The Hay's in the Barn

The Hay’s in the Barn…..

A digital history of 5 magical years of Ohio University Basketball from 1966 to 1971.

This compilation is about a group of 15 or so young guys who came together at Ohio University 50+ years ago with the goal of excelling in basketball. We were from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicity, religions, and geographic regions, but all united in a common bond. We all thought we were hot stuff, but in reality, knew very little about life and the world.

We were led by a group of dedicated and knowledgeable coaches who we highly respected. Our coaches prodded, motivated, cajoled, and occasionally kicked us in the rear to become a great team. They molded our diverse personalities and athletic abilities into one mean, green, fighting machine. They led us to excel beyond our imaginable dreams. We came in as boys and left as men, thanks to our coaches.

What is remarkable is that everyone on the team has stayed in touch over the intervening 50 years, with reunions every 10 years to celebrate the 1970 MAC Championship. We have lost our head coach and five players to death, but we still remember and honor them. Everyone that has stayed connected has contributed to this compilation of data, clippings, photos, and information about their lives the past 50 years. Everyone has special unique memories about their 4 years on campus and on the hardwood, but nobody has the complete memory of everything. Events shape each of us in different ways and from different perspectives; hence our memories are shaped differently. This book is an attempt to weave together as many of those memories as possible, and leave a lasting legacy to those who follow of what it was like to become a team and stay a team for life. We won’t be alive much longer, and the paper clippings are getting faded and crumbled.

Now is the time to put this digital compilation together so time and weather cannot destroy our legacy.

Everyone on our team has had a great deal of success in life as these pages will attest to. It has not been luck, it has been hard work and effort, forged by our basketball experiences and leadership of our coaches.

It’s been fun putting this together, and re-connecting with everyone.

Thanks for your contributions and hard work.

Gary Wolf, May 15, 2020, Class of ’71 and #52

A talented group…

Our group produced some very interesting and successful careers since our departure from OU: • A number of Master’s degrees and PhD’s (Canine, McDivitt, Hunter, Kowall, Rogers, Wolf) • A nationally acclaimed author of 5 books and owner of a national counseling service and consulting group (Canine) • The VP of product engineering at Chrysler (Love) • A dean of engineering, provost, and VP for academic affairs at several universities (Rogers) • Owner of a CPA firm (Kowall) • Owner of a major insurance agency (Miller) • Collegiate head coach at VMI and Rice and The NBA coach of the year (Schuler) • An outstanding college coach who won a Division III NCAA championship, was head coach at OU and Western Carolina. Was #10 in career NCAA wins (700+) at the time of his untimely death (Hunter) • A successful high school Basketball coach and Athletic Director (McDivitt) • A head coach at Ohio U and Regional marketing Mgr. for Nike (Bandy) • The owner of a major waste management company (Rumpke) • The owner of a Wendy’s franchise (Rumpke) • Owner of a Men’s clothing store in Athens (Cluff) • The Manager of State of Ohio Regulatory Agency for Amusement Park Rides (Groff) • The Director of a major municipal Parks & Recreation Department (Parker) • A partner owner of a large Lincoln automotive dealership (Glancy) • Regional Manager of a number of national Restaurant franchises (Coon) • Dean of School of Natural Resources at Hocking College (Coon) • A successful dealer in sports equipment (Howell) • A newspaper sales/customer service executive and Singer (Corde) • The owner of a railroad engineering company and a world recognized derailment investigator (Wolf) • Hall of Fame Baseball Player in Cooperstown (Schmidt (Briefly w Freshman Team in 1967))

A talented group…

And we produced a number of records on the hardwood as of the date we left OU: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

9 out of 10 largest OU crowds to watch the cats Number 1, 5, 8, and 10 career leading scorers in OU history Single season scoring record of 502 points Most field goal attempts in a career Second highest field goal percentage Second highest made free throws Highest career free throw percentage Most personal fouls Highest point average for a season and a career Most team points in a season Highest team percentage free throws Most team personal fouls Highest ever National UPI/AP team ranking (#5) in school history MAC coach of the year Ohio College Coach of the Year MAC player of the year 6 players on first team All-MAC 3 players on Academic All-MAC 1 All-American Tangerine Bowl tournament champion NCAA first round tournament appearance NIT quarterfinals 54-21 record 1968-71 32-2 record in the Convo 1968-1971 MAC champion and two MAC runner ups Several members drafted by NBA and ABA, and two played in European League 4 players and 3 coaches members of OU Athletic Hall of Fame

In Memoriam As of 2020, we have lost our beloved coach, and 5 teammates that died way too young.

• Coach Jim Snyder who departed us in 1994 • John Glancy – Killed by a drunk driver while crossing the street in California late 1980’s • Doug Parker – Stricken by cancer in 2012 • Fred Cluff – Killed in an auto accident near Lancaster Ohio in 2005 • Larry Hunter – Died of a stroke in 2018 • Bobby Howell – Died of a cardiac event in 2019

This book is dedicated to the memory of our coach and teammates who we sweated with, laughed with, and won with, during our magical 5 year run.

The Plaque over the Entrance to the Palestra in Philadelphia “The Cathedral of College Basketball”

This history compilation is about a group of young men, and their coaches, who truly loved the game…

1966-1967 Season

1966-67 Freshman Team

1966-67 Freshman Team

1967 -1968 Season

1967-68 Freshman Team and Box Scores

1968-1969 Season

Green & White Game 1968

Dinner in the Big Apple

1969-1970 Season

I never touched him!

Continued next page

CAT’s capture MAC Crown!!!

Austin Who???

1970-1971 Season

The Record Book

The following are biographical sketches of where we have been for the past 50 years, our families, high school days, personal photos, hobbies, our memories of OU, and other philosophical musings.

Some wrote a lot, and some wrote a little, but everyone contributed…just like 50 years ago.

Coach Dale Bandy

Graduated from Clay High School in Portsmouth Ohio in 1956.

Captained the 1959-60 Ohio Team to the MAC Championship playing for Jim Snyder. Also earned 3 letters in Baseball.

Graduated from Ohio U. in 1961.

Returned to OU to coach with Jim Snyder in 1963. Headed up the freshman teams, and assisted with varsity. Became Ohio Head coach in 1974 when Jim Snyder retired. Left OU at end of 1980 season and joined Nike Shoes.

Worked for Nike Shoes as a regional marketing manager in Texas during the 1980’s. In the early 1990’s got involved with developing and starting a number of Golf Pro Academies throughout the south and southeast.

Returned to the hardwoods late in life to assist ex-player, now head coach, Bill Brown at the University of California in Pennsylvania. Half the year would live in Pennsylvania and half the year in Texas. Also Assisted ex-player Larry Hunter with coaching camps and clinics.

Now lives in Rolla MO close to his daughter and granddaughter.

Coach Mike Schuler

Mike Schuler, a 2014 Kermit Blosser Hall of Fame Inductee and member of the Ohio University basketball team from 1958-1962, recently spoke with the Varsity Ohio staff to reflect on his experiences in Athens and discuss his support of the Jim Snyder Basketball Coaching Endowment.

Schuler came to Ohio University in the fall of 1958 from Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, Ohio, where he earned eight varsity letters in basketball and baseball. His basketball recruitment came down to Miami University and Ohio University, with Schuler ultimately choosing to become a Bobcat and play for Coach Jim Snyder.

It would become a decision that would change his life.

"Athens was just a place I immediately fell in love with," explained Schuler. "In the summers between semesters, I would just stay in Athens and work. I just absolutely loved the place. If I could, I would move back there in a heartbeat."

Schuler quickly began to establish a strong relationship with Coach Snyder. In Schuler's freshman year, the Bobcats finished a modest 14-10 before clinching the first two MAC Men's Basketball Championships in Ohio program history in the 1959-1960 and 19601961 campaigns.

Schuler quickly attributed his team's success to how Snyder handled his players both on and off the court. "[Coach Snyder] treated people so well and set a great example for all his players," said Schuler. "He was very easy to be around. You know from the beginning he cared about you as a person. He was not a screamer, but the respect his players had for him meant he didn't have to be hard-nosed. He would do anything he possibly could to help his kids."

As Schuler approached the end of his senior year, Coach Snyder played a major role in helping him achieve his childhood dream: becoming a basketball coach.

"When I was a senior and started interviewing for jobs, Coach Snyder had connections at Marietta High School and helped me obtain my first coaching job," explained Schuler. "Three years later after spending one year at West Point working under Bobby Knight, Coach Snyder called me and said he had an opening on his staff and wanted me to work for him. It was the ultimate dream come true."

After spending three years alongside Coach Snyder, Schuler took his first collegiate head coaching gig at the Virginia Military Institute in 1969. He would spend 12 more years in college basketball, including a four-year stint as the head coach at Rice University, before heading to the NBA in 1981.

He was named the NBA Coach of the Year in his first year as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1986-1987. He would later become the head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers in 1990 and assist NBA coaches Don Nelson and Flip Saunders before retiring in 2005.

When reflecting on his illustrious coaching career, Schuler felt it was necessary to honor Coach Snyder through giving to the Jim Snyder Basketball Coaching Endowment, which helps support graduate assistants on the Men's Basketball team as they embark on a career in coaching

He was named the NBA Coach of the Year in his first year as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1986-1987. He would later become the head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers in 1990 and assist NBA coaches Don Nelson and Flip Saunders before retiring in 2005.

When reflecting on his illustrious coaching career, Schuler felt it was necessary to honor Coach Snyder through giving to the Jim Snyder Basketball Coaching Endowment, which helps support graduate assistants on the Men's Basketball team as they embark on a career in coaching.

"To me, Coach Snyder was the greatest man I have ever known," said Schuler. "Supporting this endowment was a way to help honor his name and keep it prevalent to Ohio University and allow someone to reach their goal of becoming a successful basketball coach like he did for me."

