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HH: Where are you originally from?
DK: I'm from Paris, TN and I went to Grove High School.
HH: And when did you start playing basketball?
DK: Oh, I started playing basketball in about the seventh or
eighth grade. I played basketball and football both...mostly
football. I signed with the University of Georgia to go play
football but I didn't go, Mr. Diddle talked me into going to
Western (Laughs).
HH: Oh really? So did you have a lot of
schools recruiting you for football and basketball both?
DK: Basketball and Football, yes sir. We played one night down
there....
a high school team from Jackson, TN for the championship, and
there were about 50 scouts there in the stands. They were from
everywhere.
HH: What position did you play?
DK: End, I played offensive end. I caught that ball, I caught
a lot of touchdowns. I had good hands on me and I could really
catch the ball. I had my uncle back there, Chick King, my daddy's
brother, and he was an All-American back. He won everything.
And he could throw that thing pretty good and put it out there
for me and I could run under it pretty good. I had good speed,
you know.
HH: So you signed with Georgia and then
Mr. Diddle talked you into going to Western?
DK: Yeah, I signed with the U. of Georgia, Chick and I both did,
but Mr. Diddle kept coming down there and coming down there......he
brought a pitcher down there one night....we had a semi-pro baseball
team, he brought a pitcher down there from Bowling Green to help
us out, and he asked me after the game, "Dan, why don't
you go back with me?" and I told Dad, "You know
Dad, Mr. Diddle brought this pitcher down here all the way from
Bowling Green to help us out. I'm going back with him."
So, I got a few things and went back with him, and by gosh I
never did go back to Paris. (Laughs) He just took care of me.
He took care of me like a daddy.
HH: What was it about Mr. Diddle that
you think made everyone love him so much?
DK: Well, he was just like a daddy to everybody. He would help
you and he'd chew you out and get after you and everything like
that, but if you needed anything or whatever, he was there to
help you. He stayed there in the front of the house, in the front
of the dormitory, and watched over us and took care of us....made
sure we didn't get into any trouble. He was just a good man......I'm
telling you.....I really adored the man, I really loved him.
HH: Do you have a favorite story involving
you and Mr. Diddle that you think about quite a bit?
DK: He was just always....I never did cheat on the man. I trained,
and I didn't smoke, I didn't drink....I never have. And he really
respected me for that. I don't know.....he just treated me like
one of his sons. We never did have any disagreements or whatever.
I helped him out at the house and everything and I played on
the baseball team......I helped him out quite a bit on that,
you know, he had it by himself.
 HH: Yeah,
you were quite a pitcher too weren't you?
DK: Yeahhhh boy. I'm the only guy that ever pitched and won a
doubleheader at Western. I pitched a doubleheader and beat Murray
twice. (Laughs) Yeah, I sure did. I pitched the first game and
I was sitting over there under a tree and this boy started the
second game and they started knocking him everywhere, and Mr.
Diddle asked me if I wanted to pitch, and I said, "Well,
sure." And I went back in there and we came back and
won. I pitched nearly seven innings again and we won that game.
See, Murray's about 20 miles from me (Paris) and I always had
the jump on them in that baseball. All I had to do was kinda
throw my glove out there and I could beat them, it seemed like.
You have certain teams like that, you know.
HH: Well, what did you enjoy most?.....Baseball,
Basketball, Football??
DK: I enjoyed all of them. You know, we had three All-Americans,
football players, on the basketball team, but Mr. Diddle wouldn't
let us play.......me and Tom, and Kay Greer.....three All-American
Ends. He wouldn't let us play. He said, "No, you're not
going to play anything but basketball." (Laughs).
HH: Tom was telling me when I talked to
him that you and him almost transferred to Memphis State to play
football your freshman year?
DK: Yeah, Tom was a little upset about some things and he asked
me if I knew of anybody and I said, "Yeah, I know a guy
down at Memphis State." and we called him down there
at Memphis, Tom and I did. We went to a hotel down there in Bowling
Green and called, and the next morning.....Boy (Laughs) about
seven o'clock, they came over there to the dormitory and got
Tom and I out of the room and took us over to Mr. Diddle's office
and he asked what was wrong. But we got it straightened out and
we stayed. And I'm glad we did stay.
HH: Was is just a case of you two wanting
to play football?
DK: No, we were just going to play basketball. It wasn't football.
We were going down there to play basketball.
HH: So what was the misunderstanding about?
DK: I don't know....Tom was just kind of unhappy about something.
Tom was a heck of a player but he wouldn't let you get close
to him much. But we got everything settled over there in the
office. We stuck it out, and I'm glad we did....Tom was too.
