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GUEST SPEAKERS AT THE MONTHLY
ALUMNI LUNCH As many Wilbur Wright graduates,
short-time attendees, and friends already know, the alumni meet for
lunch and conversation at the Milton Athletic Club on the
last Monday of every month (one week earlier when on a holiday
requires it), and the alumnae, currently from the class of '56 only
do the same at Grindstone Charley's at 4139 Wilmington Pike on the
third Thursday (call Jan Gifford, 937/237-9977, for details.
Eight or nine months ago, Don Meineke ( '48 ) formerly University of
Dayton basketball great and 1953 NBA Rookie of the Year, approached
Tom Mattingly ( '52 ) about having an occasional speaker, either a
WW grad or a honored guest. Meineke agreed to head up the one-man
speakers bureau and become the inaugural speaker himself.
Recognizing that most of us would already be familiar with much of
his college and professional basketball careers, Don focused his
speech on his early days as an East Dayton paper boy and struggling
youth (he still occasionally plays tonk at the Glass Hat Tavern
located at Linden and Torrence); how he became persona non grata at
Chaminade; how he persuaded principal Jay William Holmes to accept
him at Wilbur Wright, thereby turning his life around; and how he
became friends with future teammate and Stivers Grad, Chuck Grigsby. An incredible
irony is the fact that the 1947-48 year produced one of Wilbur
Wright's only two city championships, and because of age
ineligibility, Meineke wasn't even on that team. Instead, he and
Grigsby, who already graduated from Stivers, honed their skills for
UD by playing against college freshman teams and other top-notch
competition at the old Market House, Boys Club, and elsewhere.
At the conclusion of his speech, "Monk" asked for questions or
comments, perhaps forgetting that his UD teammate Leland "Junior"
Norris and longtime UD coach Don "Mickey" Donoher were in the
audience. Norris, in particular, did not disappoint, relating two
tongue-in-cheek (I think) stories about Meineke. The first had to do
with the time they had come out of a bar, "Monk" had accidentally
crawled into the back seat, and proceeded to swear up and down that
someone had stolen his steering column. The second involved
legendary UD coach Tom Blackburn:
It seems that prior to a particular game, Coach Blackburn had asked
and unidentified player to lead the team in reciting the Lord's
Prayer. Meineke mumbled that the player didn't even know the Lord's
Prayer, Norris mumbled back that everybody knows the Prayer, and
proceeded to wager five bucks on the matter. At Blackburn's urging
the player hesitantly began, "Now I lay me down to sleep--,"
whereupon Meineke interrupted, "You win, Junior! I didn't think he
knew it.
Two months later our speaker was Bill Gum, also an alumnus of the
class of '48. Bill became an aficionado of Dayton history,
especially East Dayton history, after inheriting his grandmother's
papers which included his great-grandfather's passport as well as an
1811 land grant ceding him all the property, east and west from what
are now Smithville Road and Sperling Avenue, and north and south
from Third Street to Fifth. This means that Otto Hohm (WW '56) and
his wife Pat, at 3911 E. Fourth Street, are now sharecroppers on the
Gum family farm or Sperling family farm.
Gum's general topic was Dayton's first 100 years. Accordingly, he
had quite a bit to say about the Kemp family (originally spelled
Kempf) who built a home in 1806 at what is now the corner of
Burkhardt and Meyer Avenues and is today the longest continually
lived in home in Dayton. Also discussed were Dayton's other pioneers
and leaders, the building of Steele High School in 1896, the Huffman
Prairie (now part of Wright Patterson Air Force Base) where Orville
and Wilbur Wright experimented with their new flying machine, and,
moving on past the first 100 years, the building of Wilbur Wright,
originally a grade school and junior high school ( remember the two
sets of banisters?), in the mid 1920's, and finally, the
transformation of Wilbur Wright into a high school in the fall of
1940.
Columnist's Notes:
1. Vic Cassano, longtime Dayton pizza entrepreneur was a member of
that first 1941 WW
graduating class.
2. My Mother, Helen Schwanengel, and her twin brother Howard
attended
WW during the 1927-28 school year. Their 9th
grade report cards follow this
article.
3. Web site visitors will be hearing more from
Bill Gum.
4. Click on pictures below to enlarge.
On August 28 our speaker was perhaps the most popular, well
loved, and
respected man in the Dayton area, 25+ year basketball coach of the
UD Flyers, Don Donoher. Accompanying Donoher were ten former UD
basketball stars from the glory days (see pictures
with names/ click to
enlarge); the current president of UD, Daniel J. Curran; and a
number of other well known sports figure from the Dayton Agonis
Club. Luncheon attendance for that day exceeded 125, or about double
our usual attendance, and Donoher received two standing ovations.
While Coach Donoher regaled his audience with numerous stories about
coaching
legends Adolph Rupp of Kentucky, Rick Majerus of Utah, and UD's own
Tom Blackburn, most of us in attendance will probably best remember
the story he told about one of his first times that Coach Blackburn
had put him into a game. Consider that Donoher was not a native
Daytonian (his hometown is Toledo), he was not immediately a
starter. and so he was naturally a bit nervous when the no-nonsense
Blackburn called his name.
Once into the game, Donoher suddenly found himself controlling the
ball in the middle of a fast break. Unfortunately, as he approached
the opponent's basket, somewhere between the top of the key and the
foul line, he committed three errors in rapid succession. First,
when he picked up his dribble, he took an extra step. Second, as he
tried to pass the ball to one of the wings cutting to the basket. he
threw the ball out of bounds, and third, just after the ball left
his hands, he charged into his defender.
Donoher knew that he would be coming out of the game, and as his
replacement trotted onto the floor, he tried to find a spot on the
bench as far away from Blackburn as he could get. But Coach motioned
for Don to come sit next to him. Then, without raising his voice or
showing any anger whatsoever, Blackburn calmly asked, "Son, of all
the colleges in the state of Ohio that you could have chosen, why
did you have to pick mine"? Donoher, of coarse, went on to become a
star in his own right. (he didn't say that)
Needless to say, we are all looking forward to Don Meineke's next
speaker selection. Signing off for now, with a "Thanks to the memory
of the late Jimmy Durante: Good night Miss Snape, wherever you are.
Dave Swartz
October 2006 |