Schuler continued: "I love Ohio University and everything it stands for. It made it possible for me to achieve my life-long dreams. I just felt giving back was something I wanted to do if possible and luckily I was in a position to do so.“ Finally, Schuler offered up some advice to aspiring basketball coaches that he looks to help through this endowment.

"Do everything you can do to advance your career," advised Schuler. " Work as hard as you can. My goal was to always become a basketball coach and I never let anything interfere with that. If you dedicate yourself and have the desire to be the best, you can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish."

Buck Rumpke

Tom “TC” Corde

Tom “TC” Corde As a poor black kid from Washington KY, who was reared with outhouses, my journey to and thru Ohio University was both transformational and revelatory. My perspective is with any institution everything starts with the people at the top, otherwise it is just an institution and not an organism. So was the case with OU, starting with Coach Snyder, who I knew first and foremost but also Bill Rohr the AD and President Alden.

Many great experiences, too many to mention,, first playing against Purdue my sophomore year, a team that had been to the final four the year before and winning. Going to Miami Fl that same year in the middle of winter and experiencing the warmth.!

Playing Ohio State twice and never being beaten, sophomore and senior years.

Being drafted by the world champion NY Knicks and being in camp with idol (at that time) Walt Frazier and others including Bill Bradley and Willis Reed.

That experience allowed me to tour Europe for 3 months and visit a communist country at the time as a 24 year old.

Too much to say, but it has afforded me to have lasting friendships that have lasted a lifetime.

OU O YEAH

6th Grade Team

Kentucky All Stars All State Team

Craig Love

Greg McDivitt

Ken Kowall

My greatest memory of my time at Ohio U was the sincerity, integrity and honesty of the people, My teammates, the coaches, the people of the university and the town of Athens. All striving to do the right thing for the right reason.

On my first official visit to Ohio, Greg was assigned to show me the campus. He sure did by driving me down Jefferson Hill-THE WRONG WAY !

And the next three years in the car with him on trips back home. Wow !!

And first and best roommate- Gary !

And how about Larry, one of us, coming back to coach Ohio with great success.

Whatever success I had is certainly attributed to all of you. The coaches for making me play smarter and better. My teammates for making the games seem easy as practice was always a war ! Hounded relentlessly by Larry and Mikey everyday in practice.

In high school, we were all the best player on our team, the best player in our conference, the best player in the region or state! All of us were recruited by bigger programs. A lot of egos !! But it took coaching by Dale and Mike with Coach Jim’s leadership to get us to the finish line .

IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN MY LIFE My only love, my wife Kathy married 50 years this year !

My daughter Kerry( husband Jason)- daughter Hannah and son Carson My son Kenny(wife Megan) My Mom and Dad My brother Jim- member of this team but two ACL surgeries ended his career early. I could not have gotten this far without him.

We battled everyday on the court growing up.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE Certified Public Accountant-State of Ohio Founded Kowall & Company, full service Certified Public Accounting firm in 1985 Currently working part-time in the firm

Ken at OU Ken Kowall Fan Appreciation Day 2012 with wife Kathy and family

Ralph Rogers

Dave “Bubba” Groff

John Canine

Did not know how good I had it at OU---great campus, great education, and a lot of good friends. My best friends were the guys on the BB team. We had a fun time together and played some great basketball. No one was the star-we all were stars. That is the way Jim Snyder wanted it. There were times I would have liked to shoot as much as Rick Mount or Pete Maravich but Jim Snyder did not want it that way and he was right. However, I did score the first 2 points in the convo!!! Greg McDivitt and I watch the convo being built from our dormitory window. One day he said let's go over there and find an old bucket and play a game of one on one with rocks We did, and I scored first and beat him. All the while the building was under construction. He might disagree about me beating him! I rarely if ever beat him!

I was drafted by the Phoenix Suns and the New York Nets. I went to the Suns because the 2 rounds before me went to the ABA. Probably should have considered the ABA because they already had the 3 point line. Went to the Suns and when Cotton Fitzsimmons told me he was looking for big guards and I was the shortest guy in camp---my fate was decided. Best thing that ever happened. I did not believe it at the time.

I have a career in psychology as a licensed Psychotherapist specializing in the field of death and dying. I have 2 master's degrees and 2 doctorates and still learning. I have published 2 books with McGraw-Hill and 3 other books with different publishers. At one point I had the only death and dying book in McGraw's medical division. I have been the chaplain for the Detroit Lionsofficial and the chaplain for the Detroit Tigers under Sparky Anderson-unofficial. I have the privilege of counseling hundreds of people/families and among them a number of pro athletes. In the next few weeks I have release of a Podcast being released with Hall of Fame announcer Eli Zaret.

I have 3 sons by a previous marriage, David, Daniel, and Derek, a step daughter Samantha and a daughter Sophia. Sophia just released her first book of poetry-BITTERSWEET, at age 19. She attends MSU. My wife Nanci owns an early childhood center and we have been married 25 years. We both are still working. I am writing this during the Covid-19 era and I have not seen so many patients in years. Only hope I can help!!

Want to end the way I started. My BB Team and the OU experience was the best ever---I wish all of you God's best and a long life....JC

Mike Miller

Larry Hunter

Larry Coon

Gary Wolf

Note: This Bio is a bit lengthy, but I don’t do social media, don’t watch much TV or movies, so I had some time during the Covid to put pen to paper and try to capture the many memories of our time together. Don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.

Early years: Entered DeSales High School in Columbus in 1963 at 6’4” and with lots of promise, but much work needed. Entered soph year as a starter at 6’6” but weighing in at only 170 lbs. This was my first encounter with my future teammate Doug Parker and his brothers who played for Bishop Hartley High School. The Parker boys were the real deal and gave us fits. Parker was a friendly trash talker. We respected each other, although competitors. Ended up playing some playground ball with Parker in the hot summer months. Columbus was a hotbed for high school hoops. Lots of good players those years. Skip Young, Jimmy Cleamons, Eddie Ratliff, Bobby Hill, to name a few. After getting knocked out the state tournament my junior year, was approached by Kermit Blosser in the locker room. He had me up against the locker convincing me that Ohio U. was where I needed to go. I ended up making my first official campus visit that spring as a junior, and met John Glancy who was also being recruited. Coach Snyder was proud to show me plans for the new Convo about to go up across the street from the Grover center. It seemed very exciting, although I was getting recruiting letters from lots of other schools after my junior year. Also elected to first team All Central Catholic League (CCL), along with Doug Parker and his brothers.

Tried to balance out basketball season by running track in the spring and cross-country in the fall. Believe it or not, started out running high hurdles, but moved over to the mile and half mile distance runs. Both sports were good training for hoops, and I ended up winning letters in both.

My senior year in High School was my breakout year. Ended up second leading scorer in Franklin County (Greater Columbus) for the year. Beating out future Ohio Stater Jim Cleamons and the Parker boys. Hit for 30 against Whetstone, highest scoring night. Again elected to first team All CCL, along with Doug’s two brothers. (Side story, Doug’s two younger brothers, Rodney and Denny, ended up at Florida State with renegade coach Hugh Durham. Little known, but Hugh Durham tried to get Doug to transfer to Florida State so he could have the first college team with three starting brothers. I believe he took Doug to Tallahassee and took him water skiing with a bunch of cheerleaders trying to get him to transfer. Lucky for us, Doug stayed at Ohio).

Ended up senior year with All CCL, All State honorable mention honors, and chosen as an Ohio Alternate to the Dapper Dan Classic against the Pennsylvania All Stars. Ended up not making the team, but was still an honor to be considered. Got letters from over 100 different colleges.

Coach Bandy and Schuler were very persistent, attending many of my games, and it was suspected they were scouting surreptitiously from an automobile while I played on the neighborhood outdoor court. Recruiting was an

interesting experience. As soon as my senior season was over, the flood gates opened up. I made another trip to Ohio, where I met future teammate Greg McDivitt, not on the Grover center floor, but on the gymnastic bars. There was Greg working on the parallel bars, laughing and smiling while coach Snyder just shook his head. Greg was pleasant, teased coach Snyder, and I thought “this could be an interesting guy to play with”. Also made campus trips to Ohio State, Virginia Tech (twice), Louisville, and West Virginia. To me, it all came down to coaches. Who do you want to be your mentors for the next 4 years?

Everyone had nice facilities, nice legacies, etc. When I compared Coach Snyder, Bandy, and Schuler to the others, there was no comparison. Made a final trip back to Ohio U. and I asked coach Snyder if I could meet the engineering dean to be sure he would support trying to play ball and engineering at the same time. Coach Snyder did one better and had President Vern Alden, and the engineering dean, meet me and my father at the OU Inn for dinner. Vern Alden was an unbelievable supporter of sports and really helped to seal the deal for me. When I saw that the school president would take time from his busy calendar to not only meet, but also have dinner, that was huge in my book. On the drive back home to Columbus from Athens, I talked it over with my dad, and made the decision to become a Bobcat. Up to that point, my parents stayed completely out of it, saying that it had to be my decision since I would live with it for four years. When I told my dad it was going to be Ohio U, he said “I think you made a great decision. I support you completely”. He was right!

Ohio Freshman Year 1967-68: I arrived at Ohio U in July of 1967 and attended the summer 5 week half session. That way, I could get two courses out of the way and lighten the academic load during the season. I met and roomed with Kenny Kowall who also started that summer session. We lived in the newly constructed Brown Hall on the new south green. In the evenings, we played 2-3 hours of hoops in the Grover Center with Fred Cluff, ,Ron Rippitoe (flunked out I think), and maybe Parker. Throw in a couple grad assistant coaches, some walk-ons, and we had some pretty good games. Grover center must have been 105 degrees, with 100% humidity. Walked home exhausted and drenched in sweat each night.

