Orlando Lightfoot (born December 4, 1974) is a retired American professional basketball player whose international career spanned from 1994 to 2007.
[5] 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.
[4] Due to NCAA rules, by leaving the two-year school early, he was forced to sit out on what would have been his true sophomore season but still afforded him the ability to retain three years of eligibility.
Larry Eustachy, then-head coach of the Idaho Vandals men's basketball team, had approached Lightfoot during his freshman season at Hiwassee.
[6] 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.
[6][7] 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.
[6] On December 21, he scored a still-standing school record 50 points against Gonzaga, including a career-high 8-for-11 shooting performance on three-point field goals.
[8] In just a three-year career, Lightfoot scored 2,201 points, which stood as the Big Sky's highest total up until the 2017–18 season when it was broken by Eastern Washington's Bogdan Bliznyuk.
[4] While at Idaho, Lightfoot also excelled in the classroom, which was the opposite of what had been occurring at the high school and junior college levels.
Rather than try out for a number of NBA teams in hopes of making a final roster, he decided right away to play professional basketball internationally.
[2] Between 1994–95 and 2006–07 he played for teams in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
[9] Since his professional basketball retirement, Lightfoot has moved back to Chattanooga, Tennessee and become a trucking company's accounts manager.