Will be at HCPL from 6-7:30 p.m. on Oct. 29
Dan Issel has had a lot of great things happen in his life, from becoming the University of Kentucky’s all-time men’s basketball leading scorer to his Hall of Fame professional career, plus his long and happy marriage to his wife, Cheri, and the family they made.
But there were also low points.
Like the time in 2001, after his playing career when he was coaching the Denver Nuggets, when a heckling fan got under his skin after a game and Issel responded with a slur that was caught on camera. Despite his subsequent apology, the incident led to him resigning his coaching job.
Or his 2009 bankruptcy that cost him practically everything, from his home to his ABA championship and Hall of Fame rings.
Issel is telling the stories about the high points and low ebbs of his life in a new book, “Dan Issel: From Kentucky Wildcat to NBA Legend.”
Next month, Issel will be in Henderson to share stories from his legendary career, discuss his new book and sign copies of the book, which can be ordered in advance.
His appearance will take place from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, at the Henderson County Public Library.
Seating will be limited and registration is required. Those wanting to buy a paperback copy of the book to be signed should register for the event and reserve a copy by Sept. 29. The cost is $20, with payment and pickup taking place at the event.
Register here or at the events page at hcpl.org.
***
Issel wrote a memoir, titled “Parting Shots,” in 1985 at the end of his professional basketball career. Why write another?
“There were 40 more years of stories and good things and a couple of bad things,” he told the Hendersonian in a phone interview from his home in suburban Denver.
Issel has written the book with journalist Doug Brunk, who had written or co-authored three other books about Kentucky basketball.
“When he approached me about this, I told him this would be an opportunity to tell the whole story,” Issel said. “I said, ‘I don’t want this to be an Instagram post. I want this to be the whole story and all of the great things that have happened to Cheri and me in our lives and how we got through the tough times.’ I’m very pleased with the way that it turned out.”
The controversy over the ethnic slur and the later bankruptcy “were painful at the time. But I was able through them and come out the other side and be just fine. And so I wanted to include them in the story so that people who read the book, if they were going through some tough times, maybe they would see how I was able to handle it and everything turned out great and maybe they’ll be able to do the same thing.”
Mostly, Issel’s life has been positive, successful.
He grew up in Batavia, Illinois, a distant Chicago suburb that was mostly rural, with a population of about 7,500.
“It was kind of a blue-collar town with a good work ethic, and, yeah, it was a good place to go to high school,” Issel said.
After his sophomore year, he shot up to 6-foot-7, topping 6-foot-8 as a senior (though he said when college scouts came to town, the Batavia High School public address announcer, an English teacher, would introduce Issel as being 6-foot-11). He would eventually stand 6-foot-9 and weigh 235 pounds.
But he said he was “not at all” a natural athlete.
“I didn’t start for the varsity team ’til my junior year,” Issel said. “I wasn’t even good enough to make the varsity team as a sophomore. I got a real break before my junior year. The school hired a new coach, Don Vandersnick, who took a real interest in me and would work with me. We’d practice for, you know, 2 1/2 hours and then he’d keep me for an extra 45 minutes and we’d work on foot work and shooting, and I think I got by being sound fundamentally and working hard at it. I was about as far from being a natural athlete as you can get, I think.”
After a terrific high school career, Issel was being recruited by multiple schools. He wasn’t legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp’s first choice as an incoming center. But when Rupp’s first two choices signed with other schools, UK stepped up its recruitment of the big Illinois kid.
“I still remember my dad coming into my bedroom saying, ‘You know, if you’re serious about this basketball thing, they tell me Kentucky’s had more All-Americans and more professional players than any school in the country.’ He said, ‘Maybe we better take a second look at that,’ and that’s exactly what we did. And it was probably the best decision I ever made.”
It was also there that he met a pretty UK cheerleader from Lexington, Cheri Hughes, who has been his wife for 57 years. (Issel dedicated his new book to her, calling her “my partner through all these years, and still the prettiest cheerleader in Kentucky.”)