In September, campus swelled to over 21,000, with kids living on cots in the Byrd Ice Arena until enough freshman either flunked out or went home so that everyone could live in a dorm.

For the first time met teammates Craig Love, Larry Hunter, Mike Miller and Prentiss Tallman out of Connecticut. We started playing on the outdoor courts beside Grover Center because we couldn’t play inside Grover for some reason. Playing on concrete was brutal. I also remember that we ran distance as a team each afternoon in the fall since scheduled basketball was not allowed until October 15th. Also ran stadium steps in Peden stadium.

Hated that. We ran on the old golf course and back and forth on some footbridge over the Hocking River. The rumor goes that we had to run the mile under 6 minutes to make the team. Since I ran cross country and mile in high school, I was not too worried. Just to check ourselves, Larry Hunter took myself and John Glancey out to the old Athens County Fair

Grounds Horse track west of town. It was a half mile track. Larry and I did ok, but poor John barely made it in under the 6 minute mark, huffing and puffing. John, being the “upper classman”, was trash talking us all the way out to the track in his unique King George County Virginia brogue. He was quiet riding back home, still trying to catch his breath.

We had a good freshman team, with Mike Miller, Craig Love, Prentiss Tallman, Larry Hunter, and myself being scholarship players. We were joined by another partial scholarship (I think) player named Michael Schmidt. Yes, that Michael Schmidt that is now in Cooperstown. We were also joined by some pretty good walk-ons that could have probably played ball at smaller schools. Big Jack Neeley and Frank Kraus were bruisers that wore out me and Craig each night under the boards. We had Jack Millhollon, and Bobby Eldridge from Michigan at forwards. I think Bobby knew either Craig or John Canine from Michigan high school days. At guards we had Dave Wolff, Guy Pirillo, Drew Mconachy, and Grant Courtright challenging Kowall, Miller, and Hunter. I thought Courtright was a spitting image of Elvis Pressley…In fact coach Bandy may have nicknamed him Elvis. Maury Sheer was the team manager. For Coaches, we had Graduate Assistants Dick Parkhill, George VanPopple, and John Hurley joining Coach Bandy. I don’t know what happened to Parkhill and VanPopple. I think I heard John Hurley became a successful coach at Cincinnati Clermont, but have not verified it. We all know coach Bandy moved on to become head coach at Ohio after coach Snyder retired.

Speaking of short-term teammate Michael Schmidt. We started practicing October 15. The coaches had to cut some walk-ons and we got down to serious business around November first. Mike was a guard so I did not do many drills with him. It was evident he was a little gimpy. I think that after the thanksgiving break, we came back and were told in a team meeting that Mike’s knee was acting up, and he was advised to stop playing basketball.

Apparently he was all-state in basketball, football, baseball, and golf, or so the story goes.

The decision was made to allow him to try out for the baseball team (less stress on the knee) and if he made the baseball team, he could keep his partial scholarship. Well, the rest was history. Not only did he make the baseball team, but took them to the final 4 of the college world series. Mike was drafted by the Phillies, played one or two years in the minors, and got called up to the big leagues in 1973. In 1995 he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on his first ballot. I’d say Mike did OK. Our freshman team ended the season with a successful record of 10-2. If memory serves me correct, our greatest wins were occasionally beating the OU varsity in practice scrimmages. That year, the varsity had a record of 7-16. Our freshman team showed great promise. A number of us moved up to the varsity our sophomore year. I remember riding the bus down to play Marshall freshman, and we went past where the Silver Bridge had collapsed into the Ohio River in December before Christmas killing a bunch of folks. A Somber sight to see the wreckage of the bridge trusses reconstructed

on the bank of the Ohio River. When we returned that night from the Marshall game, our bus got stuck in a snow storm outside of Athens and we had to get off and push the bus up a hill. It was that old green torpedo body bus and none of the windows would shut tight. By the time we got back to campus, school was closed and there was a massive snowball fight underway. And on top of all this, we had lost to Marshall.

One downside to my freshman season was getting my Occipital bone under my left eye and nose accidently broken in practice by a Craig Love elbow. This occurred in late November or early December. I was also told “no more basketball for the time being”. Turns out, if I caught another elbow, the broken bone fragments would likely end up in my left eye, causing severe retina damage. After a few weeks, I was outfitted with a wire baseball catcher’s mask to wear. Totally destroyed the ability to see left or right. It was awful and I was embarrassed to even wear it. But it had to be done. Finally, somewhere in January I was cleared to play without the mask, what a relief. My scoring, defense, passing, and rebounding all improved once the mask came off. I ended up third in scoring freshman season, behind Kowall and Tallman, and second in rebounding behind Craig Love. I was happy given I had to play the first 4-5 games wearing that dang catcher’s mask. I ended the season with a terrible game in St. John’s Arena against Ohio State. We won the game, but I shot 1-9 and fouled out at the end. I really wanted to play well since some of my friends and family were in attendance, and I was up against some of my old high school nemeses in Rex Kern and Jimmy Cleamons (I think Cleamons was injured). Kern was from Lancaster, and went on to become an all-American quarterback at Ohio State. OU tried to recruit Kern to Athens, but he elected to go play for Fred Taylor, then Woody Hayes.

Another unhappy memory of freshman year is coming back after Christmas break and learning that Larry Hunter had broken his leg in a sledding accident. Larry was a tough defender and gritty player at point guard. A real hustle guy. If I remember it correctly, he was sledding on an old car hood over on the hills at the Athens Mental Health Hospital and wrecked the sled or something. I think he only got in a couple games that season, but his leadership and team hustle was sorely missed.

I roomed with Kenny Kowall in Grosvenor Hall, 3rd floor back corner room. Many of the basketball team lived in Grosvenor since it was close to Grover Center. I remember Parker lived on the same floor opposite corner with a 7 footer named Zeke (I think his name was Bill Zeleski) who was red shirted. I never saw Zeke play a minute with the Bobcats. Don’t know what happened to him. Both Zeke and I had 7 foot long beds, and the only room that they could fit in appeared to be end/corner rooms. I think Craig and Greg had a 7 foot beds on the second floor of Grosvenor.

Even though Doug was a year older, he kind of took me under his wing being Columbus guys. One night he called me down to his room and said “hey Wolfie, check this out”. He figured out how to hide a pint of Jack Daniels in the recess under the bottom drawer of those built in dorm drawers. After games, every now and then we would enjoy a shot from his secret stash. He also introduced me to the townie bar called the Little Ritz,

across from the train station. It was a shot gun bar with a long bar down the right side, 25 cent draft beer and shots, and maybe hot dogs. There were only coal miners, and townie mill workers in the Ritz, and nobody gave a damn about basketball. Doug and I would hit it every now and then in complete anonymity. It was the only bar in Athens that did not have a direct line to coach Snyder. Seems like if you went to any other bar uptown, Coach knew about it the next day. Not at the little Ritz. Years later in the 1980’s, Mike Wren, who played against us at Miami (and son of baseball coach Bob Wren) bought the little Ritz and renamed it The Cat’s Den. An era died. I think latter on we convinced Glancy and Miller to go over there with us a few times. It kind of became the secret hideout for some of us who enjoyed an occasional 25 cent draft.

Doug also taught me an important trick. Since we were both from Columbus, we decided we wanted to go home one weekend. He convinced me to hitchhike home with him. He said “All you have to do is go out on route 33 and wear your letter jacket”. He was right…there could be 20 kids out there with thumbs up, but a driver would stop for a kid in a letter jacket. I used that trick several times to go see my girlfriend in Columbus. Problem was, getting back to Athens…nobody cared about an OU letter jacket in Columbus, so sometimes it was a bus ride back.

Back to Grosvenor Hall. In the spring of 1968, final month of our freshman year, the Hocking River decided to flood the campus. I can remember looking out the dorm room window watching the water slowly starting to run over the road behind Grosvenor and Parks Hall. I was thinking to myself, now I know how Noah felt. It was a scary feeling. The water completely filled up the drive between Grosvenor Hall and the rest of the west green.

Grosvenor looked like a castle with a moat, and two drawbridges. It may be urban legend that Greg McDivitt dove off the Grosvenor cafeteria roof into the floodwaters. I did not see it, but my memory says everyone was talking about it. Only Greg knows. There were stranded carp fish in the bottom of the stairwells of Grosvenor leading down to the garage. Everything stunk to high heaven. When the flood receded, I went over to Grover Center, and the floor was warped up in large 5-7 foot waves of wood. Good thing we were moving to the Convo next fall, I’m not sure the Grover Center floor was ever flat after the flood.

One final memory of the freshman year was the homecoming concert in Grover Center. I think the ticket was like $4.00. We had 3 bands perform. First was Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, then came Martha and the Vandellas, then they cleared the floor which was covered with heavy paper for a sock hop to close out the evening. Tommy James and Shondells led the sock hop. I still tell my kids it was best and cheapest concert ever, three of the greatest groups of the 60’s for like $4.00. What a deal!

1968-1969 season Our sophomore year started out with a lot of promise. We had Gerald McKee back for his senior year. A scoring machine from Dayton, Gerald set the OU scoring record that year. We had a very ambitious pre-season schedule with 5-6 big ten teams on the

schedule, and we were opening the new Convo center against Indiana in early December.

Qualified easily in early October running the mile under 6 minutes. Real practice started again on October 15. It was exciting being bumped up to varsity, and practicing in the brand new Convo Center. Although we occasionally scrimmaged the varsity as freshmen, it was a giant step up going against the big boys each night, We had this transfer from Army named Dave “Bubba” Groff. Not sure how he got his nickname of Bubba, but Bubba was a bruiser and tough in the lane. Bubba was famous for making 4 or 5 head fakes to the basket, and never getting called for 3 seconds. Not sure how he did it. Bubba had played a year at Army under a young coach named Bobby Knight. The assistant at the time was Mike Schuler, future assistant to Jim Snyder at Ohio U. I think Coach Schuler had something to do with getting Bubba to come to Athens when he tired of Coach Knight’s theatrics.

