MARK MACON

Mark Macon was named the Athlete of the Decade in the 1980’s by The Saginaw News because of his stellar basketball career which began at Buena Vista High School. He was voted Mr. Basketball in 1986-87 – the first time it was awarded to a Class B player or a player from a school north of Flint. He finished his four-year cage career with 2,490 points to become the third-leading scorer in Michigan high school history. He once scored 57 points in a game and averaged 24 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and five steals during his Knight career. He was named All-Conference, All-Area Dream Team and All-State four straight years. Macon was a McDonalds and Parade Magazine All-American, Naismith Michigan Player of the Year and Gatorade Michigan Player of the Year his senior season. He led the Knights to two Class B state final appearances, one as a freshman, with BV winning the state crown his junior season. The 6-5 guard was a four-year starter for Temple University, guiding the Owls to a 94-35 record and three trips to the NCAA tournament. His 20.6 points-per-game scoring average his freshman year earned him Freshman of the Year honors by United Press International, United States Basketball Writer’s Association and NBC-TV. That same year he was one of 11 finalists for the John Wooden Award and just the third-ever freshman to be nominated (Virginia’s Ralph Sampson and Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing were the others). Macon was named All-America three times and finished his college career as Temple’s all-time leading scorer with 2,609 points. He also had 281 career steals. Macon was the Owls’ leading scorer for four consecutive years and is the only four-time first-team all-Atlantic 10 Conference performer. In his senior year he was named Atlantic 10 Player of the Year and was drafted eighth overall in the 1991 National Basketball Association draft. He played a total of 251 NBA games scoring 1,685 career points with the Denver Nuggets and Detroit Pistons. His best season was his rookie year when he averaged 10.6 points and 2.9 rebounds per game for the Nuggets. He then played three years in Venezuela, Italy and China. Macon presently is an assistant coach at Temple.