“So, it was the best decision I ever made, not only for my basketball career, but my personal life as well,” Issel said of going to UK.
Was playing for a successful but demanding coach like Rupp a pleasure or a burden?
“It was it was a joy beyond all joy,” Issel said. “It was playing for one of the top college programs in the country and playing for the top college coach in the country and, you know, we were fortunate to have some success. We never got to the Final Four. But we had some pretty good seasons while we were there and so it was a delight.
“I tell people, I was fortunate enough to play 25 years of organized basketball from junior high through 15 years as a pro, but my four favorite years was the four years I was in Lexington.”
He left UK having scored 2,138 points, including 948 points in his senior year. Both remain UK men’s basketball records. In his senior season, he averaged 33.9 points a game and was first-team consensus All America.
Over his college career, he broke 23 school records and led the Wildcats to three Southeastern Conference titles.
Issel was drafted in the first round of the 1970 American Basketball Association draft by the Kentucky Colonels and averaged 29.9 points per game as a rookie, which led the league. He was a six-time All-Star in the ABA.
He went on to play in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets’ and ranks third on the Nuggets’ all-time scoring list.
His 27,482 total points rank fifth on the all-time combined ABA/NBA scoring list, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and Moses Malone.
Over 15 professional seasons, he played in more than 1,200 games, missing only 24 (and not a single playoff game), earning him the nickname The Horse for his durability.
“I tell people I didn’t run fast enough or jump high enough to get hurt,” he joked. “I think people have different thresholds of pain, and, you know, it didn’t bother me to play with a little bump or bruise or being a little under the weather.
“I have such a hard time with today’s NBA, with this load management,” the practice of resting a healthy player during the regular season to reduce their physical stress, Issel said. “You know, if I had walked in the locker room when I was playing and said, ‘You know, guys, there’s nothing wrong with me, but I played 40 minutes last night and we got a game two nights from now, so I’m going to take tonight off.’ They would have beat me up.
“You’re supposed to, if you’re able, you’re supposed to be out there helping your team win. And so that’s what that was, you know, always the view I took. I probably played some games I shouldn’t have and I probably — certainly — played some games (when) I didn’t make much of a contribution, but at least I was out there helping.”
Today, he says, “I’ve been very fortunate. I just got back from an autograph signing and I see guys my age and even younger that can barely walk. But I have no health issues whatsoever. Nothing hurts and nothing’s been replaced.”
After retiring as a player in 1985, Issel returned to the Nuggets for two stints as head coach and also as general manager. He has also been involved in the Thoroughbred horse racing industry.
A couple of career achievements stand out to him.
“Being the all-time leading scorer at Kentucky 56 years later is nice,” he said, though he promptly added: “I’d trade every one of those points for an NCAA championship.”
Also, “Being elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame is a great honor. You know, I never realized how many people around the world, since uh, Dr. Naismith nailed the peach basket to the wall (at a YMCA to invent the game of basketball), I didn’t realize how many people have participated, coached, refereed and played basketball, and what a small number of those people are in the Hall of Fame.”
In his book, Issel also tells at length about this Christian faith (he quotes Philippians 4:6–7 at the start of it).
“I was blessed to be raised in a Christian home,” he said. “My grandmother was kind of the head of our family, and if you weren’t in church on Sunday, she’d be knocking on the door by noon wanting to know who was getting ready to die.”
His wife was also a faithful church-goer. The minister at her family’s church in Lexington “used to tell people, ‘You know, Dan would play Saturday night, and Sunday morning at 8 o’clock he’d be in church.’” Issel said he “never had the heart” to tell the clergyman that his church attendance then was largely because of Cheri.
Still, he said, “the good Lord has blessed me in so many ways, you can’t count them all. So, you know, that’s one of the reasons that I wrote this book, to hopefully share with people how important faith and family is to me.”
