So I guess that makes Bobby Wehrli a grave robber. For him, procrastination paid off.
Coming out of Benet Academy, a college prep school just west of Chicago, Wehrli said he couldn’t make up his mind between going to Hope College in Michigan to play basketball or heading off to the University of Dayton to be an engineering student.
He was leaning toward Hope, although he would have to go on an academic scholarship. And that wouldn’t be a problem once he resent his transcript with the grades from his final semester.
Instead he procrastinated.
“It was senior year and there was a lot going on,” he now says with a shrug and a faint smile. “I figured they didn’t need to see them again and then, I just forgot.
“I didn’t send my second semester grades and I ended up missing out on an academic scholarship by one-tenth of one point to get in.”
He did send his paperwork to UD, got accepted and well, if you’re a Dayton Flyers basketball fan, you know how that worked out.
“I guess it is kind of a storybook story,” the 6-foot-6 forward said the other day as he readied for the Senior Night tribute he and his family will get tonight before the Flyers meet VCU in the much-anticipated regular-season finale. “It’s a crazy story.”
When he got to UD, he was told the basketball roster was full and there was no room for another walk-on. Instead he joined the club team on campus and for a semester played games in the Rec Center against club teams from other colleges.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said.
But then over the Christmas break a walk-on left the Flyers team. And with big man Matt Kavanaugh already suspended for the season, UD found itself in need of another body for its scout team in practice.
Wehril was added as a walk-on, though he never played in a game that year.
The following season — as a sophomore — he was an end-of-the-bench fixture for the Flyers, playing a total of three minutes in the games, but never scored or got a rebound.
Regardless, he was a stalwart in practice and part of the team that made the amazing run through the NCAA Tournament. He did get to play in the Elite Eight loss to Florida and afterward received one of the coveted Elite Eight rings.
Last season, with the decimated Flyers roster down to six scholarship players, he suddenly became a valuable part of the rotation, ended up getting a scholarship and becoming a crowd favorite.
This season, with the roster again flush thanks to an influx of freshman talent, he found himself little used at the end of the bench again. That was until junior post player Kendall Pollard got injured and the freshmen big men showed themselves to be either too inconsistent or foul prone to stay on the floor.
It was Bobby to the rescue again.
And it was just 11 days ago in St. Louis that he came in and scored five points and pulled down six rebounds in an overtime victory over the Billikens.
“We don’t win in St. Louis without Bobby,” coach Archie Miller said. “And I’ll tell you, before it’s over I won’t be surprised if there’s not another game where he doesn’t make a game-winning play to help us.
“Bobby’s become one of the more remarkable stories there is.”
Pressed into service
Although he was an all-state volleyball player in high school, Wehrli was also part of a stellar basketball program. Benet Academy — which also featured Frank Kaminsky, the Wisconsin star now with the Charlotte Hornets and Dave Sobolewski, who played at Northwestern — was top-ranked in the state and went 53-8 over two years.
Wehrli hoped to follow in his granddad’s footsteps — Dick Wehrli played at Division III North Central College — and play college basketball, too.
And while he was fortunate to make the Flyers roster as a walk-on, the reality of almost never playing wasn’t easy at first.
“Realistically, at games I used to feel almost like a manager,” he once told me. “I’d sit at the end of the bench and do whatever the other guys asked me to do — hand them a towel, whatever.”
That all changed last season when two of his classmates Devon Scott and Jalen Robinson, both 6-foot-9, were kicked out of the program. Add in some other injuries and departures and the Flyers were in dire straits.
Wehrli ended up playing 407 minutes. While he averaged 2.3 points and 2.1 rebounds a game, he had some real shining moments, which is why he was awarded a scholarship in January.
He came in against St. Bonaventure and made three 3-pointers for nine points. Against Rhode Island in the Atlantic 10 tournament, he played 20 minutes, made two of his three 3-point attempts and finished with eight points and four rebounds.
In the NCAA Tournament, he played 14 minutes against Providence, scored four points and provided solid interior defense.
As the season has progressed the Red Scare student section embraced him, often chanting his name and waving a pair of poster board-sized signs bearing his likeness.
But he said the thing that he especially remembers from what he called “the magical season” was something that had happened after a game:
“I got a tweet from a fan who said I was his son’s favorite player. After starting out here the way I did, that was a cool moment. That’s something that really hits you.”
‘An important cog’
This week he admitted: “It’s been a long journey for me here and this year has been a roller-coaster ride for me. But I try to stay positive through it all and remember what’s most important. We’re winning.”
In this 23-6 season, Wehrli has played 115 minutes over 19 games. But those statistics are a bit misleading.
He hasn’t played in 10 games, including eight in conference play, and 43 of his minutes have come in two of the Flyers last four games.
“I know it sounds cliché, but the moral of all this is that you’ve just got to stay with it,” he said. “People are going to doubt you. People told me I was never going to play college basketball and then when I got on the team here, they said I’d never get in a game.
“But it I figured if you just stay positive and keep working, you never know what’s going to happen.”
And once Pollard was sidelined, Wehrli again became a reliable replacement. He played 26 minutes against St. Louis and 17 against St. Bonaventure.
“As a staff we have some real security with him,” Miller said. “We know he understands what he’s doing out there. He’s sort of turned himself into not only a team guy, but an important cog.
“He’s helped us win games. In particular last year, I don’t know where we would have been without Bobby.
“Last year it became very evident that survival was going to be required. Not only did he give us the ability to survive, but he actually helped us get better because he played so hard, so unselfishly. He did the things we asked him to do.
“He really helped keep us alive.”
That, too, is the definition of a grave robber.
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