deaf (Little Rock, Ark.), 1968-71 (124/4,896)
39.0 — Joseph Girard III,
Glens Falls (N.Y.), 2015-19 (122/4,763)
38.4 — Mickey Crowe, JFK Prep (St. Nazianz, Wis.), 1972-75 (71/2,724)
37.5 — Steve Farquhar, Calvary Baptist (Lakewood, N.J.), 1983-85 (72/2,701)
37.4 — Wilt Chamberlain,
Overbrook (Philadelphia), 1953-55 (59/2,206)
37.2 — Greg Procell,
Ebarb (Noble, La.), 1967-70 (180/6,702)
11-21
35.3 — Tom McMillen,
Mansfield (Pa.), 1967-70 (102/3,608)
34.6 — Paul Werle,
Orrick (Mo.), 1986-88 (73/2,522)
34.4 — Robert Whisenant, Ryan (Joppa, Ala.), 1967-70 (70/2,411)
34.4 — Mark Brown,
Hastings (Mich.), 1982-85 (81/2,789)
33.8 — Kelly Coleman, Wayland (Ky.), 1953-56 (128/4,337)
33.7 — Leon Wood,
St. Monica (Santa Monica, Calif.), 1977-79 (80/2,693)
33.4 — John Somogyi,
St. Peter (New Brunswick, N.J.), 1966-69 (99/3,310)
33.1 — Rod Watson,
Westside (Memphis, Tenn.), 1983-85 (103/3,418)
32.6 — Brian Hueblein,
Polytechnic (Pasadena, Calif.), 1968-70 (57/1,859)
32.5 — Tracy Murray,
Glendora (Calif.), 1986-89 (94/3,053)
32.0 — Charlie Vaughn, Tamms (Ill.), 1954-58 (105/3,358)
Others
45.6 — Finnell White, Lowcountry Academy (Charleston, S.C.), 1986-88 (36/1,642)
43.6 — Qwan Jackson,
Lifelong Learning (Milwaukee, Wis.) (40/1,745)
34.8 — Dick Tansey,
Vero Beach (Fla.), 1965-67 (43/1,497)