(NOTE: Dan Weber was Northern Kentucky State College first sports information director and is now a writer in Los Angeles.)
By Dan Weber
LOS ANGELES -- "Northern Kentucky University?...
"Never heard of it," the ESPN/LA college reporter said on learning I was hustling to finish my story after a USC football practice in November so I could get to San Diego for the first-ever NKU Division I basketball game.
"The Norse," he said after a quick google. "What's their story?"
Their story was my story, at least for a while, or at least they let me come along for the ride. Looking back at it now, it was about as much fun as anybody could have ever had in sports.
The way it happened. Well, it just happened. Like that.
Seems like only yesterday when Drs. Steely, Tesseneer and Claypool, the first president, chief academic officer and dean of admissions at the about-to-be-four-year institution, Northern Kentucky State College, showed up at Covington Catholic High School that day in February of 1971.
Still "on the hill" in Park Hills and still a two-year extension branch, Northern attracted more CovCath students than from any other local high school. And as the American Studies teacher with the entire senior class in two large group sessions, I had the honor of hosting celebrities like Gov. Wendell Ford or Cincinnati vice-mayor Jerry Springer when they stopped by.
And with the dedication of the new Highland Heights campus just months away, it was time for Northern to get the word out. And so they came. Between classes, we had a chance to ask them some questions that we knew our kids had for them that hadn't come up yet.
What about sports? How soon do you think you'll have an athletic program? There was a club baseball team started by the late Bill Aker that often used the CovCath field but we were talking official intercollegiate teams.
"We're thinking about next year," was the answer, "maybe basketball."
Right away the coach in me started thinking -- and asking them: "Do you have a coach, a schedule, a team, a place to play?" Remember, it was already February. "Not really," they said to any of those. Actually, not at all. No coach, players, schedule, place to play.
It was just a thought, that day. A hope, really.
And an opportunity. As soon as the last class finished, I hustled down to the coaches' office where Mote Hils was preparing his basketball team for a record fifth straight Ninth Region title and Sweet 16 trip.
"Mote, call Dr. Steely," I said. "Northern's going to have a basketball team next year. And they need a coach."
Within a week, Northern had its coach. And Mote had a new gig. And so did I, moving on from a high school social studies teacher and baseball and assistant football coach to a college adventure I'll never forget.
"Whatever you need me to do, Mote, I'll help you," I said. "This sounds like it'll be some kind of fun." As it was. More than I could ever have imagined.
There were prospects to scout, while still coaching CovCath. Bobby Griffin at Pendleton County. Bob Mitts at Grant County. Two immediate possibilities, CovCath all-staters Richard Derkson and Chuck Berger, were already playing for Mote. And Ninth Region guys like Newport's Jim McMillan, the first to sign, and Campbell County's Mike Ballenger, were well-known to Mote.
There was a schedule to be set. There were places to play that had to be found for a gymless NKSC.
No big guarantee games, no Ohio States, no conference, no flights, no West Coast jaunts. Just basketball.
Hard to imagine how it all came together. Mostly Mote. A little of me wherever I could pitch in. Two freshmen helped big-time -- student trainer Mark Dusing and manager Jim Goeke. Nothing like the 20 or so full-time folks doing the jobs for the Division I Norse now that we divvied up back then.
Mote put together an interesting schedule. There were just nine home games out of the 27 that 1971-72 season: in high school gyms around NKSC-land -- in Newport, Alexandria, Dry Ridge, Falmouth, Covington and Hebron.
The road show, which really was the story for every game, took the then-Norsemen to Pikeville, for the road opener after a 109-65 romp in the opener at Newport against tiny Calvary College from Letcher, Ky. Most memorable first-game fact: the 115 shots NKSC fired up that first time out have never been matched in 43 seasons of Northern basketball.
But the thing I most remember is seeing "NORTHERN KENTUCKY" in the gold and black letters across the front of the brand new uniforms. First time I'd ever seen that on a team of any kind. My home had a team.
The colors came from Dr. Claypool's tribute to his Centre College alma mater, although Centre's light old gold became bright gold with a much stronger black accent. Looked good. The short shorts look odd now but Mote bought the best you could buy for that first season.
