Nearly 40 years after his death, Tom Blackburn remains an icon to UD basketball fans. His name is emblazoned on the court at the University of Dayton Arena. In 17 seasons, he guided the Flyers to an overall record of 352-141 and elevated a once-obscure program to national prominence. He was inducted into the UD Hall of Fame in 1969, and some UD fans say that Blackburn’s absence from the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., is a wrong that should be corrected. Personally, I agree that he belongs in the Hall. He recruited athletes who exhibited quality both on and off the court. He earned the respect of his peers, as well as his players. He made UD basketball a way of life in the greater Dayton community, engendering an interest that brought, first, the UD Fieldhouse and, later, UD Arena.

But what kind of man was Blackburn? If you return to his coaching roots here in Xenia to ask that question, the answer is, at turns, both obvious and elusive. Former players, still fiercely loyal to him, describe a coach whose reputation as a stern disciplinarian and taskmaster was entrenched long before his days at UD. He was demanding but fair, most agree. One former player describes him as an almost father-like figure. But the one person who should have known him best, his only son, has nothing but bitter memories of Tom Blackburn and describes him as an inattentive, cold and uncaring father.

Ted Blackburn, now 71 and still a resident of Xenia, said his father spent his early years on the family farm near Rarden, Ohio, in Scioto County. After Tom’s father died, leaving a widow and five children, the farm was lost through foreclosure. Unable to meet the needs of the children, Tom’s mother sent them to be raised by her various sisters. Tom wound up in Peebles, Ohio, in the care of his Aunt Clindy. There, he excelled in sports and was awarded a local scholarship, helping him attend Wilmington College, where he played football, basketball and baseball. After graduating from Wilmington, he joined the faculty of West Carrollton schools.

Tom Blackburn was hired at Xenia Central High School in 1935, primarily in hopes that he could turn around a moribund football program that had won only one game the previous year. Turn it around he did, compiling consistent winning records. As much as he succeeded as football coach, he did even better as basketball coach, culminating with the state big-school Class A championship trophy in 1942 after losing the championship game in 1941.

Kenny White, one member of that state championship team, says of Blackburn: “Football was his first love. In fact, you had to play football if you wanted to play basketball for him. He looked at basketball as a way to spend the winter months.”

White describes practice sessions under Blackburn in one word: ‘Terrible.’ “He’d make you run, run, run, run, and then run some more. And at the end of each practice, we had to shoot 50 free throws. No matter how well you might do, he wanted you to do better.”

Tom Adair, another member of the state championship team, describes the Blackburn era in Xenia as a “love-hate situation.”

“He was tough and demanding, but you played for him,” Adair said. “He was a winner. I had the greatest admiration for him.”

Adair said there were some malcontents on the football and basketball teams who muttered among themselves, but they never let their voices be heard by Blackburn. “Some thought he was just too tough,” Adair said.

Those grumblings obviously extended beyond the locker rooms, because the Xenia community was divided on Blackburn.

“People loved his results, but some didn’t like the way he handled the kids,” Adair said. “Was he tough? Yes. But he was also fair.”

Joe Newcomer played football for Blackburn at Xenia and also took turns as his caddy on the golf course.

“I always liked Tom Blackburn,” Newcomer said. “Funny thing, people say he was a chain smoker, but I don’t remember ever seeing him smoke,” he said of the man whose 1964 death was attributed to lung cancer. “As a coach, he was tough, but he was a winner.” Then, with a laugh, Newcomer added, ³Of course, he did some things that a coach couldn¹t get away with today. The paddle, for instance.”

Ah, the paddle — that flat board wielded by Blackburn or, most often, by his assistant, Paul Boxwell, to “encourage” the football players to get off the line quickly to avoid the full sting of wood making contact with buttocks.

Adair chuckles that it was really no big deal, saying, “That paddle story has grown in Xenia lore through the years.” And, he’s right. In reality, Blackburn was no more radical than most of his contemporaries in coming up with ways to motivate his players.

Bill Diamond, another two-sport player under Blackburn, reinforces the image of Blackburn as a strict disciplinarian. He said the effects of the Blackburn regimen were compounded by the fact that players in those days couldn’t refresh themselves with water during practice or games.

“It was pretty universal at the time,” Diamond said. “It was just felt that athletes shouldn’t have water while playing, another of those theories that change through the years.”

Diamond remains a staunch supporter and admirer of both Blackburn and the Flyers basketball program. He and his wife have been season ticket holders since the days of the old Fieldhouse and now sit in Section 116 at the UD Arena.

Another Blackburn trademark that emerged in Xenia was his often-stoic appearance on the bench. Adair recalls that he was almost emotionless. “We knew he was mad if he didn’t talk to us at halftime,” he said.

Ted Blackburn says he knows first-hand the deflating effects of the Tom Blackburn silent treatment.