HH: Well, tell me a little bit about
some of the teams you played on and the players you played with.
Talk about Tom Marshall and what kind of player he was.
DK: Tom......I'll just tell you, he was one of the best ball
players I ever seen. He had big 'ole  hands.
Man, he had some of the biggest hands I've ever seen. He was
just a great ball player. He could shoot, he could do it all.
He came to play.....when he got on that basketball court he was
a different fella' man, he was ALL business. I mean, he came
to win, no matter what. I was mostly a rebounder. I did a lot
of rebounding for him and Frosty Able. I'd get that ball off
the board and get it to them and let them put it in the hole.
I didn't do much shooting. I averaged about 11 or 12 pts. I think,
my sophomore and junior years.....I got to shoot a little bit.
HH: So rebounding was you strength mainly?
DK: Yeah, I really rebounded. Hank Iba, who coached out at Oklahoma,
we played out there and he told somebody that I was the greatest
rebounder he had ever seen. He said he couldn't believe the way
I rebounded. We played Penn State out there and they had this
big guy, I forget what his name was, but man he was a big guy,
and I just wore him out. I beat him up on rebounding. Hank Iba
made that comment after the game in the paper, and I've still
got it in my clippings.
HH: Is that when you were named the MVP
of that tournament (All-College Tourney, Oklahoma City, OK)
out there?
DK: Yeah, Yeah.
HH: Are there any certain games that
stand out for you?
DK: Yes Sir, One. We played Dayton up in Dayton....three Overtimes.
We played three overtimes and finally won.(Laughs) Back then
you know, in the 50's, they were loaded. Man, they had some ball
clubs. But we beat 'em in three overtimes, I never seen such
a ball game in my life. We got home and the airport was full
of people and the airplane couldn't hardly land when we got back
that night. I never seen as many people in my life out there
greeting us back. They were in the Top Ten (Dayton).
HH: Well, you guys were too though.
DK: Yeah. One year (1953-54) we won 21 in a row before we lost
a game.
HH: What about the NIT games? I know
Western always came so close to winning a number of championships
but something always happened. Was that pretty frustrating to
the team to always come so close?
DK: Yeah it was, especially our senior year, we thought we were
going to win it all up there, but we ran across Holy Cross with
Tom Heinsohn and another guy named Togo Palazzi. And they beat
us....we thought we had a shot at it that year. We came awful
close. We always made a good showing up there though. The fans
really liked Mr. Diddle and his teams, and his Red Towel.
 HH: Well,
the game against Holy Cross, that was the one that Jack Turner
got hurt in right?
DK: Yeah, that hurt us quite a bit.
HH: Well, after graduating from Western
you got drafted in the NBA, right?
DK: I was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets. I made the team....back
then there weren't but eight teams (Laughs). I guess I was just
lucky.....I was in the right place at the right time. They had
a lot of talent....Frank Selvy, the guy that scored all them
points at Furman. They had some big 'ole boys up there, I tell
you, it was a tough league. Al McGuire played on my team. I played
about five months........I busted a knee up my senior year at
Western and Baltimore folded up and nobody else picked me up,
so I came on home. The Brooklyn Dodgers tried to sign me my junior
year at Western but I wouldn't sign. They called again and invited
me down to Vero Beach after I got back from basketball. I went
down there....I met my buddy Sandy Koufax, we roomed together
down there. He played on the University of Cincinnati basketball
team, he remembered seeing me when we played them. But Sandy
and I roomed together down there at Vero Beach. But I hurt my
arm my junior year at Western real bad, I hurt it throwing. And
I got down there to Vero Beach, and instead of pitching they
wanted to put me on first base because I could hit the ball pretty
good......you know, I was a pretty good hitter. They wanted to
send me to Bakersfield, California to their farm system where
it was warm and maybe bring my arm around, you know? I just decided....I
don't know, I went back to Paris, Tennessee, they flew me back
to Paris, and Dad and me talked about it and I said, "I'm
going back to Western." I liked twelve hours getting
my degree and I was going back to get that degree and coach a
team. That's what I wanted to do.
HH: After you got your degree, did you
go into high school coaching then ?
DK: Yeah, I started out over in Edmonson Co. High School, in
Brownsville.
HH: When did you start coaching up there?
DK: '59-60. I coached there for two years and then I came back
to Western. Mr Diddle and Mr. Hornback invited me back down there
as a graduate assistant and I coached freshman basketball and
varsity baseball for two years. I coached Clem, Dwight, and all
that  bunch....me and Frosty Able did.
