Canton South Basketball Coach Herb Hackenberg

By Larry Hackenberg

-Born in Leipsic, Ohio 1909.

-Lived in Cleveland and Cambridge, Ohio, Graduated from Cambridge, Ohio, in 1926 where he participated in basketball and football for one year (but never told his mother — she found Out when she read an article in the newspaper about the team).

-Attended Wittenberg University and graduated in 1930, where he played basketball and baseball and worked his way through school.

-Hired as head coach at North Industry High School in 1930 — tickled to death to have a job during the depression. During first season produced a great upset win over Waco High School using a new concoction called a zone defense. He had seen the defense used once in college. A team of "giants:' Waco had several players over 6'.

-Produced consistently outstanding teams at Canton Local High School (Canton South) through 1938 as the first head coach in the history of the present Canton South.

-Moved to Canton Lehman in 1939 as the head basketball coach and held the position for two years as well as assisting football coach Jim Robinson. One of Hack's Lehman teams reached the Ohio State Basketball Tournament.

-Served his country in WW II as a Navy Chief Petty Officer (1941-45). While stationed in San Diego he met his soon to be wife, Wilma Osborne Hackenberg.

-Entered private business with his high school and college buddy after the war in a frozen food locker and grocery store, Frosty Foods, in Cambridge, Ohio.

-Reentered teaching in 1956 at Cambridge High School and returned to Canton Local in 1960 as English teacher and assistant varsity basketball coach to Coach Red Ash. The Ash-Hackenberg combination produced six straight sectional champions and some of the school's ?nest teams.

-Herb prided himself as an English teacher and Department Head. He was known for his discipline and his belief in developing reading, writing and vocabulary skills. He was instrumental in starting the local chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

-Herb and Wilma Hackenberg were married for 40 years and had sons John, now a physician in Jacksonville, Florida, and Larry  financial planner in Canton.

-Herb Hackenberg was a Christian, a master leader and motivator of young men, a dedicated educator, and a devoted family man.