George Fox University

Thomas Hester is credited with bringing basketball to George Fox (then Pacific College) in 1898, just seven years after the sport was invented . He brought a ball to campus after seeing the game played at a Portland YMCA. Hester was a standout track and football athlete. He set the Pacific Northwest pole vault record (9 feet, 8 inches) in 1897. After graduation, he went on to become a prominent physician and was chair of George Fox's Board of Trustees at the time of his death in 1943. .