“He’s a lot of people’s sports hero, and I think that’s great,” said Casey, who wears her father’s jersey No. 22, which was retired by the Cleveland Cavaliers after his All-Star career.
Larry has kept some mementos from his playing days around their Akron home, including the trophy from the first NBA slam-dunk competition when he beat out boyhood idol Julius Erving (Dr. J).
“It’s awesome,” Casey said, adding with a chuckle, “I can say I don’t know anybody else who has one.
“It’s just a constant reminder of how great he was. It’s really cool.”
Larry has enjoyed what he’s seen out of his daughter and the Flyers, too.
“I feel like the team is doing great,” he said during halftime of a recent game. “They’re really playing hard. They’re a bunch of good girls, and it’s good to see them have success like they’re having. That comes from good coaching.”
Although he may possess the expertise to point out a few things to his daughter, Larry is conscious of never usurping UD coach Jim Jabir’s authority.
“I know a lot of times he wants to tell me stuff, but he has to bite his tongue because I don’t play under him. I’m Coach Jabir’s player, and whatever he says goes,” Casey said. “He respects what Coach Jabir does, and we respect that he’s doing what’s best for all of us.”
Watching is "way harder than playing"
Larry Nance may look as serene as a mountain lake while parked in a seat at UD Arena to see daughter Casey play for the Dayton Flyers, but the former NBA great is actually more nervous than he ever was during those playoff runs with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And he’s usually churning inside when he’s back home in Akron watching Casey’s two younger brothers play, too.
The 50-year-old Nance said spectating is “way harder than playing. With all my kids, it’s so much fun watching them, but you wish you could go out there and do it for them, which you can’t.
“But she’s doing a great job. She’s really playing good defense and rebounding. That’s what all the Nances have pretty much done — play defense.”
Casey Nance, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, is one of the cornerstones of a UD team that’s compiled an 11-3 record and spent part of the season ranked in the Top 25. And while playing defense comes naturally to her — she led the Atlantic 10 in blocks last year and is first again this season with 2.4 per game — one trait she didn’t acquire from her father is his famous leaping ability.
“My brothers have it,” she said. “I don’t know how I missed out.”
Larry Nance was a three-time NBA All-Star and was thrice named to the league’s all-defensive team. He averaged 17 points and eight rebounds during his 14-year career, but he’s probably best known for winning the NBA’s first slam dunk competition in 1984.
Julius Erving and Dominique Wilkins were in the field, but Nance left onlookers with mouths agape after a reverse jam of two basketballs simultaneously.
“Dominique in the same contest had done it frontwards. I wanted to change it up a little bit,” Nance said. “I haven’t seen it done since then. I imagine you have to have huge hands to do it. It’s either real easy, so that’s why nobody does it, or it’s real hard. I’m not sure which one it is.”
Nance led the Cavaliers to some of their best seasons after joining the club in a trade with the Phoenix Suns. They went 57-25 in 1988-89 but were knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by the Chicago Bulls on the oft-replayed Michael Jordan jumper at the buzzer.
“If we were a healthy team, we would have been up 10 or 12,” said Nance, noting that center Brad Daugherty and others were nursing injuries. “But you can’t take anything away from him. He’s one of the greatest players ever, and he just made a great shot. It was a tough shot, and everything had to go right for it to go in. And it did.”
Nance, though, is weary of still seeing it aired 20 years later.
“They show it so much,” he said. “Michael should pay us money because we made him famous with that shot.”
The Cavs revamped their team after that, trading Ron Harper for the rights to Danny Ferry. Although they’d hit the 57-win mark again in ’91-92, they never could get past the Bulls in the Eastern Conference. And that trade still irks Nance.
“Harp was one of the best 2 guards in the league. Him and Michael, I thought, were the two best. We needed him to go against Michael when we played them,” Nance said.
“Danny was a great guy, but the position he was supposed to come in and play, I’m not sure we needed that. They said Danny was a lot like Larry Bird, but even if Larry Bird had come in and played with our team, that’s not what we needed. We needed that 2 guard that Ron Harper was. And we were playing good together.”
Nance isn’t the only one who believes the deal was a mistake.
“We are ALL mad about that trade because it should never have happened,” Harper said.
The Dayton native thought the Cavs had the makings of an NBA champion — especially with an enforcer like Nance inside.
“We were playing MJ in the first round (of the ’89 playoffs) — Game 3 in Chicago — and I never saw anyone block MJ’s slam dunk,” Harper said. “But MJ was coming from the half court, coming down flying. Larry Nance was standing flatfooted. I was sitting on the end of the bench. The play was right in front of me. MJ takes off, and I’m thinking he’s just going to cream it. But Larry Nance jumped up, cupped the ball and threw it out to half court.
“They called a foul on him, and we’re playing in Chicago, and all the (Bulls) fans were booing. I never saw that before.”
Harper went on to great success in the NBA, but he’ll always cherish the time he spent with Nance.
“He took me under his arms and showed me how to be a pro,” Harper said. “He’s a class act guy. He came to play and worked hard every day. He didn’t trash talk. He went out and just played, and he knew how to play.
“They’re a close-knit family. Larry Nance and (wife) Jaynee would never let nothing happen to their kids, and they make sure they do good school work — I guarantee you that.”
Casey Nance carries a 3.8 grade-point average in marketing at UD and said her diligence in the classroom was something she picked up from her parents. And another value she learned at home was not to let her father’s celebrity status go to her head.
“My parents are two very amazing down-to-earth people,” she said. “I think that attitude they have has definitely carried on to my brothers and I. They’ve done an amazing job of keeping us grounded. There’s no special treatment or expecting anything because of who our dad is. And I think a lot of sports families don’t have that.”
UD coach Jim Jabir was struck by Larry Nance’s humility, too.
“The very first time I met him, they came on an official visit, and he walks around for three hours and never said one word about himself, his career, nothing — and he was a great player,” Jabir said.
The Nances have reached out to the Flyers, hosting them for a catered dinner at their home after a scrimmage at Akron last season.
“It was remarkable,” Jabir said. “He has these posters in the family room, (which has) high ceilings with a hardwood floor and a painted key and a basket on the wall. And he’s got a poster of him defending Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook. How cool is that?
“But you wouldn’t know who he was or what he’s done if you talked to him. He’s just so humble.”
Since retiring from basketball, Nance has been heavily involved in drag racing — his top speed is 205 mph — and he’s hoping to acquire a sponsor to branch out even more.
He also attends most of his daughter’s games, and he sees some of himself in the Flyers.
“I felt like I was just a basketball player, a normal person who loved to play ball,” he said. “They’re pretty much level-headed people, too. I’m glad they don’t (showboat). That’s something I didn’t do when I played ball. I had fun when I was playing, but I didn’t think I was a big shot because I played in the NBA — because you’re really not.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2125 or dharris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author