“We broke off into layup lines and I’m standing there talking to (Bobby Joe) Hooper and I’m not paying any attention that my one foot is on the main court. All of a sudden I hear this yelling and screaming. The whole place was shaking.
“It was Donoher and his whole face was red.”
As he was telling the story now, May couldn’t help but smile as he remembered the sight of Don Donoher — the coach who he said soon became his “father figure,” his beloved mentor and his lifelong friend.
But none of those feelings surfaced on that first day.
“I looked at Hooper and said, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ ” May grinned. “And he says, ‘He’s yelling at you, you dumb a—! You’re on the (main) court.’
“I was thinking to myself, ‘Mick, hey it’s me. Your boy, Donnie.’ But he was making a point. He did it with a lot of guys over the years. (Dan) Sadlier has the same story. It was meant to straighten you out and put you in your place. We had to earn our way. He didn’t want to see you or hear you. Freshmen were low-lifes. They were dirt.”
And yet out of that dirt grew the greatest Dayton Flyer player ever.
As a kid growing up next door to the University of Dayton campus — on Kiefaber Street at Alberta — May had fantasized about one day being a Flyer. And for him those dreams came true more than he ever could have imagined.
He ended up a two-time, second team All-American. He is No. 2 in career scoring (1,980 points) and career rebounding (1,301) at UD and he led the Flyers to their greatest back-to-back seasons.
As a junior, the 6-foot-4 May propelled the Flyers to the 1967 NCAA tournament championship game against Lew Alcindor and the UCLA Bruins. The following season May carried his team to the 1968 NIT championship over a Jo Jo White-led Kansas team at Madison Square Garden.
Although he would go on to the NBA and win a title with the New York Knicks, May would forever be linked to the Dayton Flyers.
He was elected into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1974 and a few years ago, Jim Paxson Jr. — another Flyer standout and a two-time NBA All-Star — said May was “unquestionably the greatest Flyer ever.”
And Donoher said if the university ever decided to erect a statue in front of UD Arena the way the Rocky statue highlights the Philadelphia Art Museum steps, it would have to be Don May.
Although May is uncomfortable with such recognition and, like Donoher, does all he can to deflect personal praise, there is no denying he is a legend — especially after this weekend.
On Saturday, May is being honored as an Atlantic 10 Legend at the conference tournament in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“It is pretty special,” May conceded, “especially seeing who got it already. People like Monk (Meineke) and Mick (Donoher) and Ann Meyers. Those are special people to me.
“For me it’s the culmination of growing up and always wanting to be a Flyer and a way of remembering my teammates and coaches because if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be getting this. This is their honor, too.”
May couldn’t hide the fact that he was elated about going to New York to receive the award:
“To me it’s like a bucket-list trip. I have some good memories from New York. That’s where we won the first NIT title in the new (Madison Square) Garden and then two years later I was with the Knicks and we won the NBA championship.”
May traveled to New York with his nephew Ken Jr., an oncologist in Bozeman, Montana. They planned to tour the city before the Legends festivities.
“I’ve got at least a dozen sites I want to take a walk to,” said May. “My first year with the Knicks, I lived catty-corner to the Garden, in the Hotel New Yorker at 34th and 8th.
“I want to see St. Francis (of Assisi) Church, Central Park and St. Patrick’s (Cathedral). I’d like to go by the Plaza, maybe down to the Village and Wall Street and my nephew wants to go to the 9/11 memorial.
“I’ll stop by Macy’s, too. I remember buying a little refrigerator there and when they told me it’d take several days to deliver it, I just picked it up and carried it down 34th street, two blocks to my hotel.
“Back then I had a couple of buddies from Dayton living there, too — Buddy Mantia and Bob Meyer who went to UD — and the three of us palled around. We’d go up Seventh Avenue and turn down 42nd Street into Times Square, which was a hell hole then, sort of a Dustin Hoffman/Midnight Cowboy type thing. Remember that movie?’
“And when I was playing for the Knicks, he used to sit behind us at the games. I’d be on the bench with Hosket (Belmont High teammate and OSU All-American Bill Hosket) and (Mike) Riordan and Dustin Hoffman would throw peanuts at us … because we were the peanut gallery.”
Drawn to UD
“Growing up where I did as a kid, UD was our playground,” May said with a smile that showed the warmth of the memory. “For all us neighborhood kids, it was our Kings Island.
“We’d go all over campus, up into the woods, down in the sewers. We’d go through buildings until the (Marianist) brothers kicked us out. They did it very nicely and took it as a teaching moment.”
For several years, May was a paperboy peddling the Journal Herald.
“NCR was our big customer and we’d stand at the gates selling the paper,” he said.
“We’d start first, though at UD, that’s where the youngest kids went. We had two spots. We’d have a kid at each end of the St. Mary’s Hall arcade and then we set up at Chaminade Hall for breakfast. That’s where I first saw the UD players — big guys – fellas like Uhl and Paxson. And I especially remember Big Jim Palmer.
“He came up one time, pushed a coin in my hand, took a paper and walked in the cafeteria. I looked and it was a penny and the paper was supposed to be a nickel. I didn’t know what to do, so I went in and said, ‘Hey, you only gave me a penny!’ He looked down at me and said, ‘You sure about that?’
