At the time of Tom Blackburn’s death, the control of the athletic department was in the hands of the Athletic Board. “The Athletic Board was stacked with people that knew me.” remembers Donoher. “They had one meeting to go over the situation and it was more like a political campaign. The week after Tom’s funeral, Brother Lackner, who was the right hand man of Father Roesch, got the word to me that if I wanted the job, I had better get out and work for it. It wasn’t just going to be handed to me. I had refused to do any of that politicking when Coach was around. It never entered my mind. But after he died, I did what I had to do and worked hard to get the job.”

He had exactly 1½ years of experience as a high school freshman coach. He had another 1½ years of experience as an assistant coach at the collegiate level. Donoher related, “If the same thing happened today, there would be no chance that I would have gotten the job with the same level of experience. I got it strictly as a favorite son. Harry Baujan was behind me 100% and did his best to help me get the job. It went fast. Tom’s funeral was on Monday, the Board met on Friday and it was shortly after that, that I got the job.” Don Donoher was named the head coach at the University of Dayton almost 10 years to the day that he had played his last game for the Flyers. He was taking over a program that had averaged over 20 wins per season for the previous 15 years. This was not going to be an easy job.

The old saying goes, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Don Donoher had played for Tom Blackburn for four years. He had scouted and coached for him for three years. He was bound to be influenced by the master. “I got a lot of my coaching style from Tom. He was the only guy I was ever around. I found myself tweaking the offense my first year the more the season went on. Not so much as far as pace or tempo, but more play-minded. I was always a trial and error guy. He tended to do the same thing, essentially. Defensively and the way that practices were run, I would have to say that he put his stamp on me.”

Despite all of the success that the program had enjoyed during the previous 15 years, Donoher found himself with a team that had won the fewest games over a two-year period since Blackburn’s first two. The 1963-64 Flyers went 15-10 behind big Henry Finkel. The 6’ 11” sophomore had averaged 13 rebounds and 23 points per game. Two other players were returning (Henry Burlong and Bob Sullivan) that had averaged in double figures. There was certainly some reason for the hope that UD could get back on track for another stretch of 20 win seasons.

However, the college coach’s worst nightmare was about to rear it’s ugly head: The NBA came calling. Finkel had played one year for St. Peter’s and sat out one year before coming to Dayton. Having sat out one year because of the transfer, his sophomore year was the fourth after his entrance into college, which made him eligible for the draft. Losing someone with Henry’s abilities could bring a quick end to Donoher’s coaching career. “His mom wanted him to stay in college and he loved it here, so he came back and played for me my first year. He got drafted again after that year, but still came back. If it hadn’t been for Henry, I probably would have only had a one-year career. I only had a one-year contract. This job warranted someone with more experience.”

That first team finished 22-7 after losing to then No. 1 Michigan in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. The Flyers had made the move from the NIT to the NCAA for good. “The year after Tom Blackburn died, Tom Frericks made the decision that the NIT business was over. We knew that the NCAA had become THE tournament. Tom and I were on the same page. “

If Donoher was on a short leash, that first season gave him a good deal more breathing room. With that in mind and one of the best recruiting classes in years becoming sophomores and eligible to play, the outlook for the 1965-66 season was exceptional. The team didn’t let anyone down to begin the season and stood 10-1 with the only loss being to Maryland by two in the Championship of The Sugar Bowl Tournament. They continued to play well and finished the regular season 22-4. This was a team led by Henry Finkel and Don May. The dynamic duo averaged 43 points and 23.5 rebounds between the two of them for the season.

After winning a first round game against Miami, UD had to face No. 1 Kentucky in the Sweet 16. It was a close game all the way with UK squeezing out a victory, 86-79. This was to be a season of almosts. Few outside the program realized it, but this could have been the best Flyer team of all time. “I have always felt that the 1965-66 team was better than the team that went to the NCAA Finals in 1967,” said Donoher. “That year we were short one player, a senior, Denny Papp. He tore his knee up in the fall and we didn’t have him all year. He was a shooting machine, probably the best that has ever gone through that school. I have always felt that if we had had him all year, we would have won the whole thing. Kentucky knocked us out of the tournament with a 1-3-1 trap. If we would have had Papp and May in the corners, we would have been able to spread the floor and win that game.”

Quite possibly the best big man ever to play at UD had now graduated. Henry Finkel had Bill Uhl and Monk Meineke before him and as great as they were, they didn’t put up the numbers that big Henry did. Finkel still holds the record for highest lifetime scoring average for both a single season and career and field goals in a season. He stands third in career scoring and fifth in rebounding. There was no clear-cut choice for his successor. No matter who it was, there was going to be a considerable drop off. With that in mind, there was no indication going into the season that greatness awaited this team.

