Jim McDaniels, a star center who led Western Kentucky University to the N.C.A.A. Final Four but whose professional career was marred by contract disputes at the start, died on Wednesday in Bowling Green, Ky. He was 69.
His wife, Carolyn McDaniels, said the cause was complications of diabetes.
A 6-foot-11 center and power forward with an unusually soft touch for a big man, McDaniels led the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers to the most successful years in their program’s history.
In his senior year he averaged 29.3 points per game in helping Western Kentucky reach the Final Four of the 1971 N.C.A.A. tournament. Meeting at the Astrodome in Houston, the Hilltoppers lost to Villanova in a semifinal match and beat the other semifinal loser, the University of Kansas, to take third place, their best finish to date.
McDaniels was named a consensus all-American that year.
But the next season, after McDaniels had started to play professionally with the Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association, the N.C.A.A. found that he had violated college rules by signing professional contracts (with an agent, the team and the league) before the start of his senior season.
ADVERTISEMENT
The N.C.A.A. vacated Western Kentucky’s third-place finish and required the university to repay its share of tournament proceeds, more than $66,000 (the equivalent of more than $360,000 today).
It was not the last time contracts caused problems for McDaniels. During his rookie professional season, he left the Cougars for the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association after a disagreement about the terms of his A.B.A. contract.
He was one of many A.B.A. players, most notably Julius Erving, who moved from one league to the other in search of better deals. (The leagues merged in 1976.)
The legal equivalent of a bench-clearing brawl ensued. Lawsuits, to wide publicity, were filed by the Cougars, the Sonics, McDaniels and others involved in his contracts.
The Cougars eventually relented, and McDaniels stayed in Seattle. But his tenure there was brief. His average dropped from 26.8 points per game with the Cougars to 9.4 with the Sonics that season, and Seattle released him in 1974.
After a year in Italy, he played for the Los Angeles Lakers of the N.B.A. and the Kentucky Colonels of the A.B.A. He played his last season as a reserve center for the N.B.A.’s Buffalo Braves, which he joined after another year in Europe.
“I’m a player and a very dedicated athlete,” McDaniels told United Press International in 1977. “When I leave the game, I want to be able to say that good or bad, I gave 100 percent.”
He retired in 1978 with a career average of 10 points per game.
James Ronald McDaniels was born in Scottsville, Ky., on April 2, 1948, to James McDaniels and the former Sendy Binom. His stepfather, Dickie Stovall, helped raise him.
Western Kentucky recruited him after he had a standout high school career in Scottsville, averaging nearly 40 points per game as a senior. He holds a number of university career records, including those for field goals (935), scoring average (27.6 points) and total points (2,238). (Courtney Lee tied that mark in 2008, but McDaniels did it before there were three-point shots in college basketball.)
He graduated in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
After retiring, he coached high school basketball and sold cars. He married Carolyn Wright in 1990.
In addition to his wife, with whom he lived in Bowling Green, McDaniels is survived by two sons, Shannon and Eskias, from earlier marriages; two half brothers, Philip and David Stovall; three half sisters, Brenda Stott, Laura Carter and Betty Haynes; and a stepdaughter, Lydia Britton.
No comments:
Post a Comment