All the hard work over the summer paid off for me. I had worked hard on developing a left hand which opened up new opportunities. We were running a sort of low post-high post offense. We also ran something called California, involving the big men picking in the lane for each other. In the green and white pre-season scrimmage, I got to play for the white team. Surprising even myself, I led both teams in scoring with 17 points. Gerald McKee came up to me after the game, telling me that rookies were not supposed to outscore seniors. He was mildly upset, but that was just Gerald.

The first real game of the season was going to be Ohio State, at Columbus. Coach Snyder was working me in with the starters some the week before, so I was excited to redeem myself in St. Johns. I didn’t start the OSU game, but I got in the first half. I remember getting in a pile up under the basket and Steve Howell landed on my right foot. Howell was couple years ahead of me and I played against him when he was at Columbus Eastmoor. He was massive, about 6’5” and 240 lbs. Anyway, when he landed on my foot, I heard a pop and felt an immediate pain. It wasn’t a typical sprain. I left the game and never went back in. We ended up losing to Ohio State to make things worse.

We got back to Athens and the next day my right foot was really swollen. Al Hart, our trainer, decided to lance it and drain the fluid out. I could hardly walk on it. After a few days of lancing and draining, the swelling eventually subsided somewhat, but it was very painful to walk. I managed to practice the next few weeks before Christmas. I was able to make the trip to Milwaukee at Christmas for the Milwaukee Classic. It seemed it took nearly all day to get to Milwaukee due to airplane issues and the weather. Then we skidded off the runway when landing in Milwaukee. We didn’t get to our hotel until something like 4 AM. We got beat in the first round by Wisconsin, and came back to beat Army in the consolation game. Marquette went on the beat Wisconsin for the tournament championship. the highlight of the tournament was the banquet where we got to hear speeches from two up and coming young coaches – Bobby Knight of Army and Al McGuire of Marquette. They were both

motivating speakers, as well as humorous. The other thing I remember is watching the championship game between Marquette and Wisconsin. Marquette had a senior leading scorer George Thompson and a young guard named Dean “the dream” Memminger. It was the end of the game and Marquette was up maybe one point and George Thompson was at the foul line to clinch the game. Wisconsin called time out to “ice” Thompson at the line. Instead of huddling up like most teams did at a timeout, I watched in amazement as Al McGuire took Thompson out of the huddle and just started passing the ball back and forth with him on the baseline to keep him loose. No time for chalk talk or strategy. McGuire knew the main thing was to keep Thompson’s mind off the foul shot. After the timeout, Thompson went out and calmly sank the free throws. A bit of strategy I later used when coaching a youth team, and it worked again. I looked up to heaven and thanked Al for the unconventional wisdom. At the end of the tournament, each team was asked to come down on the court and receive their watches for competing in the tournament. Bobby Knight would not let his cadets come down and get their watch. He said they did not deserve their watches and could sit there and watch the other teams. I thought it was kind of bush league, and did not know much about Bobby Knight at that time, but that was Coach Knight. He had a second string guard on that team named Mike Krzysewski. You may have also heard of him. We played against three of the best all time coaches in that Milwaukee Classic.

After Christmas, my foot really started acting up again. Finally got some more X-rays and discovered that I had actually broken three metatarsal bones during that OSU game. And to make matters worse, due to being mis-diagnosed, they started to heal crooked. I immediately had to start wearing a wooden shoe (yes, just like the folks in Holland). It was horrible, clopping around like a circus clown. The rest of my season was relegated to watching practice, not participating. We ended up having a good second half of the season and ended up MAC runner up, losing to Miami by one game. Our consolation prize was a trip to the NIT. I did not get to make the trip to the Big Apple and MSG, having been laid up with the bad foot. I know we surprised West Texas State in the first round, and then lost to Tennessee in the quarter finals.

Hopefully, others have details of the NIT trip.

A sad ending came to our season when back in Athens we had a team meeting and coach Schuler told us he was leaving to become head coach at VMI. Coach Schuler had recruited me and all my other teammates in high school, and I was going to miss his lively razzing and banter.

Coach Schuler later went on to NBA fame, winning coach of the year honors with Portland.

1969-1970 Season: Wow, what a season. Canine, McDivitt, Parker, and Groff were seniors, highly experienced and motivated to build upon the NIT year. Love and Kowall were coming off a successful sophomore campaign and had gained a lot of experience and confidence. Bobby Howell, Tommy Corde, and Buck Rumpke were moving up to

sophomore year. My broken foot healed up over the summer, but I had lost precious experience and playing time.

Stated off the season well with a win at Northwestern in their barn with dirt floor. Horrible place for a big ten school. Then the big one, on December 6th Purdue rolled into town ranked 2nd or 3rd in the country and were led by senior All American Rick Mount. Purdue was big ten champ and NCAA runner up the previous year, and Mount was Number 2 scorer in the nation.

We had lost to Purdue at their place the previous season. The Convo was packed to the rafters. It was a close game all the way to the end. Canine and Kowall “held” Mount to only 29, but he had a terrible shooting day, not used to tenacious defense. It was one of the greatest bobcat wins, knocking off such a highly ranked and talented team.

Best memory is after the game that night, going out with my girlfriend to a favorite remote place west of Athens in the woods near the Hocking River. As we sat there drinking a few celebratory beers in the car, it began snowing hard. But it was that kind of night snow where you could see white all around you. We were listening to tunes on the radio on the clear channel WOWO out of Ft. Wayne Indiana. They were doing all the day’s scores and went on a rant about how the lowly Ohio Bobcats had knocked off their over-rated Boilermakers. The sports guy went on and on about how that couldn’t have possibly happened. Well, it happened, and Ohio started moving up in the rankings. It was a great night! It was a magical ending to a magical day.

We had successful trips to knock off Ohio State and Indiana in their places, and all of a sudden was 4-0 against the highly touted Big Ten.

Went to the Hurricane Classic in Miami for our Christmas tournament. We were 7-0 when we got to Miami. Left Miami 8-1, having lost to Texas for our first loss. My memory from that trip is going to the Beach at Miami. I had never been to Florida, and couldn’t believe the clear water. When we all got ready to leave the beach, I think it was Coach Bandy that announced that he couldn’t find his car keys to the rental car. We quickly deduced that he must have lost them in the water. So the whole team formed a human chain and scoured the floor of the ocean one foot at time, until someone found the keys laying in about 3 feet of water.

Success!

Speaking of Christmas breaks, we had to stay on campus for most the Christmas break. I think Coach let us go home for 1 or 2 days on Christmas day. The rest of the time we stayed at the Ohio University Inn where we had our meals since the Dorm cafeterias were closed. I think we also stayed there for the thanksgiving break, and one year we stayed at Bromley Hall uptown. I roomed 2 years with John Glancey on road trips and at the Ohio U. Inn. I can also remember making midnight runs to Dolan’s Drive In out on West State Street. Glancey loved to get the 39 cent spaghetti special. And the waitresses knew us well and always heaped our plates up. Occasionally, when we had a little more coin, we would go to the Millers Fried Chicken place, also on the west side.

John Glancey had that Virginia accent and loved to talk trash. I got to know him well. Often double dated with him and his girlfriend and eventual wife Linda. John moved to San Francisco after OU and became quite successful in real estate and car dealerships (Lincoln Mercury). Back then, in the bay area, you could buy a 1200 square foot house for $70,000 and sell it for $200,000 two years later. Glancey made some good money being one of the pioneer house flippers. I visited him a number of times over the years he lived there. On our way back from Hawaii on our honeymoon, Glancey picked Bonnie and me up at the SFO airport in a big black Lincoln Town car and took us to a nice dinner over in Tiburon.

The last time I saw John we played one-on-one on some outdoor court, and then went home to his house overlooking San Francisco Bay and drank champagne in his hot tub.

John was living large. Unfortunately, he was killed by a drunk driver in the late 80’s while crossing El Camino Blvd. in front of his Lincoln dealership. A life cut way too short. John was never the big stud on the court during his 4 years in Athens, but he was a hard worker in practice every day and a part of the glue that defined our team.

We powered our way through the MAC season, but suffered a horrible loss to BG by 20 points at their place in early January. Not only did the score suck, but the weather was miserable with cold, wind and snow. I thought, how could anyone attend this school on the frozen tundra of northern Ohio?

A crucial game for us was at Miami, our arch rival. The game was close most of the way, but some how we got down by 8 or 9 with 3 minutes to go. To make matters worse, I think Craig sprained his ankle toward the end of the game and had to come out (maybe he remembers better). I was in the game, and coach Snyder had us put on our full court press (called 93 I think). Being tall and lanky, I would guard the guy taking the ball out of bounds at the baseline, then go trap the inbound pass, trying to force an errant pass or turnover.

Well, it worked to some degree, I don’t remember much, but we started to get some turnovers and cut the lead down to a handful. At the end, Larry Hunter was the hero swatting away an inbound pass, and I think McDivitt or someone picked it up and put in the winning basket. What a major comeback win! On to the championship with our nemesis BG who beat us by 20 in their place to start the MAC season.

On February 28th the MAC Championship came down to us and BG, at our place. We were determined to avenge our lone loss of the season to the Falcons. We thought the Convo was packed at the Purdue Game, but we hadn’t seen anything yet. 14,102 fans crammed every nook and cranny of the Convo, sitting in aisle ways and hanging off railings.

Allegedly, the Fire Marshall tried to remove some of the fans, but was unsuccessful. As of today, that game is still the largest crowd that ever watched a game in the Convo.

I also have to say a word about the OU Marching 110. What a great pep band. We were very lucky to have such a great band, with mostly horns blaring. I remember in warmups that day the band and fans were so loud we could not even talk on the floor

and hear one another. We came back to the locker room for our normal final pep talk and chalk talk, and it was so loud in the convo that Coach was practically screaming at us in order to be heard. When we came out of the locker room to “Stand up and Cheer” the adrenalin was really flowing!!

