University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame
Earl Steinman 1955 - Basketball
A 2004 Athletic Hall of Fame inductee and a sharp-shooting guard from the mid-1950s, Earl Steinman graduated in 1955 as UVM's second leading scorer with 986 career points. As a senior, he tallied 347 points to set a new single-season scoring mark passing Hall of Famer Nat Campana's 320 that was set in 1952-53.
Steinman, affectionately known as 'The Duck', was a native of New Britain, Connecticut who teamed with Campana '54 and another Hall of Famer, classmate Keith Jampolis to help the Cats post three straight winning seasons. While Jampolis went on to set the career scoring mark and was the first Catamount to join the 1,000-point club with 1,055, Steinman missed part of his junior season with illness and most likely would been the first to reach both levels.
His first two seasons (following WWII freshmen were eligible for the varsity from 1948 to 1953), he contributed 9.5 and 11.0 points per game to coach Fuzzy Evans' lineup as the team went 14-6 and 11-10. He missed 12 games as a junior but when healthy as a senior, he exploded for the school record.
The Catamounts in 1955 did not have the success (7-13) from the previous years mainly because it was the first season of the full Yankee Conference schedule that added six games with New England powers Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Steinman was a bright spot for Evans in the new league as he earned All-Yankee Conference Second Team honors, the only UVM player represented on the top two teams.
He also received the Wood's Trophy as the team's MVP selected by the student body through the UVM Cynic. Among the highlights for Steinman was a 34-point effort to set the fieldhouse single-game scoring record at New Hampshire and a career-high 36 at Clarkson, which tied him with UVM Hall of Famer Larry Killick '49 for the UVM single-game record.
