Glenn graduate, former Indiana assistant Ron Felling dies at 86

Ron Felling’s name still carries weight in Indiana basketball circles because his influence never stopped at the state line. A Terre Haute native and Glenn High School graduate, Felling went from Indiana State under Duane Klueh to becoming one of the most decorated high school coaches in Illinois, then came back to Bloomington to help shape the Bob Knight era at Indiana.

Felling, whose full name was Ronald Lee Felling, died Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Bloomington at age 86. His obituary listed his birth date as January 11, 1940. The footprint he left was built over decades, but the core of it was his 16-season run at Lawrenceville High School from 1967 to 1983, where he coached and taught and piled up a 388-77 record that made him a problem for everybody else in the bracket.

At Lawrenceville, Felling won state championships in 1972, 1974, 1982 and 1983, and his 1976 team finished third in the state tournament. The numbers behind that success are the kind that high school coaches still study: 12 regional titles, seven sectional titles and five super-sectional titles. His final two teams went a combined 68-0 over the 1981-82 and 1982-83 seasons, a closing stretch that stamped his program as more than a local power. It was dominance with staying power, and it earned him induction into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1982.

After Lawrenceville, Felling joined Indiana University as an assistant under Bob Knight in 1985 and stayed on the staff until 1999. That stretch lined up with four Big Ten titles, two Final Four trips and the 1987 NCAA championship. He was widely respected as a shooting coach, and players such as Steve Alford and Jay Edwards benefited from that touch. In a Knight program known for precision and edge, Felling brought a teacher’s eye, and that mattered.

Knight died in 2023, and Felling’s passing closes another chapter in that era. But his legacy is bigger than nostalgia. For Indiana high school coaches, especially those who came through Terre Haute, Glenn or the old Indiana State pipeline, Felling represented the kind of basketball mind that could win in one state, teach in another and leave both better. Funeral visitation was scheduled for Wednesday, May 13, in Bloomington, with services set for Friday, May 15.