Dan Issel

• 1. Introduction

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  Dan Issel grew up in Batavia, Illinois, with a backyard that touched his friend Ken Anderson's backyard. Anderson went on to become an NFL quarterback and the 1981 Most Valuable Player of the entire league. Another kid in that same circle was Craig Sager, who became one of the most recognizable faces in sports broadcasting. Three boys from one small Illinois town, three careers at the pinnacle of American sports. But Issel's path was the most improbable of all. He did not start on his high school basketball team until his junior year. By the time he retired from professional basketball in 1985, only three players in the history of the game had scored more career points than he had. How did a late-blooming kid from Batavia become one of the most prolific scorers professional basketball has ever seen? The answers run from a volleyball drill in a high school gym to a seven-game ABA Finals, from a record-breaking night against Ole Miss to a championship season alongside a seven-foot-two center, and finally to a moment caught on camera outside a Denver arena that ended everything.

• 2. Batavia Roots

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  Don VanDersnick, the coach at Batavia High School, had an unusual method for teaching young players to dunk. According to Sports Illustrated, he trained Issel with a volleyball and made him jump up and grab the rim fifty times every single day at practice. Issel credited VanDersnick with shaping not just his game but his character. He once said that if VanDersnick had told his players that diving off a water tower would make them better, there would have been a line waiting to do it.

  Issel graduated in 1966 as a high school All-American. As a senior, he averaged 25.8 points per game on a team that finished with a record of 26 wins and 3 losses, and he led Batavia to regional titles in each of his final two seasons. His younger brother Greg followed him onto those Batavia teams in 1968 and 1969. Later in life, Issel reflected on what those years meant. Speaking at Batavia High School's gymnasium in 2017, in memory of Craig Sager who had recently died, Issel said that what Batavia instilled in all three of them, himself, Kenny Anderson, and Sager, was a solid work ethic.

  When recruiting time came, Northwestern, Illinois, and Wisconsin all came calling. Issel chose Kentucky instead, setting the course for the rest of his life.

• 3. Kentucky Wildcat

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  Adolph Rupp, the legendary University of Kentucky coach, reportedly saw what Issel was before Issel's own teammates did. According to Sports Illustrated, early in Issel's Kentucky career, his teammates were neglecting to pass him the ball. Rupp called a timeout and told them plainly that this man was going to be Kentucky's all-time leading scorer by the time he was through, and asked if they would like to meet him. The prediction proved accurate.

  Issel played at Kentucky from 1966 to 1970, scoring 2,138 points across his career for an average of 25.7 points per game. He grabbed 1,078 rebounds and earned All-American honors in two of the three seasons he was eligible. His career points total remains the highest in University of Kentucky men's basketball history.

  On the 7th of February 1970, Issel scored 53 points in a 120-85 victory over Ole Miss, breaking a single-game school record of 51 that had been held by Cliff Hagan. That new record stood for almost four decades, until Jodie Meeks scored 54 points against Tennessee on the 13th of January 2009. Issel also scored 51 against Louisiana State University on the 21st of February 1970, a mark that still ranks third in school history.

  His career overlapped with Pete Maravich at SEC rival LSU, who scored an NCAA-record 3,667 points at 44.2 per game. In each of their three seasons, Maravich and Issel finished first and second in SEC Player of the Year voting. Issel led his team to three Southeastern Conference titles and set 23 school records. As a senior, he averaged 33.9 points per game in the regular season and 36.0 in the NCAA Tournament, helping Kentucky reach the Elite Eight.

• 4. ABA Years

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  When Issel graduated in 1970, he had a choice to make. The Detroit Pistons drafted him in the eighth round of the NBA draft. The Kentucky Colonels drafted him in the first round of the rival American Basketball Association. He signed with the Colonels and the ABA.

  His first professional season answered any doubts immediately. Issel led the entire ABA in scoring with 29.9 points per game and added 13.2 rebounds. He shared the ABA Rookie of the Year award with Charlie Scott of the Virginia Squires. In the 1971 ABA Finals, he averaged 28.1 points and 11.6 rebounds per playoff game, but the Colonels lost to the Zelmo Beaty-led Utah Stars in seven games.

  The following season, Issel played in 83 of 84 games, raised his scoring average to 30.6 points per game, and set an ABA record that still stands: 2,538 total points in a single season. He was named MVP of that year's All-Star Game after scoring 21 points and pulling down nine rebounds.

  During his time with the Colonels, Issel developed a clear self-image as a shooter. He described shooters as adrenaline junkies who would trade their first-born for a fifty-point night, who were addicted to reading their names in headlines, and who would yank the cords of Venetian blinds just to experience the sound of singing nylon mesh.

