Dale Greenlee wasn’t the most talented player on his KU teams, but he was a great shooter and simply outworked everybody on the court. He was one of the fiercest competitors in school history who never saw a loose ball and floor burn he didn’t like.
His "pure intensity" on the hardwood earned him a spot on the Kansas coaches' Dream Team.
His "pure intensity" on the hardwood earned him a spot on the Kansas coaches' Dream Team.
A key member of the 1974 Final Four team, Greenlee averaged 11.8 points per game (No. 3 on team) in a balanced Jayhawk offense where five players averaged in double figures. He also led the team in free throw percentage (89.6) and field goal percentage (49.9), while one Big Eight coach actually called him the “league’s best pure shooter.” He and teammate Roger Morningstar would have been tailor-made for the three-point shot if it had been implemented in that era.
An extremely well-rounded person and brilliant and well-read student, Greenlee was named Academic All-Big Eight his junior and senior seasons. He was also valedictorian in his graduating class of 700 at Guilford High School in Rockford, Illinois.
I had a wonderful Where Are They Now? interview with Dale in 2000 for Jayhawk Insider, where he talked fondly of his KU career and his family, and what’s transpired in his life since graduating from KU with a business administration degree in 1975.
I was so flattered and humbled when he wrote me a thank-you letter after the article was published. Here is what my childhood hero wrote me on March 25, 2000:
"Dear Dave, Thank you for writing such a nice article and thanks for sending the two copies of the Jayhawk Insider. My phone interview with you and reading the article brought back a flood of great memories about KU and all of the fine people I have met. You’ve captured my feelings about my family well. I wish you good luck in your future endeavors. Sincerely, Dale Greenlee."
I also wrote an article about Dale’s book, “Kiss the Sky,” in 2009, and sat with him and enjoyed a great conversation at his book signing at Hastings Bookstore in Lawrence. Dale then kindly sent me a highlight DVD of the 1974 and 1975 KU teams, something that overjoyed me. The great thing about highlights is all the KU shots go in, making my memories of my childhood heroes that much fonder and sweeter. As I’ve said many times, the 1974 Final Four team brightened my childhood immensely and had a profound impact on my life as an impressionable 7-year-old boy.
Here is the great letter Dale sent me with the DVD on April 4, 2009, just shortly after KU lost to Michigan State in the Sweet 16.
“Dear David,
Enclosed is the DVD of the KU highlight film from 1974 and 1975. I believe you will enjoy seeing the Jayhawks with short shorts back in the day! It is fun to relive those wonderful years
And thank you for all of the great articles you have written about our team. I believe we had as good a group of guys that ever wore Kansas on their chests. I’m proud to have been part of that group.
I was at the game here in Indy when Michigan State beat us. Saw Roger and Linda of course, and sat by Dave Robisch. I thought we had that game won, but it got away. But we will be awesome next year. And Bill Self certainly deserved coach of the year.
All for now. Hope all is well with you.
Sincerely,
Dale.”
In this two-part series on Dale Greenlee, I’ll first report on his fond recollections of his KU career. And then, in Part II, I’ll post the Where Are They Now? story I wrote on him in 2000.
Roger Morningstar, Greenlee’s teammate at KU and one of his best friends, on the former sharpshooter and fierce battler:
“He was a kid that wasn’t recruited heavily out of high school. He had a broken leg his senior year in football so he barely got to play basketball his senior year,” Morningstar told me in 2001. “He was an extremely great shooter, maybe a step slow, but technique wise, everything he did fundamentally was next to perfect. He played extremely well.”
Ted Owens, former KU head coach, on Greenlee's tremendous human spirit and will:
"The human will and spirit, while not initially apparent, can be very strong," Owens wrote in his 2013 book, "At the Hang-Up." "Dale Greenlee was someone we rated as the seventh-best player in his freshman recruiting class, but he went on to play more minutes than any of his teammates who had seemed to have greater potential. You can't judge the inner will a person has."