The game was nip and tuck all day long, and came down to TC hitting two free throws to ice the game. We had won the MAC and an automatic NCAA bid! I remember the team hauling the school president, Claude Sowle, into the shower room for a dunking.

We drew Notre Dame in the Mid-east regional at Dayton Ohio. Notre Dame was led by Austin Carr, who was averaging over 30 points per game. I think Pete Maravich was averaging over 40 per game that year. I remember ND had two good forwards, Sid Catlett and Collis Jones. I think our game plan was devised to shut down the forwards. We knew Austin Carr was going to score in the 30’s, but if we could shut off the forwards, we would be moving on to play Jacksonville. At least that was the plan. What we didn’t figure is that Austin scored 61 on us. And to make matters worse, it was the NBC game of the day, with Gurt Gowdy announcing, broadcast across the country. At half time, Coach Snyder asked if anyone could shut down Carr? There were blank stares. I remember guarding him at one point in the second half when he launched a hook shot from the dead corner, and it went in.

As I ran back on offense, I thought, “we are screwed”. We fought valiantly, put up 82 points, and if Austin had just hit his average of 30, it would have been a tight game. To my knowledge, Austin’s 61 is still an NCAA tournament record as of today. Much later in life, wandering through some airport, I found a Notre Dame Basketball press book laying on a chair. I picked it up and turned to the 1970 season and saw where their guy Meehan (the other guard) had a career record against Ohio U. with 17 assists. Mystery solved! It wasn’t Carr that beat us, it was that Meehan guy that dished out 17 assists. So the question is, who was guarding Meehan?

It was a long bus ride back to Athens. I felt terrible for the seniors who had worked so hard for many years and it just wasn’t fair for it to end this way. Little did I know, another injustice was just around the corner for us in Athens a couple weeks later.

I was walking uptown one afternoon in early May on a beautiful spring day and saw all these students crowding around the window of the bookstore at Court and Union. On the inside of the window, some guy was literally pasting the strips of news coming out of the teletype machine as they rattled off. The urgent news flashes were about the shootings at Kent State, and ultimately the death of a number of students shot dead by the National Guard.

Several days later, the New York anti-war activists who stirred the pot at Kent State, traveled south to their next target at Athens. The Governor sent the same national guard to Athens to keep the peace, but after several days of riots, tear gas attacks, and small fires, it was decided to close school in early May. Nobody wanted to see school closed since the spring quarter was the most fun (except for mandatory weight training). There were blanket movies on the greens, trips to Stroud’s Run beach, and other debauchery. Spring quarter made the misery of winter quarter all

worth it. Sadly, after the news came of the close down, I drove to Lancaster to find a U-Haul trailer to drive me and my sister’s (she was a freshman) dorm belongings back to Atlanta Georgia where my parents had moved. It was a brutal drive after 3 days of little sleep, and I fell asleep driving somewhere in Kentucky. Luckily, the rumble of the side berm woke me up and I pulled over to take a nap.

Another side note about the 1969-70 season. Those of us on the second string played the role of scout team at practices. It was mainly me, Mike Miller, Larry Hunter, John Glancey, Buck Rumpke, Ralph Rogers, and a new red-shirt transfer named Todd Lalich. We dubbed ourselves the “rat squad”. We took great pride in learning the opposing team’s offense to run against the starters in practice. We took it as a great challenge to try and score against the starters, to the delight of Coach Snyder. We studied the films and habits of our opponents in order to get the starters ready for the game. Some might have shrugged this duty off as denigration, but it was our way of contributing to the team. In the end, I really think some of our success that season was due to our behind the scenes work at pushing the starters to achieve greatness, which they did! Go rat squad!

Coach Snyder was a quiet motivator, but he could get fired up at times. What I remember about him was early on he said “Gary, don’t worry if I yell at you, but start worrying if I stop yelling at you”. What he meant was that if he was yelling at you, he cared about you and wanted you to get better. If he was not yelling at you, well then, he didn’t care so much about you and maybe had written you off. Coach Bandy and Schuler said pretty much the same thing. They were all great and fair coaches, and cared about each of us, not only on, but off, the court. Maybe that is why so many of us became successful in latter life. Our Senior year after a bad loss we had a long bus ride back to Athens. Maybe the weather was bad and the plane couldn’t fly. Seemed like we got into the Convo around 1 am. As we were dragging our weary asses off the bus, Coach said, “alright boys, get your practice jerseys on, we got some work to do”. And we did hit the hardwood in the empty convo until like 2:30 am or something.

Taught us a lesson.

A rude awakening in the summer of 1970.

I had already lined up a fantastic summer job at Southern Railway in Atlanta as a student Mechanical Engineer, and was supposed to start work in early June. Due to school closure, I showed up 4 weeks early at the railroad offices, and luckily they put me to work right away. It was a great summer job, but woke me up to the realities of the Deep South in the early 70’s.

It was a tenuous time. The Viet Nam war, Assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, and the resulting race riots, had deeply divided the country. Growing up in the north, I had never really been exposed to racism. Basketball was the great equalizer when it came to learning to accept folks of different ethnicity, religion, and culture. My first day on the job at the rail yards in Atlanta, it was hot and humid as the South is most of the time. I was sweating like I just had a 3 hour practice in old Grover Center. I went over to get a drink at a

water fountain on the side of a yard building, and my new boss called me over rather excitedly.

He said “Boy, do you know what you just did?” I said I was merely getting a drink of water. He bellowed “NO, you just drank out of the Ni__er water fountain. We don’t do that down here!”

Whoa….what a shock. My first encounter with racism in the Deep South. There were a lot of similar lessons that summer. Down In Macon Georgia I was shocked to see Colored and White restrooms in the railway station. It was 1970 for God’s sake. Anyway, notwithstanding these strange encounters, the summer job was very challenging. I got to work in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and other towns in the south. The south was very rural, and very different from the north. I also had to learn an entire lingo…you don’t push a light switch in the south, you “mash” it. And anytime you asked directions, you were told “it’s just over yonder”. The southern guys would tell me “the civil war ain’t over, we are just waiting on reinforcements”. I went in a courthouse in South Georgia, and they had a huge confederate flag covering the entire wall, and down in the corner was a tiny American flag about two feet square. I was assigned to ride the passenger train locomotives from Atlanta to Washington DC and back to troubleshoot any locomotive failures. I remember jumping from locomotive to locomotive at 80+ MPH and thinking I am surely going to die. I also did acrobatic flying (yea, loop d’loops) with a fellow student engineer up in Tennessee. And two or three times I went soaring with him in a glider plane. It was truly a summer of new experiences and cultures. And Whenever I could at night, no matter what town I was in, I could always find a hoop game. I particularly remember some really good games at University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

1970-71 Season

Back to Athens in late September for the final year. Gone were McDivitt, Parker, Groff, Canine, and Glancey. Greg and John had shots at the NBA and ABA. There were big shoes to fill. It would be tough filling in for the 50 points of offense that the seniors provided the previous year.

Todd Lalich was coming off red shirt, and was a talented offensive player in the mold of Pistol Pete Maravich. In fact, we nicknamed him “Pete”. Bobby Howell, Tommy Corde, Buck Rumpke and Ralph Rogers moved up as juniors, and Ken Heiby and Jeff Knight moved up as Sophomores. From our successful freshman team of 1967-68, only myself, Craig Love, Ken Kowall, Mike Miller, and Larry Hunter remained. I often wondered how good we could have been if Prentiss Tallman could have stayed in school.

We started off the 1970 season in good shape. Knocked off Northwestern at Home and then flew to Missouri where we got homered. We had to fly the Ohio State DC-3 because of some trouble with our OU DC-3. That was maybe a bad omen. It was a rough flight. Speaking of the old DC-3, what a benefit that was. Allegedly, the DC-3 was one of the safest planes ever built. Rumor was it could fly on one wing and one engine if need be. Glad we never tested that theory. It was nice to be able to play in Kent, or Toledo, and be back in Athens by midnight. Sure beat 8 hour bus rides.

Problem with the DC-3 is it was not pressurized, and I think it could not fly above 12,000 feet. That seemed to put us right in the turbulence on many flights, so air sickness was an occasional problem. And I don’t think we had any real navigation gear. Seems like several times the pilot would slide back the cockpit curtain and ask us all to look for any lights on the ground that might signify we were over Athens. I remember those box lunches on the flights home. Another vague memory, or maybe urban myth, is that on one flight our baggage door came open and one of the player’s gym bags fell out over some farmers land in northern Ohio. Not sure if that is true or not, but seems to be.

Speaking of meals, I also remember the infamous pre-game meal. It was always a small steak filet, wrapped in bacon, with baked potato. Just right. We also got $2.00 in cash after home games at night to go uptown and get a hamburger at Frisch’s.

Back to the Missouri Game. Several of us were fouled out of the game by the homer refs.

The game went into 2 or 3 overtimes. Seems like at the end of regulation we were up by 2 and Missouri had the ball out of bounds with one second on the clock. They threw it inbounds, someone on our team hit it and it rolled out of bounds. No time went off the clock.

Then they tried again, and again same result with no time off the clock. Then they threw it in, clock never started, and some Missouri player caught it, took a dribble, scored to send the game into overtime. We had some bad calls go our way over the years, but the Missouri game stood out as the absolute worst. The Missouri gym was a huge barn that doubled for livestock shows I believe. The floor was portable and set up about 3 feet above the dirt. It had holes all over the floor it so they could put volleyball net poles through the floor at various locations. Talk about dead spots.

