Jeff Persson
Jeff Persson is one of the best basketball players in the long athletic history of Sharon High School who took his talents to Penn State University, where he continued to distinguish himself as one of Mercer County's greatest.
Persson excelled at Sharon under Coach Bud Laycock and assistant Don Bennett for three seasons from 1962-64, earning first-team Section 3 all-star honors in his junior and senior years. In a glittering senior year, in which he led the Tigers with 523 points, Persson was named to the first-team, all-state team.
His scoring mark at Sharon, 1,002 points for three years, stood for more than a quarter of a century until 1991 when Mike Archie shattered the mark in a four-year basketball career.
He still holds the single-season scoring record for the Tigers with the 523, and the single-game scoring mark with 39.
Persson took his talents to Penn State, where he continued to make his mark on the history of Nittany Lion basketball. He was a three-year starter in University Park and finished his collegiate career with more than 1,000 points.
He was captain of the Nittany Lions in 1968 and was selected as the team's Most Valuable Player in 1968. He finished his Penn State career with a scoring average of 17 points per game.
He played in the 1966 National Invitational Tournament and in the Kentucky Invitational Tournament in 1967. He was named to the all-tournament first team in the Kentucky Invitational.
He graduated from Penn State in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in accounting. In addition to basketball, Persson was was top-notch baseball player, playing in the Youngstown Class B Independent League for two years.
He is a member of the Penn State former Basketball Players Association and the Alabama Youth Soccer Association.
He currently coaches girls youth basketball, which he has done for 11 consecutive years, and youth soccer for the last 10 years in Texas and Alabama, where he and his family reside. He has coached girls youth fast-pitch softball for several years.