Bill Backensto, Baseball (1965-67)
Bill Backensto lettered in basketball as a safeguard in 1965-67 and captained the 1966-67 team to the best record ever achieved by a Mid-American Conference team (23-2), to UT's second ever MAC basketball title, and to the NCAA tournament after considerable national publicity when the team began the season with 14 consecutive wins. He was first-team All-MAC in both 1965 and 1967. Bill Backensto has the 3rd best scoring average for a sophomore (18.3 ppg.) in UT history, the 10th best career scoring average (15.1 ppg.), and the 13thth best in UT history, struck out 201 batters (4th best total in UT history), and pitched 223.3 innings (4thth best such mark in our history. Bill captained the baseball team the same year he was basketball captain. In spite of virtual year-round athletic competition, he graduated summa cum laude from the College of Engineering with a major in engineering physics after having achieved nearly a perfect 4.0 average for all academic work. He went on to earn his master's and Ph. D. degrees in physics and has been employed for many years as a research physicist with the Hughes Air craft Corporation and is currently the director of the firm's Carlsbad, California, research center. highest total of points (1,104). Backend shot .506 from the field for his career, .734 from the foul line, and had one of the highest rebounding averages (5.4 per game) of any UT guard in history. He also lettered in baseball three times (1965-66-67) as a pitcher. He had a career ERA of 2.82, 5 highest total). Won 14 career games (the seventh highest total in UT history), in spite of playing with some of the poorer teams, record wise, in our history. Walked only 0.39 batters per inning in his career, the 6
http://utrockets.sidearmsports.com/