He and I coached that year (1963-64) with Clem, Dwight Smith,
Pearl Hicks....boy, we had a bunch of good ones. Then after two
years as a grad assistant I got my master's degree and Mr. Diddle
retired. Then Johnny Oldham came in and he brought his own coaches,
so me and Frosty got sidelined. So I decided to go back into
high school. I went back to Edmonson Co. and coached for two
years.
HH: When you were coaching the freshman
team....tell me what you thought about Clem and Dwight and what
kind of players they were?
DK: The best ball players I've ever seen. Clem Haskins was the
best athlete I've ever seen, I guarantee you. He had the best
touch of any kid I've ever seen. He worked hard, him and Dwight,
there wasn't no substitute for them. They gave you 110%...they
hit the floor, they didn't care what it took to win....that's
the way they were.
HH: Now you're still pretty good friends
with Clem aren't you?
DK: Yes Sir. Clem and I are real good buddies. I went up to his
house. I helped try to recruit him, I stayed up there with his
parents. I got along with black folks real well, all my life.
I was raised down there in Paris and there was a black family
raised right behind me there and they took care of me and fooled
with me and everything like that, and I just got along with black
people really well.
HH: What do you think about this trouble
that Clem's got into now?
DK: I really hate it. I'm really disappointed. I just didn't
think he'd do that. Whether he did it or not I don't know....he
says he didn't. I hope he didn't. I 'd like to see him get back
into coaching myself, because I think he was a good coach. I
wish we could have kept him at Western. You know, we've had some
pretty good ones down there that got away from us....him and
Keady, and Willard. We let some pretty good coaches get away
from us down there.
HH: Well, after you got out of coaching
what did you do for the next 25-30 years or so?
DK: I didn't retire until '92. I coached high school up here.
After I left Edmonson Co., this guy from Louisville, Bud Cagle,
he had a softball team up here, one of the best teams in the
country. And he wanted me to come up here and play softball for
him, him and Frosty Able. He got me a job up there at Bishop
David High School, Mr. Cagle did, so I could go up there and
play softball for him. So I left Edmonson Co. after those two
years I had went back after my graduate assistant time at Western.
I went up to Bishop David and stayed there for eight years coaching
varsity baseball and varsity basketball. It was an all-boys school,
an all- Catholic School. And after that I went to Pleasure Ridge
High School here in Louisville and I stayed there until '92.
I got medical disability, I lost a foot from sugar diabetes.
They put me on medical disability. I lost my left foot. I coached
girl's softball for about eleven years...we went to the state
tournament about seven of those years. And I helped Mr. Schaeffer
with the varsity basketball and I coached girl's basketball up
there. That's all I did. I never did coach football.
HH: Do you keep up with Western much
anymore?
DK: Yeah, I keep up with it quite a bit. But about 2 1/2 years
ago my wife had a bad stroke and she can't walk or do nothing.
I've taken care of her the last 2 1/2 years. I haven't been anywhere
hardly, just trying to take care of her, you know. I take care
of here though and do the best I can with her. I sure would like
to get back down there. I used to come down all the time to ballgames.
I used to go watch them practice. I'd go watch them practice
baseball and go the game. My wife's from Bowling Green, I met
her in Bowling Green while I was at Western. I used to go down
there all the time and watch them play.
HH: Well, we're getting ready to have
some more really good teams down here real soon.
DK: Yeah, I hear that coach is doing a pretty good job. He's
getting some new people in there. You've got to have them horses
to pull that wagon, you know that. I'd like to see Western get
back....I know there's a lot of people up here in Louisville
that really like Western, they always have. They've got a lot
of fans up here.
HH: Well, do you think you could you
make it down sometime if they ever held a reunion of the '54
team maybe?
DK: Yeah, I'd try to get down there for that.
HH: Do you keep in touch with any of those
guys?
DK: I called Tom, I got his number, and I finally got Art's.
I haven't seen them since '54, but I've talked to them on the
phone.
HH: I'm trying to get Tom to come back
up here sometime this year. I think he's interested in coming
back now.
DK: I hope so. I'd like to see him get back up there. The people
in Bowling Green really loved that guy, he was a big, big favorite
down there, boy.
HH: Yeah, people still talk about him all
the time.
DK: Yeah, I imagine they do (Laughs). Mr. Diddle got us a job
out at the drive-in theater down there directing traffic. As
soon as I got there Mr. Diddle got me and him a job....me and
Tom went out there and worked every night. Tom really enjoyed
it. I didn't even go back home after Mr. Diddle got me up there
(Laughs).
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