Legendary North Side coach By Hey passes away at age 91

One of the best coaches in the history of northeast Indiana has passed away.

By Hey, the longtime coach at North Side High School, died this past weekend at the age of 91. Hey won 550 games as a head basketball coach over 34 seasons.

Hey graduated from Concordia Lutheran in 1946 and went on to play at Indiana University for two years under Branch McCracken, graduating in 1950. He came back to Fort Wayne where he was a varsity assistant at Central High School for a year, the head coach at Concordia for three years and then spent 31 years at North Side, according to his Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame profile.

During that time, Hey amassed his 550-325 record while winning 10 sectional and seven regional titles. He coached the 1965 North Side Redskins to the state title game. He coached at North Side until 1988. He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 and North Side’s new arena was named By Hey Arena in his honor in 2004. To this day, his picture still adorns the wall in the North Side commons by the main entrance to the gym and his name is plastered across the top of the scoreboard.

Just last Friday, December 13, the annual North Side-South Side boys and girls basketball games were renamed partially in his honor as the schools gave out the first-ever Reichert-Hey Memorial Trophies.

Hey is also a member of the athletic Hall of Fames at both North Side and Concordia Lutheran.