Don Donoher, who posted a 437-275 record in 25 seasons as the University of Dayton's men's basketball coach and is the school's all-time wins leader, passed away on April 12 at the age of 92. Donoher led the Flyers to postseason play in each of his first seven seasons and 15 times overall. He earned induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, the University of Dayton Athletic Hall of Fame, the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame, the Toledo Area High School Hall of Fame and the Toledo Central Catholic High School Hall of Fame. Donoher was a three year letter winner as a UD player under Coach Tom Blackburn, who he later succeeded after Blackburn died of lung cancer in 1964.
In 1967, Donoher guided the Flyers to the NCAA Championship Game, where they lost 79-64 to a UCLA squad led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was then known as Lew Alcindor. The Bruins had won the 1964 and 1965 NCAA titles under Coach John Wooden, who eventually captured a record 10 NCAA championships. Donoher is the first coach to lead his alma mater to the NCAA Championship Game after playing in the NCAA Tournament for his alma mater.
Donoher's Flyers followed up their NCAA runner-up finish by capturing the 1968 NIT title at a time when the NIT was much more prestigious than it is now. Dayton beat Kansas 61-48 in the 1968 NIT Championship Game. That Kansas squad was led by future Hall of Famer Jo Jo White, who later won two NBA titles (1974, 1976) with the Boston Celtics. UD's star player in the late 1960s was Don May, a two-time All-America selection who won the 1968 NIT MVP award. May was a member of New York's 1970 NBA championship team.
The Flyers made postseason appearances from 1969-71 before logging a pair of 13-13 seasons. In 1974, the Flyers finished 20th in the final AP poll after losing 111-100 in triple overtime to Bill Walton's UCLA squad in the NCAA Tournament.
It would be 10 years before Dayton returned to the NCAA Tournament, but the Flyers participated in the NIT four times in a five year span from 1977-1982. Future two-time NBA All-Star Jim Paxson--whose brother John won three NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s--played for the Flyers from 1976-79.
I remember following the exploits of those late 1970s and early 1980s Flyers teams as a young boy, watching them on TV and sometimes going to games with my Dad. I still vividly recall several of those players, including big center Mike Kanieski, lanky forward Richard Montague, and scrappy point guard Kevin Conrad.
Roosevelt Chapman, my all-time favorite college basketball player, joined the squad in 1980, and became UD's all-time leading scorer (a record that he still holds). He led the 1984 NCAA Tournament in scoring with 105 points in four games for a 26.3 ppg scoring average, highlighted by a 41 point outburst as he outdueled Wayman Tisdale--who became the second overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft--in UD's 89-85 win over #2 ranked Oklahoma 89-85. Chapman and the 1984 Flyers authored one of the best Cinderella runs in NCAA Tournament history.
Donoher was highly respected within the coaching ranks. Bobby Knight tapped Donoher to be an assistant coach for the Team USA squad that won the 1984 Olympic gold medal. The Flyers qualified for the 1985 NCAA Tournament and then played in the 1986 NIT before enduring three straight losing seasons. In 1989, UD fired Donoher and replaced him with Jim O'Brien, who led the Flyers to the 1990 NCAA Tournament with players recruited by Donoher before going 39-77 in the next four seasons. O'Brien later spent nearly two decades as an assistant coach and head coach in the NBA. I interviewed O'Brien about the connections between basketball and chess.
Bobby Knight was outraged after UD fired Donoher, declaring to Ritter Collett (a Dayton sports columnist), "When I was named coach of the U.S. Olympic team, nobody could have wanted to represent the United States better than I did. So why did I pick Donoher to help me? Because I couldn't get a better coach. I may not know a lot of things, but I think I know basketball and I know I know more basketball than (Tom) Frericks and Brother (Raymond L.) Fitz. Donoher has maintained a very good Division I basketball program during a period when his salary was probably $25,000 under the average Big Ten coaching salary. Over the years, I've had a lot of people call me and ask me if I thought Don would be interested in another coaching job. When I called him to ask if he was interested, he invariably said, 'No, I don't even want to talk to them.' He was content to stay in Dayton. He has had a love affair with the school and the community. I think that is what burns me the most. Here is a man who had chances to leave, and I'm talking about some major jobs that have come open. He has never gone in to Frericks and said, 'Look, I've got this opportunity and it will pay me such-and-such.' He's never tried to use that to improve his earning power."
Donoher helped sign the players who led the Dayton Wings to World Basketball League titles in 1991 and 1992, and he also later worked as a scout for the Cleveland Cavaliers when Jim Paxson was the team's General Manager. Donoher spent some time as a high school coach in Ohio, and he was as serious about game plan preparation for those contests as he was when he coached players in the NCAA Tournament and the Olympics, telling writer Tom Archdeacon that those high school games were every bit as important to those players as the prime time games were to the more famous players.
I never met Donoher, but I have wonderful memories of interacting with several of his players. Chapman and Montague were two of my counselors at summer basketball camps in the early 1980s. Chapman taught me how to properly shoot a layup. He was a flamboyant player who specialized in fancy dunks and smooth finger rolls, but in person he was not flashy. As campers in awe of his jumping ability, we were always asking him to do a dunking exhibition for us, but he politely declined. I remember being excited when Chapman was selected by the Kansas City Kings in the third round of the 1984 NBA Draft, but I also remember that he did not seem thrilled when he showed up at our basketball camp after the NBA Draft; he understood that--as a 6-4 tweener--he was not likely to make the team, and indeed he ended up playing in the CBA before enjoying a successful pro career overseas.
I played in many pickup games with and against Dan Obrovac, who won the opening tip against Abdul-Jabbar in the 1967 NCAA Championship Game. Obrovac's hands were incredibly strong; he could hold a basketball in front of his body in those two big meathooks, and grown men could not punch the ball out of his grip. I would see him sometimes in the weight room, and he would easily do the full stack of weights on any resistance training machine that he used. Obrovac's knees were shot by the time that I played with him, but you could tell that he just enjoyed being on the court and playing in any capacity.
I have a personal connection with UD as well, because in 2016 I became a UD alum after graduating from UD's two year law school program. Don Donoher and UD Flyers basketball were a big part of my childhood, and I will always remember him, those teams and those players fondly.
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