Ferrin helped lead the Utes to NCAA and NIT championships in the 1940s.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ernie Ferrin’s retired jersey and number hangs at the Huntsman Center in this 2006 portrait. Ferrin, a former Utah basketball star and track and field coach, died Tuesday at the age of 97.
Ernie Ferrin, who was named the Most Valuable Player in the University of Utah’s victory in the 1944 NCAA Basketball Championship Game, died Tuesday. he was 97 years old.
A graduate of Ogden High School, Ferrin led Ute to the 1947 NIT Championship. He played two titles for his team with the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBA, and later he became the general manager of the ABA’s Utah Stars and Utah’s Athletic Director.
For more than three-quarters of a century, Ferrin has been a legendary Ute athlete and a prominent figure in college basketball. He chaired the Division I Basketball Committee in his 1988 and presided over his game of his 50th championship in NCAA history. Ferrin remained the only freshman to be named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player until 1986, when Louisville’s Purvis won the award.
He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 and in 2012 became the first Utah state to be inducted into the Pac-12 Hall of Fame. Even into his 90s, Ferrin remained a visible fan of his Ute athletics, especially the basketball and gymnastics teams.
The 1944 Ute has made many reunions and public appearances over the years. “It’s the common bond that holds us together,” Ferrin said at her 2004 celebration of her 60th anniversary.
Ferrin scored 22 points in Utah’s 42–40 win over Dartmouth for the 1944 NCAA title at Madison Square Garden in New York. Ute had lost to Kentucky in his more prestigious NIT, but filled a vacancy in the NCAA Tournament after a car accident involving an Arkansas player forced the Razorbacks to withdraw.
The Utes traveled to Kansas City for the NCAA event and then returned to New York for the championship game.
(Danny Chan La | Salt Lake Tribune) Members of the 1944 Utah NCAA Basketball Champions pose for a 2004 photo. From left to right: Wat Misaka, Herb Wilkinson, Ernie Ferrin, and Fred Lewis.
In 1947, Utah defeated Kentucky to win the NIT title. Ferrin then moved to Minneapolis where he played for three seasons, first playing basketball for his Association of America (the league’s last three years are considered part of the NBA’s official history). He was the top five scorer on his team for each of the Lakers titles in his 1949 and his 50s.
“We didn’t really understand the importance of that,” he once said of being an NBA champion. “I don’t know if we partied. Obviously, we didn’t get the ring.”
Ferrin gave up professional basketball after three years because he did not see it as a safe and financially rewarding profession.
An outstanding golfer, Ferrin has played in a State Amateur final.
