A Wapakoneta native who carved his name into Ohio basketball history, Ray Dieringer demonstrated extraordinary leadership as both a player and a coach over five decades. His college career at the University of Dayton reached its pinnacle when he led the Flyers to the NIT Championship game, earning MVP honors at the prestigious University of Kentucky Basketball tournament when Dayton held the nation's top ranking. He graduated from UD in 1956, launching a coaching career that would transform programs throughout Ohio.

He began that journey at Elder High School in Cincinnati, where he coached from 1956 to 1962, before moving to the collegiate level. After serving as an assistant coach to Tay Baker at the University of Cincinnati—a team enshrined in the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025—Dieringer accepted perhaps the most daunting challenge in college basketball. In 1969, Cleveland State University tapped him to transition its "college" division program into Division I status, operating with a Division III budget, no residence halls for players, and no gymnasium for practice or games.

Where others might have seen impossibility, Dieringer saw opportunity. Through Herculean effort and the outstanding staff he assembled, he put CSU on the map as a big-time college basketball program in Northeast Ohio. The first six years brought inevitable growing pains as CSU restructured its schedule to fulfill NCAA Division I criteria. The ship then righted itself dramatically—Dieringer produced seven winning seasons and accumulated 150 victories during his tenure from 1969 to 1983.

Cleveland State University recognized his transformative impact by inducting him into its Hall of Fame in 1998, cementing his legacy as a pioneer of Ohio basketball.