We came back home and beat Wisconsin, but then lost to Indiana in Bloomington (another Barn/Quonset Hut building). I think it was the beginning of the Indiana dynasty. George McGinnis, Joby Wright were freshman, and Bob Knight was one year from inheriting a great team. Then it was off to warmer weather in Orlando to play in the Tangerine Bowl between Christmas and New Years.

We beat home team Rollins in the first round, and then faced Seton Hall in the Championship. Seton Hall was coached by a young fiery coach named Bill Raferty (Yes, the same guy they now call “the dean” of the NCAA commentators). The game was close all the way to the end when Todd Lalich went to the line with seconds left and we were up 2.

Raferty called three straight timeouts in an effort to ice Todd. Todd finally went up and calmly hit the final two free throws to ice the win for the Tangerine Bowl Championship. It was our first Christmas tournament championship in 3 years.

We struggled our way through the MAC conference and ended up second place to hated Miami. We thought that would earn us a trip to the NIT, but no luck. That year the NIT went another direction and did not take the second place MAC team as was tradition. Instead, I think they took 4 or 5 Big ten teams that year, maybe in an effort for better TV ratings. So there was no post season for us, we finished a respectable 17-7, and 10-1 in the Convo.

Couple of memories from our 70-71 season. After coming back from Orlando, we were rooming up town in some new dorms, not the Ohio U Inn. While driving back to Athens after Christmas break my old Ford Fairlane suffered a bad water pump leak. I could keep putting antifreeze in it to keep running, but that was expensive. On New Year’s Eve I worked 4 hours under my car hood changing the water pump in the underground garage of Irving Hall.

The OU cops came by and wanted to know what I was doing, thinking maybe I was stealing the car or something. I finally got the water pump changed a little after midnight. I went upstairs and out on the west green to walk up town to our temporary dorm rooms. It had begun snowing that night and there was about 6-8 inches of snow on the west green, and only my footprints. It just seemed eerie, walking in the quiet snow and seeing all the darkened windows. Knowing this was my last year in Athens made it sort of a special moment to savor. Happy lonely new year 1971!

A not so pleasant memory was flying to Marshall that year to play the thundering herd. As we nudged our DC-3 out of the clouds and onto the runway of the Huntington Airport, we flew right over the wreckage of the ill-fated Marshall Football team plane crash. The plane crashed in November returning from an away game, killing everyone on board. Some of the wreckage was still laying there, just a thousand yards from the end of the runway. To make the Huntington airport, they merely flattened the top of the mountain, and it had steep slopes on every side. That fateful night the Marshall team plane came up short and hit the upslope.

It was a tragedy that shook the entire Ohio valley. A student who lived in Irvine a few doors from me had a good friend on the plane and he was going crazy with grief when the word got out that Saturday night.

Speaking of Marshall, it was a tough place to play. Cracker box field house that always seemed packed to the rafters with drunk coal miners. I can remember being pelted with red hot pennies (heated up with cigarette lighters) and ice balls from the rabid fans. We played against the D’Antoni brothers (Mike and Dan) at Marshall during our four years. Later they would become famous in coaching ranks. I went to the old field house on one of my business trips to Huntington in the 1990’s and it was being used for WWE wrestling matches. It looked small and insignificant standing there by itself, but still was a tough place to play in the 60’s and 70’s. It seemed like a fight always broke out during a Marshall Game for some reason. I remember a big fight, almost clearing the benches, at the Convo in 1970, with McDivitt and Parker ring leaders.

A more pleasant memory was our game in the Convo against Cincinnati. I had an old grade school friend that played for the bearcats and I wanted badly to win. It was also being broadcast back to Cincinnati where all my family, relatives, and many friends lived. I had a respectable game scoring 10; it was a good way to go out as a senior. All my cousins were proud to see me do well, but unhappy with the outcome since we beat the bearcats.

Another pleasant memory was our home game against Western Michigan in early March.

The Broncos had a big 6’9”center named Jenkins. He and Craig Love had battled head to head for three years and were probably the two best centers in the

MAC. In fact, I think their rivalry went back to Michigan high school days. Jenkins had fouled out I think. Toward the end of the game, we were up by 30, and Coach Snyder took Craig out of the game with a minute or two to go. Craig got a, long, standing ovation from the crowd. As Craig approached the bench, Jenkins stood up and raced to center court to shake hands with Craig in a genuine show of mutual respect and sportsmanship. It was a fitting way for both to end their career, and the kind of thing rarely seen in sports today. Two warriors showing respect in their final dance.

At the end of the season, only four out of the five seniors, were able to make the last game.

Larry Hunter had severely injured his knee against Wisconsin and missed the bulk of the season. Love, Kowall, Miller, and Wolf walked off the Convo floor for the last time in that big win against Western Michigan. We finished our three varsity seasons with a respectable 52-21 record, one MAC championship, and two runner ups. Also, one trip to the big dance, and one trip to the big apple for the NIT. We had beat just about every team in the Big Ten. Not bad for a bunch of guys that had come together from all kinds of places and backgrounds just four years prior. The four years seemed like a blink of the eye in retrospect, and as the years accumulate, the memories get harder and harder to remember. As Craig Love’s (or maybe McDivitt’s) tee shirt says “the older I get, the better I was”.

The season was bittersweet for Larry Hunter. He had battled back from a broken leg freshman year, to play a key role in our championship year. Larry was huge in our comeback win against Miami. Larry roomed in James hall with an Electrical Engineering buddy of mine. Larry and I became good friends our last two years in school. We played a lot of late night tennis under the lights over on the courts by the baseball field. That was usually followed by a trip to Dolan’s drive in. Dolan’s might have been open all night, I can’t remember for sure. I also met Larry’s brother Garry, who at the time was an airplane pilot. I went flying with Garry over and around the hills surrounding Athens. Garry was a good pilot; you had to be flying in those hills. There wasn’t much room for error coming into the Athens airport.

Six years after leaving Athens, in his first year as head coach of Wittenberg, Larry won the D III NCAA Championship. Larry left Western Carolina University in 2018 with over 700 career NCAA wins, ranking him 10th all-time of active coaches. Larry also led the Bobcats to the preseason NIT championship in 1995. Larry died suddenly in 2018 due to complications from a stroke.

I had to stay in Athens after my senior year to take two courses in a 5 week summer session in order to finish my degree. Back then, an engineering degree required something like 200+ quarter hours, while a general degree only required something like 175+ hours. Given the rigors of basketball, and many road trips, it was difficult scheduling all my electrical engineering classes. The EE school even scheduled Saturday morning classes my Junior year. Afternoon laboratory sessions had to be done by myself at night after practice. I think my senior year, Ralph Rogers (a fellow EE) and I teamed up to do our labs together at night. Anyway, I had to take

thermodynamics and matrix algebra in that accelerated summer session. I lived on the new South Green and hung out with some of the talented incoming freshman hoopsters coming in for summer session.

I also had become friends with Larry Starr, our basketball trainer for the past several seasons.

Larry and I used to head out many summer afternoons to Stroud’s Run beach to lay in the sun and ogle the girls. Maybe I had a car and he didn’t. On one of those trips, Larry said he had just got a call from the Cincinnati Reds and they wanted him to become assistant trainer for the Reds, with the promise of moving up to head trainer in a few years when the head trainer retired. We sat there going over the pro’s and con’s of moving on to the Reds. Larry really liked Athens, but the allure of the big leagues was overwhelming. Larry took the job and the rest is history. Four or five years later the Big Red Machine won the World Series and there was Larry Starr laying in the pile up on the pitcher’s mound. I think he made the cover of sports illustrated. Larry had a very successful run with the Big Red machine; I’m sure he never looked back on his decision. Whenever the Reds came to Atlanta to play the braves, Larry got me tickets to the games. We often got a chance to go out for dinner after the games, and one year, it seemed Larry ran with me in the 10K Peachtree road Race on July 4th.

Life after Athens: In a strange twist of fate, I had lined up an opportunity to play another year of basketball in Canada after my senior year. I had decided to go on to graduate school for a Master’s degree, with an emphasis on Management. During my 3 summer jobs as a student engineer, I noticed that all the bosses at the companies, even those that managed engineering functions, had a strong business background. Engineering was great, but you had to understand the financial implications of those engineering decisions. Anyway, we had an OU graduate assistant coach, Don Nelson, from Canada. He lined me up with coaches at McGill and University of Western Ontario to play another year of basketball in Canada. I could play ball another year, and earn my Master’s degree on scholarship. Sounded like a good idea, except for the Canadian winters.

Well, fate again intervened. A professor at OU had told me that Georgia Tech had an excellent Master’s degree program in Industrial Management, and you had to have an undergraduate engineering degree to be admitted. While home in Atlanta on spring break my senior year, I went down and met the dean of the management school at Georgia Tech. We had a good meeting, and on the spot, he offered me a graduate assistantship position paying several hundred dollars a month. They would also waive the out of state tuition requirement, making graduate school almost “free”. The position required me to work for different professors, maybe teaching, maybe doing research, or even just grading papers. I am sure my basketball experience helped me get the position because my grades were a tad under 3.0. The decision was made to attend Georgia Tech, and forgo any more basketball in frozen Canada. In a sense, I made the decision to trade in the sneakers for academic pursuits.

Georgia Tech turned out to be a strange place. Frist of all, out of 8,000 students I think there were only 12 women, and a few of those needed a DNA test for verification. There were a lot of misfits and malcontents in the faculty ranks, many seeking shelter from the Viet Nam War I think. All the students were walking 4.0’s, with many still sporting slide rules. I was lucky and had some really good profs in the MSIM program and enjoyed just being able to concentrate on studies, without icing a sprain or bruise at night.

The MSIM degree was a two year program. I had to write a graduate research thesis and did that for my old employer at Southern Railway. I graduated in March of 1973, and immediately went to work full time at Southern Railway in the Industrial Engineering department.

