June 3, 2010 – Truman basketball great Harry “The Horse” Gallatin will be enshrined as part of the inaugural Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Hall of Fame class next week at the league's awards banquet in Kansas City.
Gallatin, the only Truman alumnus who has played in the NBA, starred for a decade on the professional level. He performed nine seasons for the New York Knicks and his final year for the Detroit Pistons.
At that time, he held the NBA record for consecutive games played (746) and was selected to compete in the first seven NBA all-star games, a feat only two other players, Dolph Schayes and Bob Cousy, can claim. Gallatin was named to the all-NBA team twice and performed in eight playoffs.
In 1954, he led the NBA in rebounding with a 15.0 average. Gallatin was one of 25 candidates for the all-time NBA team after averaging 13.0 points and 11.3 rebounds a game for his career.
While a member of the Knicks, he was dubbed “The Horse” because of his durability, aggressiveness and hard work.
Gallatin's basketball career began in Roxana, Ill. where he was a good high school rebounder and helped his squad win a district championship. He was an all-district selection and served as a co-captain of his team.
He learned about Truman from the late Ralph Pink (a former Truman professor) who had watched him play in three-on-three pickup games. Pink recommended Gallatin to head coach Boyd King.
As a Bulldog, he earned all-conference accolades in 1946-47 and 1947-48 and was a NAIA All-America in 1947-48.
Until the past two decades, Gallatin ranked in the top 10 on the all-time school single-season scoring list. Because they usually won by wide margins, Bulldog starters played only about half the time during games. Then too, Gallatin and several other players were good students and graduated from college in only two years. Consequently, they had little opportunity to rewrite school records. He ended his Bulldog career with 816 points.
During Gallatin's collegiate career, Truman won 59 of 63 games, notched a pair of league titles and made two trips to the NAIA Tournament in Kansas City. The Bulldogs lost in the third round of the 1947 national tournament and in the second round of the 1948 tournament.
They were the first Truman basketball team to advance to national competition, and they recorded the school's first MIAA basketball championship since 1926-27. Both squads posted 19 straight victories, the longest winning streak in the history of Bulldog basketball. The 1946-47 team compiled a school-record 30 victories.
In recognition of his athletic ability, scholarship, leadership, citizenship and ambition, Gallatin received the 1948 Stickler Cup as a senior.
When he first started his professional basketball career, he also played four years of baseball in the Chicago Cubs organization. Gallatin also competed in baseball while at Truman.
After his retirement from professional basketball in 1958, Gallatin was appointed basketball coach at Southern Illinois-Carbondale, where he logged a four-year record of 79-36.
Then, he was hired to guide the St. Louis Hawks of the NBA, leading them to a 48-32 record in his first season at the helm. Gallatin was named 1962-63 NBA Coach of the Year.
After a three-year stint with St. Louis, Gallatin returned to New York, this time as coach.
However, his old team did not have a great deal of talent and was plagued by injuries, according to Gallatin, who stayed only two seasons with the Knicks.
In 1967, he became Dean of Students at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, near his hometown. The administration asked him to organize intercollegiate athletics, and he started with soccer, basketball, baseball and golf. Gallatin coached basketball for two years and served as athletic director for five years.
He took a full-time teaching position in 1972 at SIUE. A year later, he was named the men's golf coach, and his teams made 17 trips to the NCAA Division II National Championships including the 1991 Cougars, who were ranked as high as sixth nationally.
Gallatin is a former chairman of the Division II golf committee. He retired as an instructor in 1991 and as SIUE golf coach in 1992.
Gallatin was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991 and is also a member of the Truman Athletics Hall of Fame, the Missouri Basketball Hall of Fame, the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame and the NAIA Hall of Fame.
His Bulldog No. 44 jersey was retired on Jan. 20, 2001.
