Saint Peter's basketball great Elnardo Webster dies at 74

As the Saint Peter’s University men's basketball team prepares for its biggest game ever, friends of the program are mourning the sudden loss of one of its giants.

Elnardo Webster, who led the Peacocks to the 1968 NIT semifinals with a season that still ranks among the greatest in New Jersey collegiate history, died Tuesday. He was 74 years old. 

“We just found out right before practice," Saint Peter's coach Shaheen Holloway said. "It’s awful. Elnardo was a great guy and has been great to me since I’ve been here, very supportive. Obviously he’s one of the all-time great, not just basketball player, but gentleman as well."

Holloway said the team will do something to commemorate Webster for Friday's NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 game vs. Purdue. 

"We have to try to figure out what we can do to honor him," he said. "We want to do it the right way, not rushed, so we’ve got to sit down and try to figure that out. We’re definitely going to do something.”

Holoway added that “Elnardo was Mr. Saint Peter’s with everything he did here. What people don’t understand about him is all he did off the court. He ran after-school programs and camps for inner-city kids. He’s going to be missed, for sure.”

That sentiment was echoed throughout the Saint Peter's community. 

“Tough time,” said Tom Mac Mahon, a starter on the 1967-68 squad. “How ironic that the greatest player in Saint Peter’s history dies during the greatest basketball week in Saint Peter’s history?”

Mac Mahon said Webster suffered from a heart ailment.

Mac Mahon and several members of the 1968 squad, which went 24-4 and was considered to be the gold standard for Saint Peter's basketball until now, are going to the Peacocks' game against Purdue on Friday in Philadelphia. Now it will be with heavy hearts. 

Webster, a Jersey City, New Jersey, native and Lincoln High School graduate averaged 24.8 points and 14.2 boards over two seasons with the Peacocks after transferring from the junior college level. As 6-foot-5 junior forward on the 1967-68 “Run Baby Run” squad, he averaged 25 points and 13 boards while shooting 58% from the field and 72% from the free-throw line.

In the 1968 NIT, at a time when that event was still a big deal, he dropped 51 points in a double-overtime win over Marshall and scored 29 in a romp of 10th-ranked Duke in the quarterfinals. He went on to play one season in the ABA.

“He was strong and physical, could shoot it, did everything,” Mac Mahon said.

Webster later became an educator and superintendent.  

“He worked for 40 years helping inner-city kids,” Mac Mahon said. “He was renowned across the world for the after-school programs he created. He had wonderful life and did wonderful things. He will be remembered by all of us.”