Orlando Lightfoot

Orlando Lightfoot (born December 4, 1974) is a retired American professional basketball player whose international career spanned from 1994 to 2007. He is best known in the United States for his collegiate career at the University of Idaho from 1991 and 1994 in which he was a two-time Big Sky Conference Player of the Year and graduated as the all-time leading scorer in conference history (2,102 points; record has since been broken). Since retiring from basketball he has become an account manager for a trucking company in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Early life Born in Chattanooga, Lightfoot played basketball at Chattanooga High School. He was named a Parade magazine All-American, was the 1989 Class AA Tennessee Mr. Basketball recipient and had signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the Oklahoma Sooners. He led the team in scoring with 21.8 points per game, and Sports Illustrated named him their national player of the week on February 17, 1992. To earn that honor, he had averaged 33.7 points, 10 rebounds and shot 54% from the field in wins over Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and Nevada.

As a junior in 1992–93 he once again led the Vandals in scoring with his 22.3 points per game average.

During his 12-year career he averaged at least 20 points per game in eight seasons and at least 18 per game in two others. His best statistical season came in 1995–96 while playing for Geneva in Switzerland. He averaged 27.5 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. His career highlights include: Belgian League All-Star Game (1999) German Bundesliga All-Imports 2nd Team (2000) German Bundesliga Cup Semifinals (2002) Dutch Eredivisie All-Star Game (2005) Eurobasket.com All-Dutch Eredivisie 2nd Team (2005) Dutch Eredivisie Semifinals (2005) Swedish Basketligan All-Star Game (2006) Also won the Three-Point Competition

The final team of his career was KFUM Jämtland Basket in Sweden. He appeared in 15 games that year and averaged 19.0 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. Since his professional basketball retirement, Lightfoot has moved back to Chattanooga, Tennessee and become a trucking company's accounts manager. He has also become a father after his wife gave birth to their son. When asked how he would like people to remember his basketball career, he responded, "I want people to say that he played for the big game. When the game was on the line and everything mattered, he made all the big shots and led his team to a win."