Beloit College

Ron Bontemps for two years captained a basketball team which won national recognition for Beloit College; his three years of stardom on the Beloit team won for him an unquestioned place as the greatest basketball player in Beloit’s history.  Following service in World War II, Bontemps entered Beloit in 1947 and quickly became a star player under Dolph Stanley, which established new records in Beloit: The most successful team in history, six consecutive Midwest Conference titles, forty successive conference victories, national records of 141 points in one game and 86.6 points per game, an NCAA record for field goal accuracy.  In his three years, Beloit won 76 games and lost only 13. Bontemps scored 1770 points, 301 points in ten games, and was ninth in the nation among individual scorers. Following graduation, Bontemps continued in his spectacular career with the Peoria Caterpillars, AAU Champions.  He was a member of the Unites States basketball team at the 1952 Olympics in Finland, played in the East-West game at Madison Square Garden, and in 1954 was named Player of the Year by the Los Angeles TIMES.  In 1958 his name was placed in the Hall of Fame of the Helms Foundation.