Pictured is a photograph that is in the trophy case at St. John Central Academy in Bellaire, showing Allan Hornyak being carried off the court on Jan. 10, 1969, after he scored a career-high and Ohio Valley-record 86 points in a win over Warren Consolidated.

BELLAIRE — Legendary St. John Central and Ohio State University basketball player Allan Hornyak, who cemented himself as one of the all-time players to come out of the Ohio Valley, died Monday at age 74.

Nicknamed “The Bellaire Bomber” during his time with the Buckeyes, Hornyak had multiple All-American nods in college and countless scoring outbursts in high school, including an 86-point game his senior year. He was a two-time All-American who scored 1,572 points in 69 career games with Ohio State, averaging 22.8 points per game. He scored 37 points to help the Buckeyes win the 1971 Big Ten Championship over Michigan.

At St. John Central High School, Hornyak scored 2,385 points in an era when there was no 3-point shot and fewer games were played. He led the nation in scoring in both his junior and senior seasons, averaging well over 40 points a game in both campaigns. He graduated in 1969.

“You never wanted to play against him because, you know, nobody could stop him,” Gary Repella, longtime Steubenville law director who is also in the OVAC Hall of Fame after an impressive football and basketball career with Big Red, said. Repella was a teammate of Hornyak’s at Ohio State.

“Individuals couldn’t stop him and in high school, whole teams couldn’t stop him,” Repella said. “I think the greatest compliment that I could pay to Allan is that, in the last 65 years of the Ohio Valley, going back to the mid-’60s, there has never been a basketball player like Allan who was recruited nationally like he was. Nobody comes close to the attention that he got. I mean, he was John Wooden’s main recruit out in UCLA back in 1968, ’69.”

The descriptions of Hornyak were reminiscent of “Pistol” Pete Maravich, another college sharpshooter who fired away despite the absence of a 3-point shot, which was not introduced to the college game until the 1986-87 season.

“He was without question the best shooter that I ever played against or saw in-person during his time in high school and college,” Mike Sherwood, a former basketball and football star at Bellaire who also spent time as the Big Reds’ football coach and athletic director, said. “The big thing I would say about him is, if there had been a 3-point shot when he was playing, he’s a guy that would have been a lock to play in the NBA because he was an absolutely unbelievable shooter.”

“I only played one time against Allan in high school,” Dave Reasbeck, a member of the Martins Ferry High School Athletic Hall of Fame who scored a school-record 51 points in a game, said. “It was a sectional tournament at Martins Ferry. He was a junior and he had 50, I had 41.”

“Allan was the most natural basketball player that you had ever seen. Today, guys have to force things. Everything came natural to him. He would score, go down the floor, come back, score again. It seemed effortless. And he would shoot 20 foul shots a game. He would take the ball in, get fouled, that was his game — there was no 3-point shot back then. It was amazing the ways he would score. They would give him the ball, and he would find a way to score no matter what. Double team, triple team, he would score.”

Hornyak’s basketball dominance was undeniable, and he was drafted by both the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA and the Indiana Pacers, then of the ABA, in 1973, though he never played professional basketball. His 86 points against Warren Consolidated on Jan. 10, 1969, remains the greatest single-game scoring output anywhere in the Ohio Valley.

Though a legend in the eyes of the Ohio Valley, those closest to him knew that Hornyak never cared to be a celebrity.

“He lived about three blocks below the playground in Bellaire and I lived about two blocks above the playground,” Sherwood said. “So, even though we were at two different schools, we spent a lot of time on the playground together playing over the years.”

“Allan was always a quiet guy. I would say he was kind of an introvert, almost. Now, the way he was with us, his friends, was a lot different, but he was not a guy that was comfortable around a lot of people he didn’t know. He was always a humble guy. You know, he wasn’t interested in people knowing who he was or anything like that. He was just a guy that played hard, and he was happy with that.”

“He was the most down-to-earth, humble human being you ever met,” Reasbeck said. “He was an awful good friend.”

Hornyak’s attitude toward fame was never more evident than after his induction into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame was announced in 2008.

“The Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame was started in, I think 2003, 2004, and within a few years, maybe 2008, Al was selected to be inducted,” Repella began. “The Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame is a pretty big deal. And I can remember calling him like a month before the induction, and I said, ‘You’re going up to the induction? ‘Cause when you go, I’m gonna come up and be there for it.’

“And he says, ‘Rep, I ain’t going.’ I said, ‘What do you mean you ain’t going?’ ‘I just ain’t going.’ Get on their website and check it out, because every person, they have a biography of them and a picture of them and at the bottom they have their induction speeches, and everybody shows up for that. I mean, he may have been the only person not to. A year before, Jerry Lucas was inducted. John Havlichek, Bob Knight, they were all up there talking. But that’s just the way Al was. He just wasn’t impressed, you know, with being a superstar. Like I said, we’ll never see the likes of him again in the valley, that’s for sure.”

After his playing days, Hornyak remained in the Ohio Valley, around his hometown of Bellaire. Though he moved to Cincinnati in his later years to be closer to his daughter, he remained fondly remembered by most everyone who met him.

“Off the court, he was a very regular guy,” Repella said. “He loved the Ohio Valley. He loved hunting. He loved archery. He loved being back home. He built his house out in Neffs. He went back home and worked as a coal miner for years. And, you know, he was just a guy that if you would walk into a bar and he’s at the end of the bar, you would have no idea how great a basketball player he was.

“He was very humble – he never ever talked about himself. He was just a great friend. I just can’t say enough about Allan and what a great person he was.”