Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

Think basketball in the days when the IUP was just on the threshold of becoming the larger, multipurpose university it is today, and you think George Wise.
Although joined by many other accomplished players recruited by Peck McKnight as he neared the twilight of his coaching career, it was Wise who led Indiana State College to a record of 46 wins and 17 losses in the three years he played (1958-61) that were highlighted by a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championship and a runner up trophy.
Wise, whose first year of college basketball was spent at North Carolina State, owns to this day both IUP's second best career scoring average (19.3 points per game) and second top single-season foul shooting percentage (83.1 as a senior).
His 456 points (217 per game) sparked ISC to a record of 14-7 in 1959-60, capped by the team being declared conference champs on the basis of the Saylor Point system that prevailed through that year.
In the first PSAC title game ever played, in 1960-61, IUP lost by 10 points to Mansfield as Wise scored 28 in spite of sitting out part of the game with a twisted ankle; that brought a 17-5 season to a close. His senior-season performances merited first-team all-conference and all-NAIA District 30 honors.
After graduating in 1962, Wise became head basketball coach for four seasons at Purchase Line High School, where his team won the school's first Indiana County tournament.
In 1969 he accepted the same post at Homer-Center, and his 14 teams there posted a combined 174-75 record and won three Appalachian Conference titles and as many Indiana County crowns.
But he is as well or better known in at least two other regards, first as a social studies and special education teacher for 33 years, including 26 at Homer-Center.
And then there is his play for the Indiana AC amateur roundball team for some 20 years that saw him score at least 12,000 points in single-game performances that ranged from scoring 60 to just one but handing off instead for 24 assists.
That was part of the reason he was inducted into the Indiana County Hall of Fame last year (1997) after having been selected by the Clearfield County Hall in 1987.
Married to the former Theresa Nastase, a veteran teacher at Indiana Junior High, since 1963, the couple have a son, Richard, and daughters Jill Smith, Lisa Donatelli and Kasey Froggatt.
Richard, a Pitt Johnstown grad, is a sales representative for Menasha and resides in Wadsworth, Ohio. Lisa, a Bethany alum, is a guidance counselor at Penns Manor, Jill (Bucknell) a project director for the Kansas Association of Child Care Resources and Referral Agencies, and Kasey, employed by S&T Bank in Indiana, is completing her IUP degree.