In his 18th year as Wood Memorial High School principal, Roger Benson received honor Saturday night upon returning to his youth.

The 60-year-old Benson and his 1966-67 Lawrenceville (Ill.) High basketball teammates were honored when their team was enshrined in the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.

Those Indians won their first 26 games in Benson's senior season, capturing North Egypt Conference and one-class regional championships before an overtime loss to Effingham in the sectional final.

In Benson's junior year, his first season as a basketball starter, Lawrenceville won regional and sectional titles before losing in double-overtime to Belleville in the supersectional.

In Illinois, regionals are the first step in the postseason. Sectionals are the second step, equivalent to Indiana regionals. Supersectionals cut the field from a Sweet Sixteen to an Elite Eight.

"I was fortunate to play on a very good team and with good kids," Benson said Monday. "We were also a close-knit class.

"Our 1967 team didn't have any superstars, but we had eight kids who were good athletes and quick.

"That was in the one-class era, and we were among the smallest schools to advance as far as we did in tournament play."

Benson's fellow starters on the enshrined 1967 team included cousin and guard partner Johnny Benson, who later played at Northern Illinois University.

"Greg Richey, our center, played at Indiana State for a while," noted Benson, who earned three letters in basketball, and four each as a football running back, baseball pitcher and outfielder, and trackman on a mile-relay team that reached the state meet.

"Tommy Johnson (who went to Southern Illinois on football scholarship) and Bob Montgomery were the forwards. Dennis Murphy, who stood 6-foot-7, came off the bench. A couple of our subs could have started for a lot of other teams."

The Indians were coached by Ken Pritchett, who resigned after that season and returned to coaching a couple years later at Parkland Community College in Champaign. Pritchett's assistant, and head coaching successor, was Ron Felling, who coached Lawrenceville to four Class A state championships, two unbeaten seasons, and a 68-game win streak that remains the Illinois high school record before he became an assistant to Bob Knight at Indiana.

"It was so much fun to go back and see all the guys again, including the coaches - not only Ken Pritchett and Ron Felling, but also Paul Restivo, our football coach," Benson said.

"Ken Pritchett believed in a fast-breaking, full-court pressing game. He said that if we got 80 shots, we'd probably win.

"Sometimes we'd get the ball out on a fast break, go down and score without the ball hitting the floor."

Benson was joined at the induction dinner and social hour by his three sisters: Tricia Daughtery (and husband Les), Beverly (John) Lancaster and Rita (Jerry) Garvey. All live in Lawrenceville.

Wife Becky Benson, executive secretary to Oakland City University president Ray Barber and Barber's predecessor, James Murray, could not attend. She was in Farmington, N.M., taking care of 7 1/2-month-old grandson Connor Clark, born Jan. 5 to daughter and dentist Candice Clark, married to fellow dentist Jeff Clark.

The Roger Benson family also includes daughter and registered nurse Paige Rowe, married to former Wood Memorial athlete Adam Rowe; and son Cameron, ex-Wood Memorial athlete and now a University of Evansville sophomore.

Roger Benson attended Lake Land College, in Sheboygan, Wis., one year before transferring to Oakland City, where he played basketball and baseball, leading the baseball Oaks in batting one year, en route to 1972 graduation.

After teaching and coaching seven years in St.Francisville, Ill., now part of the Lawrenceville school district, he came to East Gibson in 1979 as seventh and eighth grade math teacher. He later taught high school health and physical education, served as head coach in basketball and track, assisted in football, and spent five years as elementary principal before gaining the high school job.