Chadron State College Athletics

Peyton was a long-time baseball and basketball coach and athletic director at Chadron State. His untimely death in 1980 following a heart attack was a jolt to the college.
After graduating from high school at Richmond, Ind., Peyton received a basketball scholarship to Indiana University, where he spent his freshman year, just as the United States was becoming involved in World War II. He spent the next 46 months in the Army. He was stationed in Casper part of that time, and that’s why he enrolled at the University of Wyoming when the war ended.
Peyton was a three-year starter in both baseball and basketball for the Cowboys. He led the baseball team in hitting all three years and was captain of the basketball team two years. In 1949, at age 25, he signed a bonus contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But after playing in the minors two years, he turned to coaching.
He launched his career in education at Rock Springs High School in Wyoming, where his first basketball team won the state championship and seven of his nine teams finished among the top four at the state tournament. His career record at Rock Springs was 202-56. He left there in 1958 to become the basketball coach at New Mexico Military Institute. He came to Chadron State in 1960.
Peyton coached the CSC baseball teams for 10 years and the basketball teams for 14 years.  His 190-159 record as the basketball coach makes him both the winninest and losingest coach in school history. Nine of his teams won more games than they lost. His best team was the 1966-67 quintet that finished 22-6 and represented Nebraska at the NAIA National Tournament. The Eagles were 19-5 the previous year and 18-5 the following year. He was twice named Nebraska’s small college coach-of-the-year.
In 1970 when Ross Armstrong became 65 and was forced to step down from administrative posts, Peyton succeeded him as the CSC athletic director. Peyton also replaced Armstrong as chairman of NAIA District 11 that was made up of about a dozen Nebraska schools.
 Peyton was an improvisor and a worker. He founded the college’s outdoor education program that included sixth-grade camps that were annually attended by more than 1,200 students from area schools in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. During the summers in that era, he also led a 10-day stay for college students in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming.
He helped put Chadron State on the map by founding and directing the CSC Holiday Basketball Tournament that utilized Chadron’s three gymnasiums and became the nation’s largest.  At its peak, it featured 16 college and 32 high school teams and a total of 72 games over a three-day span.