Greenlee on the great team chemistry his KU teams had:
“We were really a tight group, great group of guys. We kind of watched out for each other. Especially, the last two years, we really had a close group. Coach once said, ‘We played like brothers.’ We cared about each other. We hung out together off the court, did a lot of things together. Didn’t have a lot of the jealousies you’d see on some teams. Boy, you were thrilled if Tom (Kivisto) played great and Roger (Morningstar) played great, Rick (Suttle) played great, you were just thrilled, whereas you’d see some teams, you could almost see it, the camera zooms in and somebody's playing great, but then somebody else who isn’t scoring, even though they’re winning, doesn’t seem particularly happy. We just did not have any of that going on. Tom Kivisto, for one, is probably the most unselfish player I’ve ever played with. Our whole starting five was from Illinois. I saw Tom play in high school. I never played against him. He was a year older than me, but I saw him play in high school. I think it was the Supersectionals when he was at Aurora East. It was probably the greatest performance I’ve ever seen by a high school basketball player. I had no idea I’d end up being fortunate enough to play college ball with him. 43 points, I mean he did everything, he stole the ball, he made great passes, he hit great shots, he pretty much from the guard position, controlled a great basketball game. He was a great scorer in high school, but in college, he totally sacrificed himself because he could have been a much better scorer, but he realized the size we had. Coach’s philosophy was to pound it inside, take advantage of our size. Tom pretty much worked into that system, became the assist man, the defensive leader, helped a bunch of us play better. Tom was never happier than when he was giving an assist.
“One thing I vividly remember about that team is nobody really cared who scored. We had five people in double figures. Whenever we played, they usually only had two players that were scorers. Chuckie Williams (K-State star) would average 25, and (Mike) Evans averaged 23, then it would drop down to about nine. Iowa State had Hercle Ivy averaging 25, and then it would drop off. We knew if you could take one person out of their game, we had a real good chance of winning. When teams played us, they couldn’t do that. Our top eight were almost interchangeable parts, which really made it difficult for people to key on any one person. If Roger wasn't hitting, then Tom was. If Rick wasn’t, Danny Knight was. If Norm (Cook) wasn’t, Tommy (Smith) was coming off the bench and scoring. That’s what made our team a difficult team for other teams to play.”
Greenlee on KU’s transformation from an 8-18 team in 1972-73 to a 23-7 Final Four team the following season:
”At one point, that was one of the top two or three largest turnarounds in NCAA history. One thing that was different, my sophomore year, it seemed that there was no one player that had a real consistent year I bet coach probably had 20 different lineups during the season trying to find a combination. What that does for you, because the players weren’t consistent, we didn’t have a consistent lineup. Because there wasn’t a consistent lineup, the players don’t get consistent. When you did get your chance, there were a lot of us that were part-time starters shuffling in and out. When you were in, you pressed a little too hard, you were thinking you had to do something spectacular, whereas our junior year, early on in the season, you had a feeling we pretty much had a set starting five. We knew who we were. The players that were coming in first, second, third off the bench knew who they were, they knew what their roles were, and everybody seemed to be working real hard to do the best they could for the team. It didn’t seem to bother Rick (that he was KU’s Super Sub). Danny Knight would start, but Rick would actually play more minutes during the game, and sometimes, coach would play both at the same time. We’d run our double low post. Back in the 70s, it was a pretty nice luxury to have two 6-10, 6-11 people in at the same time.”
Greenlee on KU’s two conference championships in 1974 and 1975:
“Two of my best memories were beating K-State for the conference championship two years in a row. We hammered them when I was a senior, 91-53. K-State finished second. Coach Owens said afterwards that was one of the worse beatings by a good team of another good team. A good team will beat a bad team by 30 or 40, but for a good team to beat another good team by 38, that was a heck of a night. I broke Mike Evans’ nose early in the game. I picked off a pass at midcourt and he decided to draw a charge, and I kind of blew him into the third row. I felt bad that he was hurt, but they brought him someone who had hardly played, so we doubled Chuckie Williams the rest of the game, and that was pretty much it. He wore a hockey mask a year or two after that. They had two great guards, so it certainly helped us that he was out of the game.”
