The first Big Green player to score 1,000 points in a career, Ed Leede held the Dartmouth scoring record with 1,331 points for more than two decades. He earned All-League honors in the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League during each of his four years in a Big Green uniform and played in the East-West game during his senior campaign. Leede was drafted in the third round by the Providence Steamrollers of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which shortly thereafter merged with another league to form the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Leede scored nearly 1,000 points in a two-year NBA career with the Boston Celtics. After finishing his master’s degree, he went on to a successful career in the oil and gas business, establishing Leede Exploration, which has evolved to include business interests in a variety of industry sectors, including oilfield services, manufacturing, real estate development, IT and e-commerce.

Leede—who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1949 after serving a stint in the United States Marines that interrupted his studies—has served his alma mater as the vice-chairman for major gifts in the Campaign for Dartmouth, a four-year member of the Dartmouth College Athletic Council and gift chairman for his class reunion. In 1985, he and his wife, Margaret Anne, established the Margaret Ann and Edward Leede 1949 Distinguished Professorship. Two years later, Leede was recognized by Dartmouth with the naming of the basketball arena in his honor.