Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame
Bill Seaberg (60BBA)
It was almost 70 years ago, but Bill Seaberg can tell you everything about his time playing basketball at the University of Iowa.
You want a memory? Seaberg can run down a list of them.
“I still get a thrill from talking about it when people ask me about our team,” Seaberg says. “We had a great team, a great run. The university was good to us.”
Seaberg, one of the 10 inductees into the UI Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023, was the starting point guard on the 1955 and 1956 Final Four teams. He helped Iowa to an NCAA runner-up finish in 1956 following a fourth-place finish in 1955. Seaberg, part of the “Fabulous Five” along with Carl Cain (56BA), Bill Logan (56BSC), Sharm Scheuerman (56BA), and Bill Schoof (56BA), won two Big Ten championships.
“I enjoyed my sports world,” Seaberg says. “I came from Moline. I was just a little ballplayer. I had the great fortune to have Bucky O’Connor as my coach. He was a great coach, and he got the best out of me. We had respect for each other. We communicated very well, on and off the court. We hung out together, we did everything together. When we were on the court, we knew where everybody else was going to be. We had an automatic sense of camaraderie with each other.”
PHOTO: HAWKEYESPORTS.COM
The Hawkeyes were giant killers early in Seaberg’s career.
“I remember we went to Indiana as sophomores—the first time we started all sophomores,” Seaberg says. “Indiana was the defending national champions, and we beat them (82-64). That was the start of fame for us.”
Seaberg was the team’s Most Valuable Player in 1955. He is a member of Iowa’s All-Century team, and his No. 22 jersey number is one of 10 retired numbers in Iowa’s basketball history, although current player Patrick McCaffery wears it in memory of Austin “Flash” Schroeder, a middle school classmate of McCaffery’s who died of cancer in 2015. Seaberg granted his permission for McCaffery to wear the jersey number.
To be in the UI Hall of Fame, Seaberg says, is his highest achievement.
“I was on the All-Century team, and that was quite an honor,” Seaberg says. “Then when they called and said I was in the Hall of Fame, you can’t get much better than that.
“There are a lot of great ballplayers who have been inducted, and for me to join that class, I was overwhelmed.”
The one memory from his time at Iowa that is most special?
“I met my wife there,” Seaberg says. “We have been married 65 years, and she’s still a beautiful lady. For me to meet her at school, it was a thrill.”
—JOHN BOHNENKAMP