Greenlee on KU’s miracle win over Oral Roberts in the 1974 Midwest Regional Final
(KU trailed 77-68 with 4:49 left in regulation before rallying and beating ORU on its home floor in overtime):
“Back then, there was no shot clock. No threes. Teams just didn’t come back like that. We pretty much had a season when we’d come back a lot. I’ll never forget the timeouts. I’d look at Kivisto. He’d look at me, we’d look at Roger, and Donnie (Von Moore) and Rick and Norm. It’s like, we were always concerned, but we didn’t feel we were out of the game. We figured we’d do what we had to do to get back in it. The good news, bad news about Oral Roberts that year was I believe they led the nation in scoring. They were the kind of UNLV, Oklahoma before those people. They were the first team to really rack up 100 points a game. The good news for us is they were going to keep shooting. You could almost feel it. They weren’t going to try to not run the last two or three minutes off the clock. Our job was to play tough defense. Coach Owens and coach (Sam) Miranda said, ‘play good, tough defense, don’t make silly fouls, and then when we get opportunities on offense, try to push it up court and take advantage of those opportunities.’ We were fortunate. Tommy Smith hit some big buckets. We really had a nice flurry at the end. We hit most of our free throws, and we were able to go on and win it. (Greenlee missed a 35-footer at the buzzer in regulation). I honestly don’t (remember that). I must have blocked that out of my mind. I had a pretty decent game scoring, but I would have liked to have hit that shot to win the game, but things turned out all right. I think you would have like to have hit that shot to win the game. I hit a couple of free throws in the last couple of minutes.
“I just remember both Ted and Sam being very positive,” Greenlee added. “We were very confident. We could execute what we need to do do. Each time there was a huddle or timeout, I didn’t see any doubt. There’s some games, you just know we’re not going to get back in it. We never felt like that against Oral Roberts, and really didn’t feel like that any game that year.”
Greenlee on KU’s loss against Marquette in the Final Four:
“It is such a huge media event now. It was obviously a big deal to be in the Final Four back then, but it wasn’t like now. Now, all the games in the field of 64 are all televised. It’s such a buildup. We were thrilled to be there. We really felt we had an opportunity to beat Marquette. Actually, I believe we led at halftime. We came out and did not play very sharp the second half. Again, at the time once a team got ahead, if they had some good ball handlers, which Marquette did, they had a couple of awfully good guards, they could slow the game down, you ended up having to foul. It was only a two or three point game, then all of a sudden, it’s a 13-point game. We led one at halftime, and I didn’t think we played particularly well in the first half. Marquette kind of liked to slow it down. It was a low scoring game. We were playing a lot of zone in the first half, they came out the second half and started to hit a few jumpers, then we came out of the zone into a man to man. They were awfully good inside. They had Bo Ellis, Maurice Lucas, (Earl) Tatum. They had some great players underneath that made it a little tough to match. Their guards were really quick, not particularly strong outside shooters. We were playing some zone. They were much more difficult to match up with man to man.”
Greenlee on KU’s expectations during the 1973-74 season:
“When we were juniors, we weren’t ranked at all in preseason because we were 8-18 the year before. We slowly climbed up. You got up to the 20th, 18th, 15th, got up I think as high as sixth was probably as high as we were ever ranked , even though we were in the Final Four. Looking back on it, it was probably a great situation to be in, as opposed to the next year. We came out second in one poll, fifth in another. You got the bullseye pointed on your chest every game. The fact we lost Tom trying to get some things sorted out made it a more difficult situation than being an underdog. As an underdog, you have nothing to lose. You can go play all out and give it your all and make good things happen. Sometimes the teams that are favored start playing a little safe, making things a little more difficult. I take pride in the fact we didn’t have any player that went on to have huge pro careers. We were a group of overachieving guys that liked to play together. That’s the fun of sport. That’s really what made it a fantastic year for us. ... We prided ourselves on that (play hard and tough). We had to be. We figured that was the only way we were going to compete.”
Greenlee on KU’s 1974-75 season:
KU played No. 3 Indiana in Allen Fieldhouse on Dec. 4, 1974 and lost 74-70 in OT.
“I think Norm or Donnie had a shot right at the end of the game that would have won the game, but missed an eight or nine footer. Scott May had about eight or 10 in OT. Bobby Knight says to this day that was his best team, not the next year, when they went undefeated. That’s the year May broke his arm, and Kentucky beat them in the regionals.
“I think losing Kivisto really hurt us. (We had) eight of 9 players back. (We) won conference two years in a row. Early on in the season, we were trying find find a combination. Nobody had really stepped up to fill that point guard spot. We recruited number of point guards like Milt Gibson. I ended up playing it. I was not a natural point guard. I never played the point my whole life, when you’ve been a two or three your whole life, it’s a bit of a challenge. We got on a roll, we were really playing well, just couldn’t get past Notre Dame (in the first round of the NCAA Tournament).
