Eddie Cameron

Edmund McCullough "Eddie" Cameron (1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 1988) was an American collegiate basketball coach and the namesake of Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke University. Cameron was part of Duke athletics from 1926 to 1972, the second longest tenure in the school's history.

Cameron attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana before becoming a fullback at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. At Washington and Lee, he was captain of both the basketball and football teams, and tied for the national scoring title in football. When Washington and Lee coach, Jimmy DeHart, was hired by Duke, Cameron followed him to coach the freshman team. After Wallace Wade was lured away from University of Alabama by Duke, school administrators urged him to retain Cameron. Cameron eventually became the backfield coach, scout, and recruiter for Wade. In 1929 he got the additional responsibility of head basketball coach - a position he would keep until 1949.

Cameron's first two Duke basketball teams made the Southern Conference tournament finals even as a new team in the league. Cameron's teams had a 226-99 record (.695), 119-56 (.68) in conference play, during his fourteen years as head coach, which included conference championships in 1938, 1941 and 1942. During his tenure, in 1940, Duke built the largest basketball ball arena south of the Palestra in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cameron coached the first game, a 36-27 victory over Princeton University, on January 6, 1940. That arena would eventually come to bear his name.

After Wade entered the military service in World War II, Cameron became the head football coach. In four years Cameron's teams won three conference championships, compiled a record of 25-11-1 and won the 1945 Sugar Bowl by beating Alabama 29-26. Cameron became permanent Director of Physical Education and Athletics in 1946 when Wade returned and resumed coaching football.

Cameron was a founder of the Atlantic Coast Conference, chaired the basketball committee of the Southern and ACC conferences for decades, was on the selection committee for the NFL Hall of Fame and was on the governing committee of the Olympics.