Kenny Dennard reminded us by e-mail of this interview we did with him six years ago. It's fun so we thought we'd run it again.
DBR: As we recall, you were more or less set for Wake and decided for Duke. If that's correct, what changed your mind? Who else did you consider?
KD: First of all, I played B.C. (Before Cable) and recruiting was way different than it is today. There were no computers, no online scouting services, no NIKE Camps everywhere⦠-- there was only FIVE STAR CAMP â¦... but I will step back a bit to set all this up for you.
I began playing basketball in 1965, but I truly learned how to "compete" in the Women's Gym at Wake Forest University during the summers of 1975 and 1976. I would drive down 25 miles from King, NC every day during those two summers and play pick up games with all the Wake Forest players of that era ⦠guys like Rod Griffin, Frank Johnson, Jerry Schellenberg, Skip Brown, Lee Foye and Henry Hicks, to name a few. These guys were the first to embrace a gangly 16 year old high school kid from King, let him play with them, and then proceed to beat the shit out of him. (I will try avoid writing in the third person againâ¦.a strange wave of Karl Malone's spirit channeled through me for a moment). I learned how to play the physical game in the summer of '75, which in turn helped me earn my place in the rotation of these pick up games, while at the same time gaining the respect of these college players.
But more to your question, playing with the Wake Forest guys was the reason I wanted to go to Wake before the summer of '76. And the desire to play there was made even more compelling by Neil McGeachy, then an assistant coach at WFU, who after watching me play all summer in '75 got me invited to the ONLY basketball camp of my era, FIVE STAR BASKETBALL CAMP, in 1976. FIVE STAR was/is run by Howard Garfinkel, the original high school talent scout and, who back in those days, was THE MAN who said who was a Division 1 player or who wasn't a D-1 player.
FIVE STAR was my Schwab's Drug Store. I went to FIVE STAR a nobody in June 1976 and left the camp a D-1 player and forever a changed pup.
FIVE STAR was played outdoors on asphalt courts â¦... and we played shirts and skins â¦... I had averaged between 15-20 points per game my junior year in high school, but at FIVE STAR I couldn't score at all the very first day. You see, the baskets were even more horrible than playing on the asphalt, and it was tough for a suburban kid like me who had never played outdoors on these playground style hoops to score like the New York City kids at FIVE STAR.
So during the first night at camp sleeping in my cabin with guys who were huge names in high school in 1976, I decided a new tactic was necessary to get noticed. The next day I was the only kid diving for loose balls and taking charges on the asphalt ...⦠I would literally be bleeding profusely in every game, while never stopping running and playing defense like a possessed person.
It worked ⦠by Wednesday of the camp, I had the attention of most of the 200 college coaches that were scouting the camp.
And by Thursday, my Mom was besieged at home with the phone ringing off the hook, including several scholarship offers for me made directly to her.
When Wake Forest's Carl Tacy got involved in recruiting me, I had over 150 schools writing and calling⦠and once I actually spoke to Coach Tacy, that's when I knew I could never go to Wake ...â¦. but that's another few paragraphs.
DBR: That was a pretty different tactic to take at 5-Star. What did the other players think of it? Anyone get pissed off at you or tell you to knock it off?
KD: No, they mostly stayed away from me and thought I was a psycho.
DBR: What are the few paragraphs about Carl Tacy and why you couldn't play for him?
KD: Coach Tacy couldn't communicate at all ⦠I would go into his office and he couldn't/wouldn't say anything â¦... really, he was a mute â¦.... he would call me on the phone recruiting and I would think it was a prank caller, because no one would say a word ⦠he was very strange in that way ⦠contrast that to Coach Foster who could and would enter into witty conversations on a regular basis. DBR: Rod Griffin always struck us a really cool guy -- maybe it was the sideburns. What was he like, and have you talked to him in the last ten years? We understand he became an Italian citizen while playing there.
KD: Rod had a crush on my then-girlfriend-now-wife, Nadine, when she attended Wake Forest as a freshman and he was a senior. So he had good taste and was a gentle man, but not very personable. I haven't spoken to Rod in over 20 years.
DBR: What did you think the first time you saw Gene Banks? (I remember thinking that he was basically a Greek god, and that I'd never seen anyone with such back muscles).
KD: Gene was very soft spokenâ¦we immediately clickedâ¦.most people don't know that we met on our recruiting trip to Duke during the fall of 1976â¦that weekend, Duke hosted me, TinkerBell and Pete Pudko, err, Budko, who was voted off the island by the Duke players and snapped up by the folks down the road. Budko never amounted to much of a player at UNC, and he was even less thrilling as a human being back then.