“I’ve not been much of a Notre Dame fan since. That was tough. We had lost to Notre Dame when I was a sophomore at Notre Dame, when they shot 33 free throws, and we shot one. That left a bit of a bitter taste when you outscore somebody by 20 some points and end up losing. My senior year, to have your last game against Notre Dame. That may still be the record for most people fouling out of a basketball game. That was one of the worse games as far as number of fouls. Back then, you really couldn’t even touch each other, you could bump a little bit. Now you watch the NCAA games, they all look like pro games. There’s so much grabbing, holding and shoving. Back then, you put your hand on him, it was a foul. I believe (Adrian Dantley) led the nation in scoring. He was a great scorer, he was a bit of a tweener. He wasn’t real tall, he was 6-4 or 6-5, but he was built like a horse. We tried big people like Norm Cook, 6-9, Dantley was too quick. If you tried small people, he was just too strong. He was really a tough person. Tough matchup. We just didn’t have an answer for him, and without a shot clock, without no three-pointers a team could pretty much really take advantage of both kind of matchmaking situations.”
Greenlee on Rick Suttle:
“I roomed with Rick. He was funny. I can still see Rick. He was late for a practice. To punish him, we had a pre-game meal and Rick was supposed to sing his school song as the punishment. He didn’t know his school song. I remember him going, ‘I don’t know it.’ We said, ‘So pick a song.’ He leaves the room and came in singing "Hello Dolly." Here’s Rick, 6-11. He actually left the room, came in waving a handkerchief like Louie Armstrong. He had us roaring. Probably every one in the room remembers that. Things like that, he was always good for something. He always kept you loose.”
Greenlee on his role on the team:
“My sophomore and junior year, with Tom playing the point, my role as the two guard was to do a good job defensively, basically to look and make sure you hit the open shots, hit the boards when you could coming from the two spot.”
Greenlee on teaming with Kivisto, both extremely smart players. Greenlee was Academic All-Big Eight in 1974 and 1975, while Kivisto was Academic All-Big Eight in 1973 and 1974. Kivisto, who earned an NCAA Post-Graduate Award in 1974, was also Academic All-American in ‘74.
“Definitely, I’ve always felt if players are smart, it just makes the game so much better. You can pick up things quicker, run your offenses better, we could change defenses up, you really knew you could count on other people to know what’s going on. It’s one thing to be physically talented, but all of us that’s played a sport would say physically talented people that maybe weren’t as mentally talented, consequently things don’t run as smooth. We could really count on each other to do the right thing and adjust to any game situation. Coaches always had a very comprehensive pre-game strategy. Tom and I and all of the players really understood, “OK, K-State, here are the things we want to accomplish.' When it was Iowa State or Colorado, whichever team, we knew their strengths and weaknesses.”
Greenlee on his memories of playing against great players and coaches:
“It was a great part of my college career to play against John Wooden, coach of UCLA, get to play against Bill Walton, Keith Wilkes, we got to play against Bobby Knight, we got to play against Al McGuire, we played Kentucky in Adolph Rupp’s last year. We got to play against some great coaches.”
Greenlee on KU’s Illinois pipeline:
“Illinois is such a much more populous state than Kansas. There’s just a lot more players. There’s literally hundreds of good players in Chicago and the rest of the Illinois area every year. At the time, the University of Illinois was pretty down. Their program was relatively weak. Most of their good players were leaving the state. When we played Marquette, three of their five starters were from Illinois. The joke was Illinois north versus Illinois west because everyone on the court was from Illinois. I think Illinois was 5-20 that year. They just weren’t keeping anybody around. DePaul, of course, had good players. There were good Illinois players from Kentucky. Quinn Buckner at Indiana was from Illinois. I played against Buckner in high school. Coach Miranda pretty much knew all the coaches (from Illinois). Dave Robisch had been to Kansas from lllinois, pretty much had a fairly consistent pipeline coming.”
Greenlee on his recruitment and his heroes:
“(I was) not heavily recruited. You get hundreds of letters, but once I broke my ankle, I missed almost the whole basketball season my senior year. ... I really liked the Boston Celtics and liked the Chicago Bulls. I liked the way Jerry Sloan played. He was such a tough, fierce competitor.’
Greenlee on his KU fandom:
“I root for the Jayhawks all the time. (Morningstar is) one of my best friends. I talk to Roger real often. That always brings back the KU days.”
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