I was not yet good friends with Rich Daly when we signed

Posted on: August 30, 2023 at 19:43:09 CT

Doug Smith but I knew him because he was friends with my dad and was frequently at Harpo’s. I recall him saying that Doug Smith would become the best player in the Big-8. Daly had recruited Derrick Coleman (Syracuse) and Demetreus Gore (Pitt) out of Detroit during the same era. Coleman was the #1 recruit in the country in 1986. Daly said something along the lines of: “Derrick Coleman is the best player I’ve ever recruited, but Doug Smith is second. Doug might turn out even better because he has ‘thin ankles.’” I remember Daly always liked players with “thin ankles.” Peeler also had “thin ankles.”

This was an era before the internet, and before recruiting guru’s had become a cottage industry. Someone mentioned below “Basketball Times” as a recruiting source of the day. If you weren’t a McDonald’s All-American (Doug was not) then “Basketball Times” or the lists in Street & Smith’s magazine were all you really had.

A few years later, when Rich and I would talk serious basketball recruiting at the newly opened Shiloh Bar, Rich told me, “I just signed the best player, I‘ve ever signed, including Smith and Peeler” He wasn’t a McDonald’s All-American either.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Kelly Thames”