The Korean War was in the back of everyone’s mind during the early 1950s. Trying to delay the inevitable, Donoher enrolled in ROTC. “I was having such a good time playing basketball that I did what I needed to do. At that age, you don’t think too far past today. I really kind of enjoyed ROTC. The experience and the ability to go into the Army as an officer was very worthwhile.”

Donoher was in the Army for two years after graduation. He started out at Fort Benning for infantry school and then received orders to go to Germany in the spring of 1955. Don married Sonia just before he went to Fort Benning. Before going to Germany, he needed to get UD basketball out of his blood. “I used up two years of leave time to watch the end of the UD season before going to Germany.”

Then in the fall of 1956 they returned to the United States. With two years of Army experience and a diploma from the School of Business, Donoher decided to make his mark in the real world. Taking a job with a company called Ditto, it was time to hone what would become his ability to sell himself to future recruits by becoming a salesman. While at Ditto, the time away from basketball was beginning to tear at him. Donoher decided one day to see his old coach and run a few ideas past him. “I told him that I would like to stay in basketball, and I asked him what he thought about officiating. He advised me against that so I suggested scouting. He said that if I was serious about scouting, he could give me all of the scouting I could handle. About a month later he gave me a call and said he would like to try me out. The US Olympic team was coming through Dayton to play the Peoria Caterpillars.”

The AAU teams during that period were better than college teams and would often play at the Fieldhouse. “I remember sitting in the Fieldhouse on press row and scouting the Olympians I went home and wrote that report in the wee hours. I slid it under his door the next morning. After reading through it, Tom mailed it to the Phillips Oilers.” Donoher didn’t know it at the time, but his life without basketball had come to an abrupt halt.

That winter, Blackburn would assign Donoher various games to scout. During the time that he was a salesman for Ditto he scouted many UD opponents for $25 a game plus expenses. As Blackburn became more comfortable with Donoher and his style, he increased his responsibilities. “I would blow off my job to help prepare the scout team for Tom. That was really my big break to get into coaching. I did that up until the time that I went to Chaminade in 1961 and even during the time at Chaminade.”

Once he got back in the game with the early scouting for Blackburn, the desire to coach got to the point where Donoher couldn’t ignore it any longer. “When I got out of the Army I would have given my eyeteeth to teach and coach despite the fact that I had gotten a degree in business. Finally, it just ate away and ate away and then Tom Frericks opened the door for me. He had an opening at Chaminade, and being a parochial school, I didn’t need certification. He just said go back to UD and work on it while coaching.”

Donoher coached the freshmen while Frericks handled the varsity. They worked together to coach the JVs and Donoher had gotten his wish. Knowing he was never going to set the world on fire as a salesman, he knew that he could do more. Coaching allowed him to do that. He was in his second year at Chaminade when Blackburn once again came calling. “When Dayton went on probation, Tom was called on the carpet by the administration. During that time, he said that he needed more help on his staff. We were going over a scouting report around Christmas time and he asked me if I had an interest in coming to UD full time. I asked him if he was talking about next spring and he said no, right now. I thought, ‘Oh my Lord, I’m going to have to walk out on my team and all of the classes that I was teaching.’ Chaminade agreed to let me out and I moved to UD. I went on the payroll Feb. 1, 1963.”

In 1951, when Donoher came to UD, his freshman coach was a former player who was no longer able to play due to an injury. For years, the freshman coach was a student at UD. There weren’t even any part time coaches. By the time that Donoher came back, Herb Dintaman was coaching the freshman. When Donoher started it was only for nine months. Recruiting was still viewed as an important aspect for any successful program, but it certainly wasn’t a 12-month proposition.

“By this time, the importance of basketball around the country had increased quite a bit. There was more money and new arenas. It was becoming more like football. As a result, the emphasis on recruiting became more important. When I came on at UD, we didn’t start recruiting until Feb. 1. By that time now, they already have the juniors identified. With all the summer camps now, it is like night and day.”

When Donoher started his coaching career at UD, he was paid $4,800 per year, the same as he was making at Chaminade. To help meet expenses, Don worked at River Downs during the summer at a ticket counter. When he returned to school in the fall of 1963, he was surprised not to be met by Blackburn in his office. “When I came back from working at the racetrack just after Labor Day, I went to the office and he wasn’t in. He didn’t come in all week and I wondered what was going on. He came in Friday afternoon and I asked him what was wrong and he said that he had a chest cold that he couldn’t shake. A couple of weeks later, he told me that he was going to have to go into the hospital for some exploratory surgery. After he went in, word got out quickly that they had opened his chest and just sown him back up.

“He was a chain smoker. He was doomed, but he never let on. I remember him telling a reporter after he got out of the hospital that he had had cancer but now he was cured. It was the first time that I had heard him use the ‘C’ word. It was shortly after the first practice that he lost his voice. As a result, he wanted me around for practice. This was unusual, because he never wanted any coaches around for his practices. I was the freshman coach, but he pulled me up to help with the varsity practices. That is when Paul Westhead took over the freshmen.”

Tom Blackburn was University of Dayton basketball. He had taken a program that was in shambles and made it into an institution. During the 13 years between 1949 and 1962, his teams won 293 games while only losing 93. They went to the NIT Finals six times during those 13 years. UD went from playing at the Fairgrounds to filling the Fieldhouse every time that they played. UD was on its way to having more wins than any other program during the 1950s and 1960s. Tom Blackburn was UD basketball.

“It was a tough year for the players because he just wasn’t himself. There would be practices that he would just sit there. After we would get beat, there were times that he would have them run the three-man weave the entire practice. He would just run their legs off. Morale wasn’t very good. There were times that they would go on the road and when they would come back, he would be too beat to take them through practice the next day. He would eventually show up, looking like the wrath of God. He was tough as nails, so hard on himself. He didn’t leave the job until he went into the hospital for the last time. He finally packed it in one Saturday when Mrs. Blackburn called and told me that I would have the team that night. I still didn’t believe that he wouldn’t show up.”

Tom Blackburn was gone, at the age of 58, six days later.

Continue on to Part IV.