McCann to join IHSAA Hall of Fame

Kyle McCann, leading scorer on Creston’s state championship team of 1997 and the Panther third-place team of 1996, will be among seven former players and coaches to be inducted into the Iowa High School Athletic Association’s Basketball Hall of Fame at the 2019 state tournament.

Former Creston coach Dennis Geraghty retired last spring after a 39-year coaching career at seven schools, will also be among those honored at halftime of the Class 3A championship game on March 8 in Wells Fargo Arena.

A multi-sport star at Creston, McCann paced the Panthers to a third-place finish in the 1996 tournament and a state championship in 1997. He graduated as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,857 points. McCann and backcourt mate Ben Gerleman were co-captains of the 1997 all-tournament team at state and both were named to the Class 3A All-State first team by the Iowa Newspaper Association and Des Moines Register.

McCann, a two-time all-state pick, scored 151 points in six state tournament games and twice led Class 3A in scoring. He was also a four-year letterwinner in football and went on to play quarterback at the University of Iowa. He remains 10th on Iowa’s career passing yardage chart.

In the 1997 state championship game Creston defeated a Pella team that included sophomore Kyle Korver, who still plays in the NBA. Kevin DeRonde, a 6-5 senior, was also on that Pella team and went on to play defensive end for the Iowa State Cyclones.

The Panthers prevailed 74-57 in that title game after wins of 71-61 over Carroll and 75-52 over Mount Pleasant in the first two rounds.

McCann also owns the top two scoring seasons in Creston history with 714 points in 1997 and 681 points in 1996.

McCann is a graduate of the Creighton University Law School and was shareholding partner at Brick Gentry Law Firm in Des Moines before becoming executive director of The Native Fund in 2016. It is a non-profit venture of Iowans helping Iowans founded by former Hawkeye teammate Dallas Clark.

Kyle and wife Maggie live in West Des Moines and are the parents of three children.

Geraghty coached in Creston during the 1979-80 season. He retired last spring at Epworth, Western Dubuque after reaching 500 total wins in 39 seasons as a head coach.

The New York native made stops at Tipton, Dubuque Hempstead, Creston, Parkersburg, Preston and Columbus Lakeview (Nebraska) before taking West Delaware to state in 1999 and 2000 and Western Dubuque in 2010 and 2012. His teams finished as Class 3A runner-up in 2000 and 2012.

The other coach to be honored is Ken Laffoon, who oversaw two dominant stretches at Danville and two other schools, ending his career last year with a 508-181 record.

Other players to be honored are Jason Bohannon of Linn-Mar, Nick Collision of Iowa Falls, Kirk Hinrich of Sioux City West, Dennis Pauling of Paullina, Grant Stout of North Mahaska and Brian Wildeboer of Colo-Nesco.

Wildeboer led the Royals to two Class A finals in 1989 and 1990, including a first-round win over Diagonal in 1989. He led the Royals to a state championship in 1990 while battling cancer and undergoing chemotheraphy in his senior season. The 6-5 all-state center is the program’s record-holder in career and single-season rebounds and blocked shots.