The lineup consisted of mostly juniors and sophomores with only one senior, Gene Klaus, seeing much action. Don May was the statistical leader with a 22.2 scoring and 16.7 rebounding average, and Bobby Joe Hooper was the floor leader. The rest of the cast was little more than pieces/parts that just happened to fit into a nearly perfect puzzle at the right time of the year. They finished the regular season 21-5 but on a down note, losing to DePaul on the road in the final game of the season.

The Flyers made it to the Finals before losing that year in one of the most storied runs in school history. They beat No. 6 Western Kentucky by two in OT. Then came No. 8 Tennessee and a 1-point victory. Unranked Virginia Tech also took UD to overtime before losing 71-66. Don May then put the team on his shoulders, made 13 straight shots, and carried UD to an easy 76-62 win over No. 4, North Carolina. Even Donoher was in a state of disbelief with the turn of events. “I never dreamed that this team would be that good. When we lost Finkel, I thought that we would be in a whole lot of hurt. We had some numbers, but I thought that we would fall off drastically. That tournament was just one miracle after another. We could have easily lost any of those games. Those were games that we just could have lost.”

The Flyers went on to lose the next night to UCLA and Lew Alcindor, but something more important was in the works. “The thing that I remember about the night of the win that got us to the Final Four was Tom Frericks telling me, ‘Tonight we built the new Arena. Now we strike.’ He had a vision in his head, but he had a tough sell. He felt that if we didn’t ride that victory, we could never get there. I’m not saying that Tom couldn’t have pulled it off anyway, but that solidified it. He gave it his all for that project. It was a masterpiece. It started with him going to the City and having a joint project with the building being downtown. That became such a political football. He had to sell it first to the University and then went to the city. When that didn’t work, he moved the site to the current location without City involvement. In less than three years, he went from nothing to having a building completed.”

There probably has never been the kind of build-up for a season like there was in 1967. The Flyers had just finished as runner-up to UCLA in the NCAA Tournament and virtually every player was back. Donoher was beginning his fourth season at the helm and had already won 70 games and been to the Sweet Sixteen twice and the Finals once.

In Donoher’s own words, “There was tremendous pressure in 1967-68. I felt it, the team felt it. The expectations were so high. It was just a classic job of choking up all across the board. Donnie (May) hurt his knee that summer and he wasn’t healed for the start of practice. We had some racial turmoil with Glinder (Torain) and Rudy (Waterman). Personnel-wise we had only lost Gene Klaus, but we quickly found out the value of Gene Klaus. We got off to a miserable start. We were torn apart after three games.

“We started mixing different lineups. You can talk about choking, dissension. There is nothing worse than losing. It just takes your heart and soul. The UK and UC games were only a basket away from being victories. It was a nightmare. What we had gotten to go our way the year before went in the opposite direction.”

They found themselves sitting at 7-9 after starting out the season as the sixth-rated team in the country. They had lost four games by one point and the walls were beginning to crash inward. Racial tension was running rampant across the country and in the locker room. Donoher tells of the difficulties. “Rudy had some hard feelings toward me from the previous year. At the Final Four, I didn’t play him much against North Carolina. We don’t win the game without Rudy against Western Kentucky. Against Tennessee, he wasn’t a factor because we needed shooters against their zone. The next night it is Rudy’s kind of game and he is a big factor. Against North Carolina, you just wait for that pressure to get you. I didn’t want to substitute for rest or anything because those guys were playing a flawless game. He was really hurt. He played a lot against UCLA but it was too late.

“When we started practice the next year, we had a few conversations. He had a problem with some of my policies like facial hair. I was raised like the U.S. Army — if you have a policy like that, why are you questioning that? It was little things like that. It didn’t take an Einstein to know that we weren’t socially on the same page. When we would take a bus trip, he would read books with a racial tone and the other players would look at that and wonder. “

Things finally began to click when Donoher settled on a lineup of Jim Gottshal, Bobby Joe Hooper, Don May, Dan Sadlier and Dan Obrovac. They went from being a team that when scrimmaging would have the second team win as often as the first to a first team that would triple the score on the second team. “It took us all that time to get things straightened out. We were lucky to get into the NIT. We finally just got some unity. Everyone understood his role.”

The team went on to win their last 14 games and take Dayton’s second NIT crown. The following year they were rated as high as 17 toward the end of the season, but lost in the first round of the NCAAs. Another first-round loss awaited Donoher’s men in 1969-70. The post-season tournament string came to an end in 1970-71 with a first round loss in the NIT. No one knew it at the time, but the glory years were over. Dayton would only go to the NCAA Tournament five times over the next 30 years.

Continue on to Part V.