Ken Cochran

While in the military, Ken Cochran played on the US baseball team that competed in one demonstration game at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Returning to his native Missouri, he became a coach, first coaching baseball for several years at Joplin High School, his alma mater, and leading them to the 1959 Kansas high school championship. He later became a small college basketball coach, first at Kansas Wesleyan, winning two KCAC Championships, and then at Marymount, both in Salinas, Kansas.

Cochran also started the Heart of American Sports Camp. It was estimated that while he ran the camp, over 90,000 kids worked with many well-known local coaches. Cochran stepped down as camp director after a heart attack but then invented the Pop-A-Shot arcade basketball game.