11 Don Whitehead

Don Whitehead was born Donald Lee Whitehead on October 3, 1925, in Evansville, Indiana, to Gladys Vesta Barton Whitehead and Clifford Aleon Whitehead. He attended Bosse High School, where he excelled in basketball, baseball, track, and swimming, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. His scoring ability produced a memorable performance against rival Reitz on February 5, 1942, when he accounted for all but five of Bosse’s points in a victory.

Whitehead arrived at Kentucky in 1943 and studied engineering while participating in the Navy’s V-5 aviation training program. With freshmen making up 17 of the 19 players practicing that November, Adolph Rupp needed young talent to contribute immediately. The Kentucky Kernel identified Whitehead among the team’s most promising forwards, and the six-foot freshman earned a place in the starting lineup. He appeared in 12 games and averaged 3.5 points during his only Kentucky season.

His finest Kentucky performance came on December 13, 1943, when he led the Wildcats with 14 points in a victory over Ohio State. Rupp admired his exceptional speed and knack for making shots when they mattered. Whitehead remained a regular starter into January, when Wilbur Schu replaced him at forward. Military obligations ultimately interrupted his Kentucky career, although contemporary campus reporting shows that his anticipated January induction was temporarily postponed.

Whitehead also participated in campus life through Phi Delta Theta. The Kentucky Kernel listed him among those attending a fraternity gathering in February 1944, and the fraternity’s national magazine later identified him as having been initiated at Kentucky. Naval training assignments subsequently took him to Bowling Green, where he played in the 1945 National Invitation Tournament, and to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1946, Phi Delta Theta named him an alternate forward on its All-Phi collegiate basketball team, recognizing a player whose wartime assignments had carried him through three colleges in three successive seasons.

After military service, Whitehead returned to Evansville and played basketball at Evansville College under Arad McCutchan. He later graduated from the Indiana University School of Dentistry and built a career as an oral surgeon, practicing for more than 38 years and serving as president of the Indiana Oral Surgery Society. He died on October 16, 2009, at St. Mary’s Warrick County Hospital at age 84. He was survived by his wife of 59 years, Patricia, their three children, and three grandchildren.