“I feel honored to be interviewed by you.”

That was how the interview ended, after thanking Joe Ashburn for spending 45 minutes of his time with me. Those eight words say a great deal about the last player in any UD game. Mind you, Joe was not being interviewed by a well-known writer. He wasn’t even getting interviewed by somebody that gets paid for his writing. He was “honored” to be talking to an amateur.

The only reason that I even bring this up is because it says a lot about Joe Ashburn — the person. As fans, we tend to lump most athletes together. The ones we usually hear about are the ones that make more money in a week than we do in several years. We hear about the drugs, the violence, and all the other bad things these pampered brats have a tendency to do. We don’t hear a great deal about the Joe Ashburns of the world. Joe and his older brother grew up as basketball players. They played together for two years while they were in high school and did well. Joe’s brother was a pretty good player in his own right and was getting some looks from a number of mid-majors until he tore his ACL during his senior season. He went on to play at Youngstown State for a year, but he eventually had to give it up. One would think that misfortune such as this would strike a family once only once, but that was not to be the case.

“We had a good team my sophomore season when my brother was a senior,” said Joe. “There were several seniors on that team, so when I became a junior I had more of an opportunity to play and do well.” He not only did well, he made the All-Akron First Team. Averaging nearly 20 points and 8 assists a game, the college coaches began to notice. “After my junior year I got calls from a number of schools: Tennessee, Valparaiso, Akron, Kent, along with a number of other MAC schools,” he said. “I had a pretty good summer in AAU ball and was really looking forward to signing with somebody.” But then the bubble began to burst.
“I’m not sure how I got it, but I developed turf toe before the beginning of my senior season. I was getting treatment for that and it was beginning to respond when I sprained my ankle in our first game. For the first seven games of the season there was still a lot of pain with the ankle.”

Little did he know it, but Ashburn had lost his opportunity to play with the big boys when he injured the ankle. But Joe isn’t just about Joe. Even then, he realized it wasn’t just about how many points he scored. “My numbers were down but I really wasn’t too worried because the team was doing well,” Joe said. And it wasn’t just about playing basketball either. “I had a lot of hype going into the year but then I had the injury and stopped putting up big numbers. A result, they [the recruiters] all backed off. Losing the scholarship offers was tough, but I still had academics to fall back on. My main goal was to get my education. I was heartbroken but it was something that I could get over.”

But Joe isn’t the kind of guy that could let it all slip away without giving it his all. Despite what happened to him at the beginning of his senior year, he came back strong during the last seven games — averaging over 22 points. It was not enough to get the Division I schools interested again, but several Division III schools came calling.

“I thought about playing Division III and visited the University of Chicago. They put together a nice academic/financial package for me, but after watching them play, I really didn’t feel that the competition was very good,” Joe said. “I didn’t want to play just to play. I really wanted to see how I could do against the top players.” Most casual fans probably don’t realize just how good Joe was in high school. The normal assumption is that walk-ons aren’t very good because they couldn’t get a scholarship. However, if you compare Ashburn’s accomplishments in his last two years of HS ball against both Edwin Young and David Morris, he would be the best of the three.

It was because of his desire to excel that brought Joe to UD. Although he also looked at Miami and other Ohio schools, there was something special about the University of Dayton. Joe explains, “Coach Strickland had written me a few letters so I took a look at UD when it came time to decide on a school to attend. Everybody was very nice and accepting and I was lucky enough to get some academic scholarship money. When I came here on my visit, I realized it was a special place.”

Getting here and making the team are two very different things, however. Joe had his work cut out for him. “The walk-on process consists of a one-day tryout,” he said. “There were 16 of us trying out that day and three of us were asked to come to the first week of practice for further evaluation. They ended up keeping just two of us.”

Simply getting on the team was a thrill for Joe, “I just feel honored that Coach Purnell would give me an opportunity to be a part of the team and show what I can do. The fans have shown me nothing but love and support, they always encourage me after the game. I feel extra pressure because of their belief, but it’s great. I’ve never experienced anything like it.” He goes on to say, “I called my mom after one of the first games and told her how crazy the crowd gets.”

Joe will never give up his dream because he is like every other player on the team. He works his butt off in the preseason and at every practice. “The practices are the same for me as they are for everybody else,” he stated. “I have to go through the same conditioning, the same drills, and the same scrimmages. I feel I do well in the practices but it just hasn’t leaked over into the games as much as I would like. It all takes time.” He’s very realistic when it comes to his chances, but that will never slow him down. “I’m not the kind of person that tries to do too much, I just want to be able to contribute. After the Coastal Carolina game I was really looking forward to getting some more minutes. I feel I can help out. Sure, I’m a little frustrated with not playing more, but that’s they way it is when you are a competitor. It just makes you stronger as a person. I feel I’ll have opportunities in the future to show what I can do. You cannot argue with the system. We’re winning and that is what is important.” Joe Ashburn is all about winning, not only when it comes to basketball but everything he does in life. When he was in high school he realized that an education in the classroom was more important than an education on the basketball court. You have to root for a kid that has his house in order and knows what is really important in life. How many of us would have had the courage to keep going when life dealt us the blow that Joe received his senior year? Imagine twisting an ankle and losing a scholarship that is worth over $100,000. Joe didn’t give up then and he won’t give up now. He knows he has talent and it’s only a question of time before he gets the opportunity to show us all.