Butch Canary was on cusp of high school basketball greatness when he was electrocuted
Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2022.
On a sweltering summer day, working a construction job in 1957, Butch Canary slipped climbing a roof, reached for a utility pole and met his death. High voltage wires shocked him.
Clifford "Butch" Canary was 16 years old. And he was on the cusp of Indiana high school basketball greatness.
The 5-9 Canary had started varsity his freshman and sophomore years at Alfordsville High, 110 miles southwest of Indianapolis.
During his freshman year, Canary averaged 11.2 points with a high of 24. During his sophomore season, he averaged 17.9 points and scored more than 20 points in seven games.
Canary was, without a doubt, the best player Kenny Hudson ever saw on a basketball court.
"Who knows what he might have been?" said Hudson, 88, who coached Canary his sophomore season. "He may have went on to be an outstanding player ... one of the greats."
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Canary just may have gone on to the successes of other Indiana high school stars. He was compared, after his death, to Lloyd "Junior" Gee.
Gee was a star for neighboring Loogootee High, scoring as many as 43 points in a game, 1,372 in his career, a member of two sectional championship teams and an Indiana All-Star. Gee went on to be a 3-year starter at the University of Miami in Florida and was the teammate of NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry.
"Could Butch Canary have been Junior Gee or a Larry Bird?" said David Hudson, Kenny Hudson's son, who wrote a piece on Canary. "My question is, 'What could this guy have been?'"
The Hudsons would never know. The world would never know. Canary died just two months before the start of his junior basketball season.
'We sat up with the body all night'
Canary was unloading lumber on a roof repair at the McCord Corporation manufacturing plant in the summer of 1957. Two fellow workers that day, Tom Conolty and Jim Nolley, were teammates of Canary on the Alfordsville squad.
They watched in horror as the accident happened.
The boys, both 16, told the Indianapolis Star that they were putting lumber on the roof of the plant and had gotten up by climbing a wire fence. They said they watched Canary start to climb and slip. He reached toward a utility pole and came in contact with high tension wires.
It was a devastating day in Alfordsville. Things like this just shouldn't happen to someone so young, people said — and with such greatness ahead.
"A 16-year-old outstanding Alfordsville High School basketball player was shocked fatally yesterday afternoon," read the report in the Indianapolis Star the next day. "Canary was dead on arrival at Daviess County Hospital."
Kenny Hudson got the call at his Bloomington home, though he can't remember much about that day. It was all a blur.
He does remember rushing to the Canary home to be there for the family. "We sat up with the body all night," he said.
Hudson sat with family and friends surrounding Canary's body, which had been brought to the house until it would be taken to the funeral home the next day.
Those there that night reminisced, talking about what a good kid Canary was, what a great player he was, and how tragic it was.
Nearly 65 years have passed since that summer day Canary died. But the years haven't erased the sadness of it all. Hudson still cries as he talks about Canary and what his star player could have been.
'He was liked by everybody'
Canary was one of those kids, those golden kids, said Hudson. And not just on the court.
Hudson, a teacher at Alfordsville, was in his early 20s and single when he coached Canary. And he had a sparkling white and green 1956 Pontiac. Hudson would let Canary drive his car to take teammates home.
"There aren’t many high school kids you would turn loose in your brand-new car," Hudson said. "But him you did. He was just an outstanding kid."
In 1957, Alfordsville High had about 85 students. The town had a couple of retail stores and a gas station. The news of Canary's death hit hard.
But not nearly as hard as it hit Canary's dad — Wilbert "Wig" Canary, who had coached his son his freshman season before becoming the school's principal.
Hudson said Wilbert Canary never got over the death of his son.
After Canary died, Hudson moved in with the Canary family and lived in Butch Canary's room. He paid $50 a month.
He remembers all those times he would come home from a late night out. Canary's dad would meet him at the back door.
"We would sit at the kitchen table and I would hear the same story night after night," Hudson said. "The same stories about Butch."
No one had to tell Hudson what an amazing boy Canary was. He already knew it.
"He was mature. He was liked by everybody," said Hudson. "He was not arrogant or proud. He wasn't a see how many points you can make type of player. He worked for his points. He didn’t hog the ball."
As both a freshman and sophomore, Canary was a top five scorer in Daviess and Martin counties.
Hudson is sure Canary's stats could have been much higher if he had played selfishly. And, Hudson said, if he had coached the team differently.
He regrets the way he played Canary, Hudson said. Whenever Alfordsville would get the lead, Hudson would take Canary out to try to give the other kids a chance to learn how to play without him.
The season before Canary died, Alfordsville finished the season 13-8.
"We won 13 ball games that year and that was the most wins in Alfordsville school history," Hudson said, "then Butch got killed."
'No one died in Hoosiers'
It wasn't easy starting that next basketball season with an empty spot on the roster where Canary should have been.
The team opened its season playing a home game against St. John's High from Loogootee. St. John's coach was a good friend of Hudson and had told him before the game, "I believe we can win all our games and holiday tourney and sectionals. I don't know about after that."
In other words, St. John's was good.
"They came to our place, the game started and we went up by two or three points and we just kind of kept it," Hudson said. "At the middle of the fourth quarter, I decided we might win. We did. We beat them."
Hudson starts crying as he tells what happened next. "Butch’s dad came in and he looks at me and he says, 'That one was for Butch.'"
Canary was survived by his parents and one sister, Sharon, who was 10 at the time. The community mourned for months and rallied around the family.
They, too, rallied around the coach who had lost his star player. "They were a little community and I was the coach and they put me on a pedestal," Hudson said.
David Hudson thinks of the movie "Hoosiers" when he thinks of Canary's story.
"This is kind of the same thing, a little school with a star player, only it's a true story," he said. "But no one died in 'Hoosiers.'"
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana high school basketball star Butch Canary electrocuted at 16
