Wabash College Athletics Hall of Fame
John E. Hollett, when you arrived on the Wabash campus in the fall of 1955, you became the fifth member of your extended family to attend the College — and your cousin would make it six many years later — dating all the way back to your great uncle, Reginald Sullivan, Class of 1897.
Like others in your family, you pledged the Sigma Chi fraternity and have been a fierce and loyal supporter of the chapter all your life. You were an immensely talented athlete high school athlete and won the Indianapolis Juniors Tennis Championship. While at Wabash, you were a four-year member of the basketball and tennis teams. You earned three letters in each sport, but tennis is where you really shined brightly as the team’s number one singles player and winning Most Valuable Players honors in both your junior and senior years.
You were also a very fine basketball player, earning three letters for legendary Coach Bob Brock. Fortunately for you, those were some very good years for Wabash basketball; unfortunately for us, those were not very good for statistics-keeping. We know that you appeared in 59 games over the arc of your playing career and average 9.3 points and 6.6 rebounds on that very fine team of 1958-59.
You served on the Senior Council and were a member of the W Men’s Club. You once said that Wabash taught you “how to be both independent and to work with others as a team to solve problems,” lessons that were likely learned in the classroom and on the courts. You would go on to a prosperous career in banking, spending 27 years with Indiana National Bank, from which you retired as Vice President.
Your support of Wabash has been unwavering, and your philanthropy has supported Sigma Chi and the Hollett Family Scholarship, which will benefit students for generations to come. When your classmate Bob Wedgeworth — himself a Hall of Fame member — nominated you, he said you were “one of the most graceful and gifted athletes of your era.” Therefore, the National Association of Wabash Men is proud to induct you, John E. Hollett, in the Wabash College Athletics Hall of Fame.
