The finality of it all had struck him like a ton of bricks. His great quest was over. Everything he had worked so hard for had come to a close more quickly than he could have ever imagined. He could no longer hold back the tears. The quiet giant that we all know as Mark Ashman covered his face with his jersey and let his emotions go.

“I was crying on the couch,” he says. “I took off my jersey and I knew it would be for the last time. It just hits you that you won’t be out there anymore.”

Mark Ashman grew up in a family that followed the Flyers. His dad was a Flyer fan in the glory years of the fifties and sixties and knew the history that we’ve all memorized. There are a number of us that were born and raised to be Flyers. Mark Ashman is one of them. The only trouble is that few of us grow to be 6-10 tall with the ability to find the bottom of the net from 20 feet. Mark was a highly-sought center who drew the attention of big name schools such as Michigan State and Cincinnati. If he didn’t have the courage to take on a challenge, he might still be playing in the NCAA Tournament for a team that assumes the tournament was put in place just for them. Instead, Mark decided that he would play for his beloved Flyers. The fact that they had only won seven games in 1994-95 and only 17 in the three years prior to his commitment did not deter him. He had always dreamed of wearing the red and blue and he wanted to be one of those that would lead us back to the tournament.

“We thought we could turn the program around,” says Ashman. “My goal was to be right where we are, in the tournament. I knew we had the players and coaches to get there. Coach Purnell convinced me that he could do it and he has.”

The very first time I saw Mark play was in the Ohio Boys All-Star game. Matt Cooper was there but Edwin Young had already committed to the Ohio-Kentucky All-Star game and was unable to attend. I was hoping to see the two big men that were going to lead us back to 20-win seasons and full houses at the Arena. What I saw that day did not enthuse me. Neither center touched the ball much and barely scored 10 points between them. Despite the fact that he had averaged over 25 points and 12 rebounds a game as a senior, I began to wonder if we had missed the boat once again.

The 1996-97 regular season hadn’t even started when I began to change my mind about this tall skinny kid from St. Mary’s, Ohio. I wrote this about Mark in one of the thousand or so notes I have thrown onto the Internet:

Ashman is a freshman but is probably the best freshman big man that we have seen in some time. He needs to get his hands on the ball more and I am sure that we will see that as he gets more accustomed to Hoskins and Hoskins with him. He has not impressed me with his strength as of yet. He added some weight since High School, but he still has balls taken away from him and does not control nearly as many as he should. That will improve with age. The rest of his game if sound, especially on the offensive end. He moves well with the ball and has a nice little jump shot from15 feet and in. I will be anxious to see him play the 3 or 4 next year with a shot blocking big man coming in to share the center spot. Before the season, I said he would join the 1,000 point club before he leaves. Let me refine that a bit and state that it will happen his junior year. He did indeed get to the 1,000 point mark his junior year. Not an overwhelming amount, but he ended up with more points than all but three centers to ever wear Dayton on their chest. He showed moves to the basket that we only got to see on Sports Center or by closely watching some of our better opponents. One has to wonder what he would have done with someone else playing center.

The 1998-99 season was one of great disappointment for both the fans and the players. We all had to wonder what was going to happen this year. The players had their own questions, but they entered the season with a different attitude.

“We had a bad year. Nobody stepped up to be a leader,” Ashman says. “The close losses really broke us down. We talked a lot about last year. The senior class decided that we would not let it happen again. All four of us really stepped up to make sure we were successful. From the very beginning this year, I really felt that we would go to the tournament. All of the preseason magazines picked us to finish 4th and we really used that to motivate us.”

Whatever it was that made the Flyers mesh this year is something that Purnell should put in a bottle and remember to bring out at the beginning of each year.

Maybe it was the vocal leadership of Edwin Young and Ted Fitz or the quiet leadership of Mark Ashman and Matt Cooper, but this was a team that was all about winning. No one ever complained about playing time or the number of shots that they were given. This was a team that had one goal in mind and that was a trip to the NCAA tournament.

It all came down to Selection Sunday and CBS made sure that they kept us all in suspense.

“I really didn’t get nervous until after they showed the Midwest bracket. Everybody just got quiet. There was no more joking around at that point. It was the most nervous that I have ever been. Tony and I couldn’t even look at the TV. I had my head down. Everybody went crazy when they finally did announce Dayton. We didn’t even hear who we were playing.”

The Flyers were in the Big Dance for the first time in a decade and they couldn’t have been happier. “The first couple of days [in Tucson] it wasn’t any different,” he says. “Then it got to be game time and it was an unbelievable feeling. Everybody watching you on CBS, you finally have your dream of playing in the tournament. It’s just too bad it didn’t last any longer.”

Even though Mark has always placed the team before his own goals, he isn’t ready to stop playing basketball. He will soon be participating in the largest and most important of the NBA pre-draft camps in Portsmouth, VA, beginning April 5. He will continue to work out with the weights and in the gym on a daily basis with the coaches hoping to maintain the edge that made him a First Team All-Atlantic 10 selection. School will not be forgotten, however, as Mark will graduate with the rest of the senior class this May. We have all known Mark Ashman for the last four years, if only through the newspapers and on the court. He is indeed quiet and it is virtually impossible to get a complaint from him about his lot in life. He came to UD with the hope of playing the power forward position, but never got the opportunity. The last two years he rarely had one defender to worry about. It was often hard to find him on the floor due to the fact that there was someone with the wrong colored jersey plastered to both his front and back. During his senior year he was hobbled by injury after injury, yet we never heard one complaint or one excuse. Mark came to UD to play basketball, take us back to where we belong and to excel as a person. I’d have to say he met his goals.