Orlando Lightfoot, Idaho’s all-time leading scorer, takes place in Big Sky Hall of Fame

MOSCOW, Idaho – When Orlando Lightfoot travels to Spokane Saturday to be inducted into the Big Sky Conference Hall of Fame, it will validate that more than three decades ago, when he came to the University of Idaho, he was at the right time in the right place.

First, the basketball: Lightfoot was named the Big Sky Newcomer of the Year for the 1991-92 season and first-team all-conference. The next two seasons, he was the conference’s most valuable player.

His 2,102 points remain Idaho’s all-time scoring record, and it was the Big Sky record until 2018. His 715 points in 1992-93 are still Idaho’s single-season scoring record. Lightfoot was also named a Sports Illustrated Player of the Week in February 1992 and 1993.

The Vandals finished 18-14 in Lightfoot’s first season, when he averaged 21.8 points per game. The following season, at 24-8, they led the conference in scoring, and Lightfoot increased his scoring to 22.3 ppg. As a senior, Lightfoot led Idaho to an 18-10 record and averaged 25.4 ppg.

However long those records endure, Lightfoot gained something of even greater value from his time in Moscow.

“I grew up out there,” he said of UI. “I became a man out there. I absolutely love it.”

Players of Lightfoot’s prodigious talent don’t regularly find their way to the Big Sky. It is a safe bet that for many who do, something in their background forced them to detour. In Lightfoot’s case, as a student at Tennessee’s Chattanooga High School he was a gifted 6-foot-7 player with the strength and moves to score inside, and a perimeter stroke that would still be the envy of the most proficient 3-point shooters in this era.

He was the 1989 Class AA Tennessee Mr. Basketball, and he had signed a letter of intent to play for the University of Oklahoma. But he also felt sufficiently entitled to largely ignore school, and poor grades as a Proposition 48 student forced him to delay enrolling at Oklahoma and to try to address his academic shortfall at Hiwassee College.

Lightfoot played at the Tennessee junior college for a year, got his grades up so he was at least eligible to play for an NCAA school, but then left Hiwassee. NCAA rules at the time forced Lightfoot to sit out a year since he didn’t complete two years at junior college before he gained three years of NCAA eligibility.

During that time, Idaho coach Larry Eustachy had the good fortune to hire Hiwassee head coach Hugh Watson as an assistant.

“Hugh convinced me and six other guys to come to Idaho with him,” Lightfoot said.

With a support network of fellow Southerners in place, and with Eustachy’s tough love moderated by Watson’s fatherly touch, Lightfoot found himself in an ideal spot.

“Larry was tough,” Lightfoot said, “but he was exactly what I needed at the time.”

Following a grueling first practice with his new team, Lightfoot went to Eustachy’s office in tears and told the coach he didn’t think he could take the abuse.

“(Eustachy) sat there and laughed,” Lightfoot said. “He said it will get better and better.”

In a common characteristic of the time, Lightfoot spent his first two years at Idaho living in a residence hall. He had the good fortune to room with Lance Irvin, who played for Idaho for a season. From Chicago, Irvin was a serious student.

“He had the biggest impact on my life,” Lightfoot said. “He was positive, smart, and he did not let me go off the rails.”

More than three decades later, Lightfoot’s recounts that he went from barely maintaining his academic eligibility to making the dean’s list.

By the 1990s, the nights from the early 1980s when the Kibbie Dome reverberated with the roars of 8,000 adoring fans watching coach Don Monson’s nationally ranked teams were a fond, distant memory.

But an echo persisted, and Lightfoot got the chance to compete in that environment when Idaho was still playing elite Big Sky basketball. He gave Vandals faithful some memories.

As a junior, he scored 44 points on archrival Boise State in a game the Vandals won. The next year, under new coach Joe Cravens, the Vandals were playing Gonzaga – admittedly before Gonzaga was Gonzaga.

“In shootaround, I didn’t feel good,” Lightfoot said. “The rims were too tight. I said, ‘I can’t make a shot.’ ”

Then, in only 30 minutes on the court, he lit up the Bulldogs with the only 50-point game in Idaho’s history.

Although the Vandals regressed a bit in his final season, Lightfoot enjoyed playing for Cravens.

“He helped me tremendously,” Lightfoot said. “He had a brand new coaching philosophy,” a free-flowing game of screening and cutting.

“I could close my eyes and make a basket for Joe.”

Lightfoot came to appreciate everything about UI and Moscow. He learned to enjoy a culture that was different from his own upbringing in the South, and he said it served him well in a professional career in international basketball that saw him play for teams in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland from 1994-2007.

“Absolutely,” Lightfoot said. “I have met so many people from different cultures. The encouragement I had gotten from Idaho to adjust, to learn to meet people really prepared me.”

These days, Lightfoot is the senior manager for the Boys and Girls Club of Chattanooga.

“I say this is my other calling,” Lightfoot said.

He keeps busy raising funds and developing programs for the organization.

“I play a lot of basketball with the kids,” he added.

“I’ve got my stroke,” Lightfoot said. “I might not have the legs, but I’ve got my stroke.”

Lightfoot said the Big Sky Hall of Fame is the fifth hall to which he’s been named.

“I don’t know too many people who have been inducted into five halls of fame,” he said.

“I love basketball. And I was really, really good at it.”