DBR: What was the funniest thing that you ever witnessed in an ACC game?
KD: The fans from Maryland standing behind our bucket during warm-ups yelling and scrunching their shoulders up to imitate GManâ¦they were yelling "Hey Gminski, where's your neck?" And GMan looked over at me seriously and said, "I've gotta neck, what the fuck are they talking about?"
DBR: Who was the dirtiest player(s) you played against?
KD: Ernie Graham (MD) and Lee Raker (UVa)
DBR: On Ernie Graham - that was a great SI cover with him taking down Gene Banks. Were there any memorable comments about that?
KD: Gene's arm looked so strong back then, but by today's standards, its just another arm. The arms and shoulders on players today are too large. I believe that shooting percentages are down to direct proportions of the increased size in the players' arms and shoulders. But I could be wrong.
DBR: What appealed to you about Duke and Bill Foster? And how long did it take you to realize there was a serious chemistry going on?
KD: On my visit, I had the "gut feel" that the whole package was for meâ¦the coaches, the players, the opportunity, the edgy intellect, the Gothic architectureâ¦, the entirety of it all just felt right. I realized the chemistry the moment I landed on campusâ¦.in fact, I was issued my Bunsen Burner and lab coat day one, but that's another series of episodes all together!
DBR: We've talked about the undercut, so called, in the ACC tourney finals. Tell the readers what Lefty Driesell said about it, and what your relationship with the Lefthander is like.
KD: Lefty is a fun guy and let's leave it at that.
DBR: What was your impression of Buck Williams as a player?
KD: Focused and determined â¦. oh yeah, and very talented! A little top-heavy at times â¦. seems to lose his balance a little too easy under the basket
DBR: What's your favorite Dean Smith story?
KD: I have several, but my favorite is back when our locker rooms and the visitors' locker rooms shared the same hallway in Cameronâ¦.before every game and during halftimes, Dean would be out in the hallway sucking down a cigarette with his cheeks all sucked in to get every last puff before he went out on the floorâ¦.but he would always have a nice word to say to me every time I saw him. In fact, Coach Smith was a personal reference on my resume for 10 years after I retired from hoops. And he was extremely important in getting me into the Kenan-Flagler Executive MBA program back in 1994.
DBR: You played three years under Bill Foster and one under Coach K. What did you think of the change at the time and what do you think of it now?
KD: All part of the plan ⦠I had no problems with it then â¦. and think everyone has benefited from that change.
DBR: What's the funniest Bill Foster story you can tell? Funniest K story?
KD: Whenever Gene Banks would enter Coach Foster's office and try to talk to him, Coach would routinely pull out an aerosol can of "Bullshit Repellent" and spray the room until he left.
All my Coach K stories are still Classified.
DBR: Not to bring up a sore subject, but on a personal level, after the New York trip in the 78-79 season, how hard was that season to deal with? The media pressure was pretty intense even from the stands.
KD: Not a sore subject at all. If you know me, you know that its never been the winning and losing that makes me happy or sad. I actually enjoyed the 78-79 season. The only two spots I didn't enjoy were: 1) the fact those two Madison Square Garden losses kept the Sport Illustrated cover story on our team from running, and 2) the way the season ended with the loss to St. John's in Raleigh. What I enjoyed about the season was the pain and the challenges that I had never before experienced (remember, I was the guy who relished in diving for loose balls on asphalt at FIVE STAR.) The benefits of that season were the foundations of my ability to uncover certain truths for me, like discerning the differences between friends and "hangers-on" ... not that I dislike "hangers-on" - just the opposite - I love the "hangers-on" for their entertainment value. But I love my friends for their honesty. I treated the media like my friend and believe I was honest with everyone, good or bad. The media was honest back in most cases and never said something that I haven't thought or said about myself. The summary for 78-79? It was the first year I truly began to learn who was who and what was what â¦. human nature 101 â¦. but I still hadn't found the code to unlock me to myself â¦. that was much later after cancer surgery.
DBR: Just briefly, tell us a bit about the Villanova game, and particularly that dunk, which was incredibly cool to watch.
KD: The story is always fun to tell. Yet I have never written this down until now. The old saying that truth is stranger than fiction, that goes for this story. The morning before the Eastern Region Finals against Villanova I had a fantastic full color dreaming my RIM sleep. It began on the opening tip of the game ⦠GMan tipped it to Gene and he turned and drove to the foul line ⦠I was racing down the right wing and Gene hit me with a perfect pass â¦. I went up to dunk it with two hands, was hit sideways and slammed it backwards out of necessity. I made the foul shot and then woke up.