“He was kind of a rascal, but he gave me my money.”
May remembered sneaking in the old women’s gym on campus and shooting around. Later his Holy Angels grade school team would practice there. And then there was a memorable visit to the Fieldhouse, another place he slipped into on plenty of occasions.
“I was about 10. I’d snuck into practice and was sitting there with a ball and it got away from me and bounced down on the floor. Tom Blackburn picked it up, brought it over and said something to the effect that: ‘If that ball comes down here again, I’m keeping it and you’re going out of here!’ ”
By the time May was playing for Belmont a few years later, the ball rarely slipped from his grasp. Similar to his UD days, he was a ferocious rebounder and a good shot, too.
Coached by John Ross and playing alongside Hosket and several other talented players, May was part of the 1964 Belmont team that remains one of the best in Ohio high school history. The Bison went 26-1, outscored their opposition by nearly 28 points a game and won the state AA crown. The top six players all played at Division I college programs.
While May accompanied Hosket on recruiting trips to Duke and Tennessee, he said it was “pretty well understood” by coaches that he was UD-bound.
He said he had been drawn to the spectacle of Flyers basketball his whole life:
“I always knew it was a big deal. Where we lived, we used to park cars in our backyard for games. We’d get 50 cents each and get two or three back there.
“When we got a television in the mid-to-late ’50s, that’s when I really started to watch and get into it.”
Yet, even with all that, he was slow to commit to Donoher and said he didn’t sign until June after his senior season.
“There was no doubt where I was going, but I just didn’t know you were supposed to commit,” he said. “I was just kind of waiting around and finally my mom said, ‘You get your butt up there and tell him you’re coming.’
“Donoher was on a trip, so I called and said, ‘I feel the pressure, I just got to commit.’
“And he threw it right back to me. He said, ‘Well, maybe you shouldn’t if there’s such pressure.’ That’s when I knew where I wanted to be. He straightened me out real quick.”
His sophomore year May averaged 20.3 points and 11 rebounds and the Flyers, led by center Henry Finkel, went to the Sweet 16.
The next year, May upped his totals to 22.2 points and 16.7 rebounds and the 25-6 Flyers had their grandest season ever.
In the NCAA tournament they edged Western Kentucky in overtime, beat No. 8 Tennessee by one, slipped by Virginia Tech in overtime and then overpowered North Carolina in their Final Four match-up, as May had 34 points and 15 rebounds.
The next night, though, they were dominated by UCLA in the title game.
The following year, the Flyers floundered early on and lost nine of their first 16 games. May was coming off knee injuries and there was some dissension on the team.
Eventually things got back on track enough that the Flyers won 10 straight and took the NIT crown. May again won All-America honors, averaging 23.4 points and 15 rebounds.
Drafted in the third round by the Knicks, he played eight seasons in the NBA — with New York, Buffalo, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Kansas City — and then returned to Dayton, where he has lived since.
“I’m prejudiced when it comes to the city of Dayton,” said May, who’s now 68 and has three daughters and seven grandkids. “I grew up here and it’s definitely my home. Living here I feel like the most fortunate guy in the world.
“Every day is a day in paradise.”
‘It’s been great’
These days May comes to UD Arena for a few games each season and sits a couple of rows up from the court with his younger brother Kenny, himself a UD Hall of Famer, who occasionally gets the seats through Victory Wholesale Grocers, where he’s an executive.
A few weeks ago, May did sit with Donoher, who was honored with a standing ovation by the UD Arena crowd — and the presence of several of his former players — when it was announced the coach would be enshrined in the College Basketball Hall of Fame later this year.
“He’s as good as they get,” May said with quiet admiration of his old coach. “I love the guy. I try to use him as an example of what to do and think and how to treat people.”
When he’s not at the Arena, May tries to follow the games at home on TV or radio, but admits it’s tough:
“I can’t watch sometimes. I get too nervous, so I leave, then I come back and then I have to leave again. I get too shook up.”
He said he especially relished last season: “When it happened, I was like, ‘Man, I recognize this.’ I was just so happy that everybody here got to experience that same feeling that people did when we were playing. It was so neat. No matter where you went, the Flyers were the topic and people were so happy.
“Two of my favorite moments were seeing (Ohio State’s) Aaron Craft lying on the floor at the end of the game and hearing about (UD president) Dan Curran being carried by the crowd across Kiefaber Street right where our old house used to be.”
This season he has nothing but praise for the under-manned, under-sized Flyers and their coach, Archie Miller:
“I don’t know how Archie could have done his job any better. He’s a marvel. He’s doing it with mirrors. On defense, if I was standing out there playing against them, it’d be like you’re in a house of mirrors. His guys go everywhere.
“And the thing is, Archie’s players don’t foul. They don’t reach in and grab. I got hundreds of those fouls. These guys can guard their men better than anyone I’ve seen. They are a lot of fun to watch.”
As he thought back — from first trying to catch a glimpse of UD players while peddling newspapers on campus to today watching and marveling at the latest Flyers — he could only smile.
“I always wanted to be a Flyer and now I’m still one,” he said quietly. “And every day of it’s been great.”
Except maybe for a few minutes of that first day in a Dayton Flyers uniform.
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