  In the 1974-75 season, Issel and fellow former Kentucky Wildcat Louie Dampier provided key support to seven-foot-two center Artis Gilmore as the Colonels won the ABA championship. In Game 4 of the series, Issel led all scorers with 26 points. He had been an All-Star in each of his six ABA seasons and led the league in total points three times. Then, before the 1975-76 season, the Colonels traded him away.

• 5. Denver and the NBA

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  The trade that brought Issel to Denver was not straightforward. The Colonels sent him to the Baltimore Claws, formerly the Memphis Sounds, for Tom Owens and cash. The Claws folded before the season even started. Issel was then traded to the Denver Nuggets for Dave Robisch and cash. In his first season with Denver, the team posted the best record in the ABA at 60-24 before losing a six-game ABA Finals.

  When the ABA and NBA merged in June 1976, Issel stayed with the Nuggets and represented Denver in the 1977 NBA All-Star Game. He topped 20 points per game in five of his remaining eight seasons and helped Denver reach the postseason every single year of his tenure. He played alongside, at various points, David Thompson, Bobby Jones, Kiki Vandeweghe, and Alex English.

  The individual moments in Denver were remarkable. On the 31st of January 1980, Issel scored 47 points in a 127-126 win over the New Jersey Nets, making 19 of his 23 free throw attempts. On the 21st of January 1981, he grabbed 21 rebounds while also scoring 32 points in a 129-115 win over the San Antonio Spurs. During the 1984 NBA Playoffs, he averaged 27.4 points per game, his best postseason scoring average since his ABA days, before Denver lost a five-game series against the Utah Jazz.

  He retired after the 1984-85 season, following a Western Conference Finals loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. In nine NBA seasons with the Nuggets, playing 718 games, Issel averaged 20.4 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. He wore number 44. Across his combined ABA and NBA career, he accumulated over 27,000 points. At the time of his retirement, only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Julius Erving had scored more. He missed only 24 games across 15 professional seasons, earning him the nickname "the Horse."

• 6. Coaching Turbulence

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  After retiring, Issel went to his Courtland horse farm in Woodford County, Kentucky. He spent a year calling color commentary for Kentucky basketball, then worked as a Nuggets broadcaster from 1988 to 1992. When Nuggets executive Bernie Bickerstaff recruited him as head coach in 1992, Issel had no coaching experience at any level.

  His first major accomplishment as coach became a moment of NBA history. In 1994, Issel led Denver to the playoffs with the franchise's first winning record in four years; the previous two seasons had produced only 44 total wins. That postseason, the Nuggets knocked off the Seattle SuperSonics as an eighth seed beating a first seed, the first time that had ever happened in the first round of the NBA playoffs. He resigned 34 games into the following season, saying publicly that the pressures of the job had started to make him something he did not want to be.

  Issel returned to the Nuggets in 1998 as president and general manager, then named himself head coach again in December 1999, handing his general manager title to Kiki Vandeweghe. The second tenure was far harder than the first. Two ownership deals collapsed at the last minute. In 2000, he criticized the team after a winless four-game Eastern road trip, and the team captains called a boycott of practice that drew coverage from national news outlets. The Nuggets finished that season 40-42 and missed the playoffs.

  The end came on the 11th of December 2001. After a close loss to the Charlotte Hornets, a fan taunted Issel as he walked off the court at the Pepsi Center. His response was captured on Denver's NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV, and the words he used set off a swift response from the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which called for his firing. The team suspended him without pay for four games. He apologized publicly and met with Hispanic chamber representatives, who accepted the apology. With some members of the community still calling for his removal, Issel took a leave of absence and then accepted a buyout of his contract. He resigned on the 26th of December 2001.

  The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame had inducted him in 1993, the same year his number 44 jersey was already hanging in the Pepsi Center rafters. It was the player's legacy, not the coach's, that endured.

• 7. A Life After Basketball

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  Issel's wife Cheri, whom he met at the University of Kentucky where she was a cheerleader, became an accomplished artist. The couple have two children, Sheridan and Scott. His younger brother Greg, who had starred on Batavia's teams in 1968 and 1969, died suddenly of heart failure in 1998 at the age of 46.

  In 2011, Issel served as executive director at the Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. By 2014, he was living in Windsor, Colorado, and working in the oil and gas business. In February 2018, he became president of the Louisville Basketball Investment and Support Group, a Kentucky-based company founded in 2016 to seek an NBA franchise for Louisville. In April 2021, he joined ESPN Louisville as host of Sports Talk with Dan Issel and Mike Pratt, airing on weekdays from ten to noon.

  His playing career brought him induction into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1973, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1987, the University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005, the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, the Batavia High School Hall of Honor in 2015, and the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame in 2018. The J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award he received from the NBA in 1985 recognized his community service during his final playing season. Decades after leaving Batavia, he remains the all-time leading scorer in University of Kentucky men's basketball history, and he currently ranks eleventh on the combined ABA and NBA all-time scoring list.