I immediately called my brother, Tom, and told him the dream word for word ⦠it seemed so real, I told him. He said, "Come back down to earth and get ready for the biggest game of your life." So during the actual game, after a made foul shot in the second half, I was running down the right side of the court when they were pressing, so no one was back on defense.⦠I turned to look up and time literally slowed down to half speed. I saw Gene's perfect full court pass land in my hands like a feather â¦... then the dream flashed through my mind and I felt this incredible wave of pleasure flow through me â¦I knew I was going to dunk it backward and no one else did, except my brother â¦... for the few seconds it took to complete that first ever backwards dunk on national TV, I had an amazing sense of completeness that I have never felt before or after. And after the game, I called my brother and we laughed and laughed and laughed!
The amazing part of that whole experience is the fact that NBC only showed the replay of that dunk once during the game, and never again â¦. not after the game and never during the final four the next week. It was just too radical for that era and I guess the powers that were didn't want others to do hot dog moves like that at the college level. Hence I played B.C.
DBR: In Feinstein's book, we read about Scott Goetsch going off on the bench about Bill Laimbeer and then he got in the game against Notre Dame and stuck it to him as soon as possible. Anyone like that for you in your career? (Note: when we say "stuck it to him," we mean in the context of the game).
KD: As my friends know, I have never punched anyone in the face with my fist ever, on or off the court â¦. but I remember two times when I lost my mind on the court:
1) I sprinted the length of the floor and tried body slamming Wayne McCoy in Madison Square Garden after he kicked me in the head during the previous play [and yes, I was ejected].
2) during the Mid-East Region my junior year, which were Coach Foster's last two games as a Duke coach, I fouled out of both games ⦠sure I had fouled out of lots of games, but the strange part was that one particular ref had called 9 of the 10 fouls on me during both games. He was definitely after me for something. Had I insulted him in some way? Had I met his wife and made him a smaller man that he already was? Or was he secretly gay and was trying to get my attention? Whatever the reason, he had a hard-on for me.
When I fouled out of the final game that season in the final seconds, that ref made a smart ass comment to me as I walked off the floor ... I wish I could remember what he said, because I went ballisticâ¦. I sat on the bench staring him down the remainder of the game. I told Mike Tissaw I was going to kill that guy. My world was going to be completely and immediately different after that game was over ... new coaches next year, no recruits for next year, such uncertainty ⦠and my last shot at getting back on that final four stage was about to slip away â¦.... when the buzzer went off, I wrapped my towel around my right fist and walked up to that ref and just started shouting, "Are you happy now, are you happy?"
He smirked â¦... I then was going to punch him but something inside me stopped it â¦... I unwrapped the towel and flipped it up side his head with a snap like boys do in the locker room â¦... perfect shot ..â¦. just then two Kentucky state patrolmen jumped between me and him as I followed him all the way back to the locker room screaming at him while he covers the whelp on the side of his cheek â¦... needless to say, I lost my cool, but there were few witnesses â¦... plus, playing B.C. there were no ESPN replays back then to show it over and over and over again, so no penalties or punishments were ever even mentioned. And I think the statute of limitations has run out on that one.
DBR: multi-part question: for most of us, the NBA is an impossible dream and one for you which was sadly cut short by illness. What was the most amazing thing you saw during your career, what was the most ridiculous, who was your coolest teammate, and who was the oddest character?
KD: First of all, none of the sad talk related to my cancer â¦... cancer saved my life ...â¦â¦ and basketball was a wonderful part of my life ... but one of the the most amazing things during my career was playing in the highest scoring game in NBA history.
Okay, you're right, playing only 3 minutes probably means it was one of the most amazing things I ever "saw" since I kept the bench nice and warm on that cold December night in 1983. Oh yeah, I forgot that there was another amazing thing -- Ernie Grunfeld's big toe â¦-- that, too, was quite amazing!
The most ridiculous thing was that same year when I was in the game during the fourth quarter at Portland when Doug Moe told us we sucked and told us to stop playing defense and let them get 150 points to please their fans ⦠that move landed a $5,000 fine and a one-game suspension for Doug. Even Alex English thought this was one of his favorite Doug Moe stories.
My coolest teammate cannot be named for reasons of his own safety.
There were many odd balls throughout my years in hoops â¦. too many to name!
DBR Auctions! |
The DBR App! |
DBR Is On Twitter!(DBRTweetz) |