by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
Mike Hinkle is the only Kansas City Kansas Community College athlete to be named Kansas Community College Student-Athlete of the Year. Greg Wells is the only Blue Devil to win a Jayhawk Conference Division I basketball scoring championship.
Together they were enshrined as the 18th and 19th members of the KCKCC Athletic Hall of Fame in induction ceremonies during the annual Keith Lindsey Basketball Classic Friday night.
Hinkle was presented his Hall of Fame award by his baseball coach at KCKCC, Steve Burleson, a 2014 inductee into the Hall of Fame. Hinkle was accompanied by his wife, Heather, Mill Valley High School seniors Colton and Addelyn Hinkle and stepdaughters Chloe and Mattie Weck.
Several of his 2003-2004 Blue Devil teammates joined Wells and his three children for his induction. They included Nathan Winslow, Anthony Stewart, Terry Menafee, Boo Miller and Prentis Potts. Wells’ head coach, Jon Oler, also joined the reception festivities.
Hinkle was a member of the winningest team in KCKCC in 1985, hitting .369 and compiling a 10-2 pitching record in a 53-13 season in which the Blue Devils reached the three-state regional playoffs. Also an outstanding student, he was named Kansas Community College Student-Athlete of the Year as well as the KCKCC Athlete of the Year.
He finished his collegiate career at Kansas State where he batted.376 and drove in 48 runs as a senior and was named to the first All-Big Eight team and second Academic All-American team.
A 24th round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1987, he pitched seven scoreless innings in the championship game as Little Rock won the Class AA Texas League title in 1989.
Elevated to Triple A Louisville, he was on his way to the major leagues when rotator cuff surgery shortened his career although he had two stints of pitching in Italy. Today he’s in his 18th year as compliance consultant with American Century Investments.
Wells never played an organized game of basketball until his arrival at KCKCC.
His basketball skills were honed in prison after he was charged as an accessory to a robbery at the age of 16 – although he never left the car as two older men staged the robbery.
By the middle of his freshman season, however, Wells was in the starting lineup, finishing fifth in scoring, third in rebounding and first in shooting percentage.
As a sophomore, he led the Jayhawk in scoring at 22.2 while averaging 8.1 rebounds and shooting a torrid 57.1 percent. All-Region VI and All-Jayhawk East, he also had a 3.4 grade point average.
Wells continued his career at Rockhurst only to get an offer to play professionally with the Harlem Rockets touring team and for the next seven years played 180 games a year in 180 different cities throughout the U.S. and several foreign countries.
Retired in 2012 as a result of injuries suffered in an auto accident, Wells now leaves in Richmond, Va., where he develops promising young basketball players to play in college and overseas.
