UWEC Athletics Hall of Fame
Stan DuFrane is an Eau Claire native who graduated from what is now Eau Claire Memorial High School. Dufrane was a four-year Blugold letterman in both basketball and tennis from 1949 through 1953. DuFrane was a four-year starter on Coach Bill Zorn's Blugold basketball teams and ranks on the school 's all-time scoring list with 1,203 points. He holds one of the best single season scoring averages (22.9), achieved during the 1953 season. He had two of the top single game scoring efforts (40 and 35) in school history in the final two games of his senior year. He set a school single game record with 19 free throws in one of the games and had 37 for both games. In 1953, he set a single season free throw record with 173 in 21 games. DuFrane was a two-handed free thrower, shooting about 60 percent during his first three seasons. But he switched to a one-handed style as a senior and connected on nearly 80 per cent of his tries. He was All-Conference and captained the Blugold squad as a senior. He was a member of the 1951 team that won the District 14 championship and played in the nationals at Kansas City. DuFrane was the No. 1 player and captain of the 1953 Blugold tennis team that won what was then the Bi-State Conference championship. The Blugolds had also won the title in 1951 with DuFrane and Lyle Bulmer accounting for all the team's points.
DuFrane spent two years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps following his graduation, then accepted an Assistantship while he completed his master's degree at the University of Wisconsin. His first coaching assignment was at Port Washington High School where his boss was another Blugold Hall of Famer, Lefty Hoehn. After three years there, he accepted a position at La Crosse Central High School where he stayed for two years. He left La Crosse to spend one year as a coach at UW-Platteville but went back to the high school ranks at Janesville Craig in 1962, serving as the tennis and basketball coach and physical education instructor. At Craig, his tennis teams won the Big 8 Conference championship seven of the eight years prior to his induction in 1977. His basketball teams won conference titles and he was named Coach of the Year in 1965, 1970 and 1971. Ironically, he has taken three teams to the state tournament, but not the same years he won conference championships. His state teams were 1974, 1975 and 1977. An active tennis player, he was a Janesville singles and doubles champion many times.
