BATON ROUGE – Former LSU star basketball player Dan “Danny” Hester, who played two seasons with Pete Maravich (1968-70), including the NIT season of 1970, passed away recently in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
Hester was known as an aggressive rebounder and dangerous shooter from the corner who had his best season at LSU in his senior campaign of 1969-70 when the Tigers advanced to the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament in New York City.
He began his college career at Murray State College in Oklahoma in 1966 before transferring to LSU prior to the 1968-69 season.
After averaging nine points and nine rebounds in 1968-69, he finished with a 16.1-points per game average, 10.8 rebound season which included one of the top games in the last 53 seasons in total rebounds with 25 against Ole Miss on Jan. 31, 1970. There have only been five games in which an LSU player has recorded 25 or more rebounds since the start of the 1969-70 season.
Hester finished that year with 345 rebounds, the 11th best single season rebound total to this day in school history. Hester averaged 10.04 rebounds for his two years at LSU (54 games) and is ranked ninth in career rebound average. He is one of 40 players in school history with 500 career rebounds or more.
He was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in the 1970 NBA Draft with the 31st pick of the second round. He continued his basketball career playing with the ABA teams in Denver and Kentucky.
Hester was born in Mount Vernon, Illinois and attended Mount Vernon High School.
He enjoyed a successful business career before retiring from Novartis Pharmaceuticals in 2014.
A cerebration of Hester’s life will be held Saturday, Aug. 26 at Messinger Mortuary in Fountain Hills, Arizona.