The best memory of Georgia Tech was that I lived with the President of Georgia Tech at his ante bellum mansion on the north side of campus. Joe Petit, the president of Tech, and his wife traveled a lot, and they wanted a student to live in the house full time to keep a watch on things. It made the rigors of Georgia Tech bearable. I think I paid $25.00 per month and had a terrace apartment fit for kings. It made a great student bachelor pad, with several acres of gardens to boot.

Another strange thing happened to me at Tech. In my first fall quarter on campus, I was walking across a parking lot one late afternoon in my OU letter jacket when I heard someone yell “hey Wolf!”. I turned around and this young student came running up to me and said, “aren’t you Gary Wolf?”. I looked at him puzzled and said, “yea, I’m Wolf”. He quickly said, “I’m Steve Sonnenberg from northern Ohio and I met you on a recruiting trip to Athens last year. I ended up coming here to Georgia Tech to play ball”. We started talking and he asked if I wanted to work out with their freshman team and help them out. It sounded good, and there I was back in sneakers. I got involved with the Tech basketball program coached by the legendary Wack Hyder. Coach Hyder was straight from the Jim Snyder Mold. It was fun being around hoopsters again, but without any pressure. I attended practices, all the home games, and even traveled to some of the away games. Steve and I became lifelong friends.

We served as each other’s best man at our weddings. Even today we see each other several times a year. I also stay in touch with some of the other Tech players who have become very successful in their own right.

Career stuff: Joined Southern Railway right out of Graduate School in 1973. In 1975 was offered a position to head up all track/train dynamic studies on the railroad, including derailment investigation. Was also qualified as a locomotive engineer and occasionally operated freight trains, mostly for testing purposes. Worked on some national research committees for the prevention of train accidents and got pretty well known throughout the north American rail community as a good expert on train wrecks. Advanced to Manager of the Research group at the railroad, but was looking for new challenges in

the late 1980’s so I formed my own railway engineering firm called Rail Sciences Inc. Funny story, I told my boss my intentions to resign and start Rail Sciences on October 14, 1987. Five days later was “Black Monday” and the largest stock crash since the depression. My boss called me in and said “I can tear up this resignation letter if you want”. I sort of had a come to Jesus moment. My fourth son had just been born, and here I am launching an unknown company, with no clients, in the midst of the worst stock crash of my lifetime. I thought a moment, looked him in the eye, and said “Thank you sir, but my course is plotted and I am going forward”. Never looked back. Over the next 25 years grew the company with a worldwide practice to 25 engineers, with offices in Atlanta and an office and metallurgical/testing lab in Omaha. We used to test patriot Missile nose cones since we had the largest compression tester (1/2million pounds) in the upper Midwest.

My Railway consulting practice took me all over the globe to every continent except Antarctica, and even two coal mines in West Virginia. Really broadened my Horizons as to how the rest of the world operated, and believe me, most Americans have no clue. While inspecting track in a Helicopter in Columbia was shot at by FARC guerrillas hiding in the jungle. Columbia was no man’s land back in the 90’s, but a beautiful country and people. Nearly froze to death in the Russia tundra on the Estonia-Russia border while performing locomotive testing. Got introduced to Islamic culture in the Sahara Sands of Mauritania Africa. Even did a little basketball clinic for Muslim kids in the compound. Walked the path of Christ in Israel going to Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the west bank, Galilee, and Nazareth. Worked a derailment in minus 40 degree temps in northern Alaska under the beautiful Aurora Borealis. Had to drive a snowmobile 5 miles just to get into the site. Ate a rodent called a lappa in Venezuela, basically a big rat. Got to see a billion stars in the Australian outback, including the southern Cross constellation. Ate Kangaroo, not bad. Traveled all over Mexico helping the railroads modernize, and learning what good Mexican food was. Set up a complete railway for Alcoa Aluminum in Jamaica, and trained all their locomotive engineers and maintenance folks. We were in the central mountains of Jamaica and it was pretty rough, lots of poverty. Not the beaches of Ocho Rios you see advertised. We stayed on an old banana plantation built in the 1600’s. Again, learned what good Jamaican food and rum was all about.

All in all, owing my company was a great ride with lots of adventure and learning. The travel started wearing on me. Airplanes are not kind to 6’8” folks, ask Greg or Craig. Have now logged 5 million miles on Delta alone. Even flight attendants come up to shake my hand. In 2010, I had a good offer to sell my company to a large German Engineering group and ran with it. Horrible mistake, the Germans did not understand US culture and ethics. I figured out pretty quickly why they lost WW II. Anyway, stayed on 3 years as president of the US operation, and resigned and went back to private consulting practice in 2013, where I have been the last 7 years. I don’t chase as many train wrecks as I did for the past 40 years (it’s a young’s man job), and am focused more now on teaching other folks how to investigate accidents. I teach about 15-20 2 or

3 day derailment seminars each year, which is a pretty easy work load. I still testify in major court cases as a derailment expert. Trying to ease into retirement and land the plane as they say.

For the past 6 or so years have been helping my oldest son Whitney start up his furniture making business in the warehouse building I own behind my office. We own two sawmills, and a drying kiln. We make all our own lumber. Totally sustainable. Interesting business and keeps me busy with a new challenge.

Family Stuff: Married a beautiful southern belle named Bonnie in 1974. We met in 1971 while both of us were in grad school and dated 3 years. She was a cheerleader and homecoming queen in college, with a warm southern accent ya’ll. We had 4 sons starting in 1979 and ending in 1987. In our earlier years we traveled a lot, mostly Europe staying at cheap pensiones and farms and eating at roadside cafes. Never spent more than $5 a night. Went to the 1976 winter Olympics in Innsbruck. Also, loved going to New England, mostly in the winter to cross country ski. Toured England and Europe with both our mom’s and 2 kids in 1985.

All the boys were involved in athletics, mostly hoops or running. Some really great times in the 1990’s taking them and their friends to Larry Hunter’s summer camps at OU. Larry had a great camp which ran every day from Sunday to Thursday, Ken Kowall, Buck Rumpke, and Bruce Heinrich (one of our team managers) all brought their son’s down the same week. We had a lot of fun playing golf, drinking beer, and even hitting the hardwoods a few nights after camp closed down. We stayed at the OU Inn, and kept the pizza parlors in business. Young athletes can devour pizzas. I kept bringing my kids to camp until Larry left OU in 2001. Always a good time Now have 4 grandchildren which has been great. They live a few miles from us in Atlanta so get to see them often. One son builds custom furniture, another son is a mega-dealer in sports memorabilia and coaches hoops at high school level, and another son is a pharmacist and now helps run the poison control center in Albuquerque. My oldest son tragically committed suicide while in college in 1999 He was on a cross country scholarship studying construction engineering. While at school he was battling depression, and to say the least, did not have the type of coach we had with coach Snyder. The coaches knew something was going on but never told us (new rules apparently). We never saw the signs when he came home on weekends, which later found out is typical of depression. It’s an insidious disease that affects something like one in five Americans. I learned way too much about it, unfortunately after the fact. As tragic as it was for our family, in a way it brought us all closer together and made us appreciate every day of life. I see two of my sons everyday since they work out of my office complex, which is a real blessing for any father.

Hobbies and interests: Got interested in sailing back in early 1970’s. Sailed my little 22 ft. sailboat from Florida over the Bahamas in 1973. Quite an adventure in the “devil’s triangle”. Captained other sailing trips with larger sailboats to the Florida Keys, the windward Islands, off California coast, Chesapeake Bay, and Vancouver bay. Unlike motor boating, sailing takes a lot of skill and attention. You are at the mercy of the ocean and the winds; it’s their arena, not yours.

Currently own a 33 ft. sailboat named “Top of the Quay”. Get it? See picture.

Have always been interested in woodworking since an early age. Have built two small wooden boats, and all kinds of furniture. I built a rowing shell back in the 1980’s that I used to take to Athens for the camps and rowed out on Stroud’s run. I remember Buck Rumpke gave the rowing shell a try, but was a little shaky. Rowing is all about balance and leg strength. It’s a great aerobic workout.

I also own two vintage vehicles, a 1948 Chevy Fleetline and a 1952 Chevy pickup truck.

With old cars you have to be a good/fair mechanic since it’s hard to find anyone who knows how to work on them. I have a little machine shop out back with a lathe and milling machine, welders, grinders, etc.

Started picking up golf again in the 1990’s at Hunter’s camps. Enjoy it immensely, but still pretty much suck Happy if I hit in the low 90’s. Don’t play enough to get good.

Second Home Bought a small cabin on a river out in Montana about 10 years ago. We are situated in Seeley Lake area, about 2 hours south of Glacier National Park. We are in the Swan valley and situated between the Rocky Mountains out front and the Mission Mountains on our backside. Our cabin is modest, but just the right size for us. We have electric service but are pretty much off the grid. We pump our water from the river, and heat with wood stove. I am trying to finish off a second guest cabin on the property this year. Got it pretty roughed in last year. Also have an enclosed pole barn. We go to the cabin for 4-6 weeks in the summer, and the whole month of October. Trying to extend those weeks as more retirement takes place. If anyone wants to visit Montana, we would love to have you stay at our cabin, whether we are there or not. We keep a key under a rock for visitors. Montana is a beautiful state, and if you haven’t seen Yellowstone or Glacier park, you have to put it on your bucket list. I found out Larry Coon worked in Montana and really seemed to enjoy it. You don’t know what “Big Sky” is all about until you visit Montana. Good fly fishing, hiking, camping, 4wheeling, boating, all nearby. The river in “A River Runs Through It” is about 15 miles away, and the author of the book, Norman Maclean’s cabin is about a mile away.

Playing Basketball at OU taught me a lot of life and business lessons, my top 10: 1.

Don’t get too high on the highs, or too low on the lows. Life has ups and downs and you have to stay centered. After every loss, re-focus, and come back to win again. The sun will rise again the next day. Enjoy the wins, but keep looking over your shoulder and never let your guard down. You actually learn more from the losses than the wins.

