Rick Mount

In 2016, Mount gave an interview to the Indianapolis Star where he discussed his career and the public perception of him.

In 1992, Mount and his father were both inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, located in New Castle, Indiana. In 2014, his son, Rich, was named to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame's Silver Anniversary Team.

Today, Mount still lives in his hometown of Lebanon, Indiana, with his wife, Donna. His son, Rich, played on the Purdue basketball team for two seasons (1989–1991) before transferring to VCU. Rich, who also played at Lebanon, left high school with the ninth most points in Indiana high school history. He currently works as a police officer in Lebanon.

Mount spent the last season of his ABA and professional basketball career playing for the Memphis Sounds. He averaged a career season-high scoring average of 17.1 points a game. His career was cut short due to a dislocated shoulder that he sustained during the 1974-75 season.

In the middle of the 1973-74 season, Rick was traded to the Utah Stars, where he joined Ron Boone. For the third straight season, Mount led a different team to the ABA Finals, eventually losing to the New York Nets.

Playing for head coach Bob "Slick" Leonard, along with such teammates as George McGinnis, Mel Daniels and Bob Netolicky, he led the Pacers to the 1972 ABA Championship against Rick Barry and the New York Nets. He handed off 2.9 assists and averaged 14.2 points a game, racking up 57 three-pointers in his second season as a Pacer. Along with old college teammate Billy Keller and Roger Brown, they made Indiana a constant threat beyond the arc.

Rick Mount was traded to the Kentucky Colonels for the 1972-73 season. He averaged 15 points a game on the season. Teamed with Dan Issel, he averaged 17 points in playoff games while leading the Colonels to the ABA Finals against his former Pacers.

In his senior year, Mount had two 53-point games plus a 61-point game against conference champ Iowa, which was the NCAA Division I single-game record at the time. Thirty-two of his 61 points were scored in the first half alone. Later research found that if the three-point line had existed in 1970 in the NCAA, he would have scored 74 points in that game, credited with 13 three-point field goals. The official school record is ten, held by Carsen Edwards.

Mount was considered an excellent pro prospect, but because the general managers of the NBA knew that Mount was already signed by the ABA, he was not drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers until the middle of the 8th round of the 1970 NBA Draft. Mount was, however, drafted in the ABA by the Indiana Pacers as the 1st overall pick in 1970. As a result, his legendary status in Indiana made it a foregone conclusion that he would sign with the Indiana Pacers of the rival ABA. At the time, the ABA was the only professional league that featured a three-point line, which worked to Mount's advantage, as he was an outside shooter. During his first season in the ABA, Mount was offered $40,000 from Pro-Keds to wear its new suede basketball shoe. He declined the offer, because he personally preferred Chuck Taylors of the Converse brand.

In a win against Marquette to bring the Boilers to the Final Four, Mount is remembered for his "leaping lofter" game-winning shot with two seconds left in overtime. He led all scorers in the tournament with a 40.6 point average in Purdue's three games. Purdue led the nation with 94.8 points a game during the 1968-69 season fronted by Mount's 33.3 a game. A regular season highlight was defeating Indiana 120-76 in the final game of the regular season, establishing a school record for most points in a game.

Rick "the Rocket" Mount attended Lebanon High School in Lebanon, Indiana. There, he led his team in scoring, including 33.1 ppg throughout his junior and senior seasons. His game started to attract national attention. In 1965, Lebanon played Crawfordsville High School at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. With 10,000 people in attendance, the team made enough money to buy a bus. He scored 57 points in the game. On February 14, 1966, Mount became the first high school athlete to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which featured him standing in front of a barn located in his Boone County homeland. At the end of his senior year, he won the Indiana "Mr. Basketball" award and was named "USA Basketball Yearbook Player of the Year," given to the nation's best high school player. He finished his Lebanon career with 2,595 points, at the time the second-highest total in Indiana high school history; as of December 2021 he is seventh.

Richard Carl Mount (born January 5, 1947) is a former American basketball player in the American Basketball Association (ABA). He was the first high school athlete to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.