“He was not a father. I never had a conversation with that man,” he said, avoiding the use of the words “father” and “dad” and, instead, saying “that man” or “Tom Blackburn” when referring to his father. “I chased after that man for years” hoping to make a connection, he said. That chase ended at Tom’s deathbed in a poignant moment later described by Ted.

Ted recalls one childhood Christmas when he received a second-hand bicycle and asked Tom to push him around on it. For reasons Ted couldn’t explain, Tom flew into a rage, he said, dragged him and the bicycle outside and pulled him up and down the street by the collar as Ted sobbed.

“When you have a child, you have a responsibility to nurture that child,” Ted said. “Tom Blackburn was not a father. He was terrified of his responsibilities as a father and, like a child, himself, looked for a place to hide. He found that place in sports and the glory that came with sports.”

Contrast Ted’s remarks with those of Kenny White, who recalls an incident that occurred at a Xenia Central basketball game. During a timeout, Blackburn said, “White, what’s the score?” White looked at the scoreboard but couldn’t read it, so he turned to teammate Kenny Boxwell and asked, “Boxwell, what’s the score?” Blackburn immediately said, “White, I’m picking you up tomorrow and we’re going to get you a pair of glasses.” The following day, White had his first glasses, courtesy of Tom Blackburn.

The Whites and the Blackburns were neighbors on South Monroe Street at the time, and Blackburn taxied White to school every morning. White has nothing but fond memories of his old coach.

White described another incident that stands out in his mind. He was at practice one day and had to keep brushing his long hair away from his eyes. Blackburn ordered him to get a haircut before the next day’s practice or face the prospect of having Blackburn give him a haircut.

“For one reason or another, I didn’t get the haircut,” White said. “When I showed up at practice the next day, Blackburn gave me a haircut, just like he said he would. When I got home and my mother saw my hair, she could have shot Tom Blackburn. But when my hair grew back, it was wavy instead of the straight hair I had always had. My mother was thrilled. She thought Tom Blackburn was the greatest man alive.”

After winning the state championship in 1942, Blackburn coached one more year at Xenia before entering the Navy. He was assigned to North Carolina, where he was a survival training instructor. It was during his Navy service that his marriage to Ted’s mother disintegrated. They were divorced shortly thereafter. On leaving the Navy in 1946, Blackburn found little financial incentive to return to Xenia Central. Instead, he took a job as a golf pro in Greenville. He ultimately remarried. While working at the Greenville golf course, Blackburn had a conversation with UD Athletic Director Harry Baujan that led to his being offered the UD basketball job, according to Ted.

Published reports since then have indicated that Blackburn took the “spare time” UD coaching job at a salary of $1,200. In his inaugural season of 1947-48, his team had a record of 12-14. It was to be his only losing season at the helm of the Flyers. In those days, the Flyers played their home games at the old Fairgrounds Coliseum. With Blackburn’s success, though, came the UD Fieldhouse, which opened for the 1950-51 season and was the launching pad for the proud program that continues today.

When his father was in the final stages of cancer, Ted said, he slipped into his hospital room five or six times to be at his bedside. For the most part, his father was in a stupor and seemed to be talking to his athletes, but there was one occasion when Tom was aware of his presence, Ted recalled.

“We made eye contact, then he talked to me, only briefly, about his most recent surgery,” Ted said. “As he talked, I brushed my hand over his hair.”

Another frequent hospital visitor was Don Donoher, who played for Blackburn at UD, later became his assistant and ultimately succeeded him as coach following his death.

Dayton newspaperman Ritter Collett, in his 1989 book “The Flyers: A History of University of Dayton Basketball,” quotes Donoher as saying:

“I visited him in the hospital every day. He did not want any of his players to come there. He did not want them to see him in the condition he was in.

“You know, as players, we used to talk about how tough he was, but he was tougher on himself than he ever was on any of us. That was so evident in his last year. He put himself needlessly through the wringer. He wasn¹t a church goer but had some deeply-rooted beliefs, one of them being you had a job to do and you had no choice but to do it.

“He was a great guy to work for. He was much easier to work for than to play for. But he did much more for his players than any of us realized when we were playing for him.”

There is no question that Blackburn the coach was extremely successful. Perhaps the true nature of Blackburn, the man, will never be known. In the Collett book, Donoher is quoted as saying that Blackburn “was aloof from players and never warmed up openly.” And writing in The Basketball News after Blackburn’s death, UD Sports Publicity Director Joe McLaughlin said of him, “He was a man who stayed within himself. He seldom confided in people. He chose his close associates carefully. He knew where to get help when he needed it.”

The best conclusion might have come from Blackburn, himself, when 50 of his former players showed up for a special tribute dinner at Dayton’s Van Cleve Hotel just one month before his death.

Sports writer Joe Burns described the scene in a Dayton Daily News story when he told how the cancer-weakened 58 year-old Blackburn was unable to make it through his prepared text, but gave his former players these closing words:

“Regardless of how hard I might have seemed, I didn’t want anything but the best for you, and of you.”

[Originally Written by “XeniaTom”]