2.

A team is a group of individuals with a goal of winning. A committee is a bunch of folks wasting time and rarely getting anything accomplished (government). In business, your teams have to focus on goals, and not just process. Results matter, not putting in time.

3.

Every winning team is composed of all kinds of parts. To be successful you have to build on the strengths of each part, and minimize the weaknesses. Don’t try to put square pegs in round holes. Every group has prima donnas and think they are better than the team, but you have to emphasize the contributions of each person, and that you win and lose as a team. At OU, we were truly a team with many gifted individuals.

Coach Snyder forged us into a cohesive unit. Make every part of the team feel like they are significant and contributing to the success, no matter how small.

4.

Each person in an organization has to be treated differently. Some respond to ass kicking's, some respond to gentle nudging. No one size fits all. Coach Snyder knew this and acted accordingly.

5.

You have to trust the integrity and honesty of your leaders. Without trust, there is no respect. We knew our coaches had our backs and our best interest in mind at all times.

They cared about us off the court, as much as on the court.

6.

Work hard, but have fun. Laughter is good glue. Stay loose. “Put a little walk on it”

7.

Nothing in life is risk free. Every day we stepped on the court we accepted risk. Risk of injury, risk of failure, risk of shame, etc. Accept risk, manage risk appropriately, and keep moving forward.

8.

Learn to respond, and not simply react. In times of chaos, cool heads prevail. Every time we came to a time-out during a tense part of the game, there were the coaches, calm and collected, giving us a plan. “Response” is measured and appropriate for the circumstance, “reaction” is often pointless.

9.

Practice makes winners in any endeavor. Everyone wants to be a winner, but not everyone is willing to put in the practice time. Do you have the will to practice? Or simply the will to win?

10. There are 3 pillars to life – the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. Exercise all three.

Coach taught us to pray after every game, win or lose, we knew where he stood at all times. A great example to all of us. There is a God, and he will pull you through the tough times.

Future Teammate

Convo under construction at mid-court

Family

Events and Reunions over the past 50 years. As a team, we have had a reunion at the Convo every 10 years to celebrate our 1970 MAC championship year. In addition, we have kept in touch with visits and parties as time has permitted.

We have remained a team for 50 years and still going strong.

1980 – 10 Year Reunion

1990 – 20 Year Reunion

1990 – 20 Year Reunion

Bobcat reunion at Larry Hunter’s Summer Basketball Camp circa mid 1990’s

2010 - 40 Year Reunion

2010

Craig’s surprise 60th Birthday Party Birmingham MI

2019 - 50 Year Reunion Celebrating 50th Anniversary of Convo Opening

Members of the 1968-69 team returned to Athens to take part in the festivities, which included a Rohr Room dinner on Friday (Feb. 1) night and an on-court recognition prior to the tip off of the men's basketball game. Those in attendance included guard John Canine (Hazel Park, Mich.) forward Larry Coon (Athens, Ohio), guard Tom Corde (Maysville, Ky.), forward Bob Howell (Mendon, Ohio), guard Ken Kowall (Parma Heights, Ohio), center Craig Love (Franklin, Mich.), center Greg McDivitt (Windham, Ohio), guard Mike Miller (Middletown, Ohio), center Bernard "Buck" Rumpke (Cincinnati, Ohio) and center/forward Gary Wolf (Columbus, Ohio). Assistant coaches Dale Bandy and Mike Schuler were also in attendance, as was Garry Hunter, the twin brother of the late Larry Hunter (Athens, Ohio), who was a sophomore on the '68-69 team and served as head coach of the Bobcats from 1989-2001.

The following three pages contain quotes from 3 team members about the 50th convo anniversary and playing at OU

KEN KOWALL On catching up with his teammates "I think it's great to see everybody again. I think that's the best part of it.

The comradery and the ability to talk about all the war stories and nothing else matters. Everybody remembers the good stuff, nobody remembers the bad stuff, so that's the best part.“ On the bond his teammates formed playing at Ohio "I think that goes back to the coaching staff that we had at that time. We had Jim Snyder, who is legendary, and Dale Bandy and Mike Schuler were the assistants.

They developed a family atmosphere. If you look at the stats, and I think this is a great, telling story of our team, our junior year, our leading scorer was John Canine with 16 points per game, and the lowest starter was ten-and-a-half. Every game, there was a different leading scorer. Everybody played to the guy who had it going. I think that was a testament to the coaching staff.“ On memories of the win over Indiana in the Convo's first game "Four days before that, we lost at Ohio State. We had them tied at halftime, and they came back and beat us 12-2 to finish the game. We were really upset on the way that ended, and we didn't want to let it happen again here. Indiana got close, and we were able to finish this time. The facility was phenomenal, but I think it was beyond our comprehension at the time. We were just focused on trying to win the game.“ On playing for Jim Snyder "Legendary. Everybody should have somebody who touches their lives like he touched mine. The best part of him is that he cared more outside the lines than when you were inside the lines. He said, 'I can always get guys to play inside, but I want to develop you as a person and make you a better person and have a life after basketball."

CRAIG LOVE On being a part of the Convo 50 Celebration "It's incredible to think that 50 years have passed. It's a phenomenal thought. It's hard to think of yourself on the Convo being 70 years old. What impressed me, first of all, was that the Convo is just the same place as we came to play in. It is still, I think, the premier arena to play in in the country for playing basketball. It brings back memories of when we filled this place with 13,000 screaming fans and how much of a thrill that was for a 20-year-old playing college basketball. Coming back rekindles those memories. The other big impact is the team dynamic. We haven't been together for many years. A couple guys, I keep track of, but I don't see them every day. We get back together again, and the team dynamic is back.

Same comradery. Same kind of stories, some of them have been inflated and just keep getting better. For the players of today, the people playing in this Convo, to realize what they're doing today can still have an impact 50 years from now, I think should be the one takeaway from seeing this happen, because it was a special time in my life.“ On his memories of playing in the first game at the Convo "I was a sophomore. At that time, freshmen didn't play right away. I was in awe, playing in this huge arena with all of these people. I was on the bench. I didn't start. We were playing Indiana, a Big Ten team. In the first half, we were behind. But we hung tough. In the second half, I remember that we held them scoreless for four or five minutes in the second half and came back and won. That was kind of a coming of age, at least in my era, of the Ohio program. A huge, new, world-class arena, beating a Big Ten team on your home court. It was memorable.“ On his favorite memories of suiting up for the Bobcats "Some of my memories are stronger of the following seasons. In the 1969-70 season, we beat four out of five Big Ten teams we played that year. At one time, we were ranked fifth in the nation. We played really good. The game I really remember was winning the MAC Championship over Bowling Green here that year. We set an attendance record for the Convo. I don't really remember the specific games so much as vignettes of people and events and so forth and the overall fun of being here."

On the bond he shares with his teammates "I was never part of a fraternity. I didn't have any other groups. My family at school was my basketball team. To this day, they still are. They still are the guys that I bonded with through three or four years of college basketball. It is special. We've lost a couple. Just by chance, I happened to ride back in the plane with my teammate, Gary Wolf, who lives in Atlanta. He walks on the plane, and we're sitting right next one another, and we had the best hour on the plane reliving stuff. It is awesome."

JOHN CANINE On comradery with his teammates "All the years you play together, you bond, you attach, you do things together off the floor.

We had a very good chemistry with our guys. This is basically the same team my senior year when we were 20-4 and at one point ranked fifth in the nation -- the highest of any MidAmerican Conference school. We've just got a lot of memories and a lot of fun times and a had great coach in Jim Snyder, as well as Dale Bandy and Mike Schuler.“ On playing for Jim Snyder "He was a very value-centered coach. He wanted his players to finish school, get good grades. He wanted them to be good citizens. That was all more important than playing basketball. The big thing for me, I kind of had a hot dog side when I played, and he would have none of it. I told a story about throwing a pass behind the back against Indiana that Kenny Kowall scored. Coach Snyder took me out of the game, and he said, 'If you ever do that again at Ohio, you won't be playing anymore here.' I respected that, and it was what I needed to hear. He was an awesome coach, and he cared about his players.“ On playing in the first game at the Convo The thing that impressed me about this arena is that as you look around, everybody's right on top of you. I played at Grover for two years, and this was a totally different experience.

To think that you could get 10, 12, 13,000 people in there. When we played Bowling Green and when we played Purdue in 1970, both of those games drew over 12,000 people, and they were right on top of you. There were times when I played out here that you couldn't hear anything but the fans. You couldn't talk to another player on the floor because the fans were so loud. It's just a great arena to play in. Vernon Alden was an unbelievable visionary in that he saw things for Ohio University that other people did not see, and one of them was the Convocation Center. It's a great place to play.

On his fondest memories of playing at Ohio "We beat Purdue here with Rick Mount, who was a three-time All-American from Purdue.

That's a great memory. We played Bowling Green in the championship game my senior year in 1970, and we beat them to win the MAC Championship. That was another great memory.

We had some fun games here, too. I remember one year we played George Ireland and Loyola out of Chicago, and Ireland had seen me play two or three games prior to our game with them, and I scored a lot of points. So, he put a box-and-one on me, and I'll never forget, Coach Snyder called timeout after the first couple minutes, and he said, 'Johnny, they're playing a box-and-one on you. I want you to go to the corner and just stand. We'll play 'em four-on-four. And so that's what we did. I think I had nine points. It was my lowest score of the year, and I went in the corner and stood, and we beat them by 30 or 40 points."

Team watching 50th convo video and black and white footage of the 1968 Indiana game

Bobby regaling coaches and john with funny story

TC explaining to Kenny that if you ever pass the ball to a big man you will never see it again.

Greg and Buck shooting mostly air balls

Gary’s surprise 70th Birthday Party Atlanta GA 2019