Even so, the young Norsemen looked more like Norse-kids, which was what they were. Basically an all-freshman team playing mostly on the road against a top national NAIA schedule, NKSC averaged 84.9 points a game. Four times the Norsemen surpassed 100. Most impressive was the 103-92 win at Bellarmine the second-to-last game of the season.
Four starters averaged in double figures with Derkson's 19.1 tops. And that was before the three-point shot so make that something like 23 points a game today. The tough-defending Berger (13.4 ppg) and the offensive-minded McMillan (13.3) were next with slim 6-5 Marvin Johnson, a Cincinnati Hughes product, next in line with a 10.8 scoring average just above his 10.2 rebounds a game.
The biggest Norseman was 6-foot-6 Elder High product Dan Maurer, who averaged nearly a double-double at 9.8 ppg and 9.2 rebounds on a team where there was a whole lot of offense being played.
The top assist guys were the trio of Ballinger, Griffin and Mitts with a combined six-plus a game among them as Mote played a 12-man rotation. CovCath alums Doug Overmann, a junior college transfer, and sophomore Denny Egan along with Holy Cross alum Dave Rimer, a freshman, combined for 17.7 points and 10.8 rebounds a game.
The schedule could not have been more interesting. How Mote located Calvary, or how we found our way to its Letcher, Ky., campus for the season finale, is one of the great college basketball mysteries. I'd been to every one of Kentucky's 120 counties and had no idea where Letcher was. It's in Letcher County, in case you're interested.
The rest of the schedule had Northern in Campbellsville, Cumberland, Lexington and Louisville in Kentucky. Indiana was just as popular a destination with stops in Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Hanover and Upland. Ohio had Findlay and Steubenville. Tennessee had Memphis and Nashville with trip to Pittsburgh for a Friday night date at then NAIA-ranked Point Park College at the University of Pittsburgh's Fitzgerald Fieldhouse.
It was a typical trip. Leave Northern before noon in a van and pull into Pittsburgh late afternoon to check into the dorms at downtown Point Park. Head off to a pre-game meal at a restaurant owned by a former Pirate Frankie Gustine that abutted the one wall of old Forbes Field still up, then over to the nearby Pitt campus.
Shock Point Park 72-67, get to bed early for Saturday's quick trip to Steubenville for an afternoon game against a top-five team. Drop that one 74-65 with no help from the officials and yet, not a bad trip.
And not a surprise. Officiating for a brand-new independent NKSC, on the road so much of the time, was a crap shoot at best. Or worse. Still couldn't get over the trip to Terre Haute and Rose Hulman when one of the officials, Sam Lickliter, did the best job of any we had all year. Never forgot that, as well as the 39 points Derkson scored, an NKU record for decades.
Told Lickliter that years later, as we ran into him at one of the Final Fours he would go on to work. Typical was the situation Mote faced at Indiana Central with the legendary Angus Nicoson, who came up to Mote on a snowy day to report that the officials couldn't get to the game.
But there were some off-duty Indiana basketball officials in the stands who had their gear in the car if it was OK, he wondered. It wasn't, but what were you going to do? Angus' brother-in-law didn't do Northern any favors in that 93-89 overtime loss.
The road opener at Pikeville, a tough three-point loss, was also a tough trip. After the game, Jim McMillan had to get back to an early class and got to ride home with me since I had to be at CovCath by 8 a.m. for my first class. The 3:30 a.m. homecoming should have made for a tough day in class but it never seemed to catch up with you. It was that much fun.
But the toughest turnaround might have been the Memphis trip. The Saturday night five-point loss to Christian Brothers was bad enough but heading to the dorms at Memphis State just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. And we had a charter bus for this trip so Mote put it up to a postgame vote: Who wants to go home?
Who didn't. So another overnight return. But we were back in Northern Kentucky. And no one objected a bit.
NORTHERN KENTUCKY, as the jerseys said. It was who we were and where we came from.
We never forgot that.
"Neat story," the ESPN/LA guy said.
Indeed.
