Graduated: 1957
Inducted: 1983

Jim Sutton, the second South Dakota State basketball player to score 1,000 or more career points, was inducted into the Jackrabbit Sports Hall of Fame on October 15, 1983. Sutton, an Onida native, played for
the Jacks during the 1955-56-57 seasons, scoring 1,034 points in 71 games.

Sutton and another Onida native, Kent Hyde, shared the SDSU scoring ead for the 1957 season, each with 417 points, as the Jacks went 19-3 for the season, winning the North Central Conference title with an 11-1 record. Sutton led the nation in free throw shooting that season, hitting 127-of-138 attempts, 92 percent. At the time, that was the college division record, and it still ranked as the ninth highest all-time at the time of his induction.

Sutton earned all-NCC honors in 1956 and 1957 and he set NCC single-season and career free throw shooting marks. He still holds the SDSU record for most free throws made in one game without a miss, 12 against St. Thomas in 1957; highest free throw percentage in a season, and also held the record for most consecutive free throws made, 32. He averaged 14.6 points for his career and also grabbed 5.6 rebounds per game. He shot 47.3 percent from the field and 89.8 percent from the free throw line.

Since graduating from SDSU, Sutton has been a farmer-rancher in Sully County. He remained active in basketball along enough to be elected to the South Dakota Amateur Basketball Hall of Fame. His operation includes registered and commercial Hereford cattle, registered Limousin cattle, and registered quarter horses. In addition, he is a professional rodeo stock contractor, producing 35 to 40 of the top rodeos in the nation each year.

He was national director in the American Quarter Horse Association, past president of the South Dakota Quarter Horse Association, the S.D. Cutting Horse Association, the S.D. Limousin Association, a founding member of the Board of Directors for the S.D. Western Heritage Hall of Fame, and a director of the Onida bank. He also imported one of the first Limousin bulls brought into the United States.