Thirty years ago on March 10, 1984, Danny Manning and his Lawrence High Lions lost a heartbreaking 50-49 game to Wyandotte in the 6A state championship in Allen Fieldhouse. On this same night, Manning’s future team -- the Kansas Jayhawks -- won a thrilling 79-78 game over Oklahoma in the Big Eight Tournament championship.
KU basketball was now in the Big Dance for the first time in three years, and a new era of Jayhawk hoops had begun with Larry Brown as head coach. Manning would become a dominant figure in KU’s rise back to national prominence, but on this day in March, he was like the rest of his LHS teammates — despondent after losing the state championship.
I was a Lawrence High classmate of Danny our senior year in 1983-84 and wrote this story on him in Jayhawk Illustrated in 2009 as part of the 25-year anniversary of Manning and the Lions’ magical season.
Five years later, with March Madness upon us and the 30-year anniversary of the Manning-led Lions run to the state title, let’s look back on how it all started for Danny three decades ago in his first year in Lawrence in this two-part updated story.
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While Tulsa head coach Danny Manning has resurrected the program and brings his Golden Hurricane into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003, I can't help but flash back to over 30 years ago in August of 1983 when my former high school classmate arrived in Lawrence to attend LHS his senior year after a standout career at Page High in Greensboro, N.C., where he teamed with future NFL star Haywood Jeffires and led the Pirates to a state championship and undefeated season his junior year, one of the best prep seasons in North Carolina history.
Of course, we all know the story how KU coach Larry Brown hired Manning’s father, Ed, as assistant coach in the summer of ‘83. The Manning family moved to Lawrence, and Danny shortly committed to Kansas and inked with the Jayhawks in the November early signing period.
Ted Juneau, Manning’s basketball coach at LHS, close friend, and now director of basketball services at Tulsa, was in disbelief when he first heard a high school star from North Carolina might be joining his team. Juneau was going about his business preparing for a new school year and basketball season after winning the Class 6A state championship the previous March with my former T-Ball teammate Chris Piper leading the way.
Juneau said Jayhawk assistant John Calipari and the KU coaches kept calling his office.
“(Calipari) said, ‘Ted, there’s a chance that the best high school player in America is going to move to Lawrence.’” Juneau recalled in a 90-minute interview in 1998. “I said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘Yeah, really.’ Lo and behold, they called (again) and said they’re going to hire Ed as an assistant coach and their son, Danny, is going to be here, (that they were) pretty sure he’s coming.
“From that point on, what I thought would have been a good season, that we’d be competitive, suddenly the pressure was on.”
Juneau and senior co-captain Jeff Johnson went to meet Manning at the Holidome when Danny and his family first arrived in Lawrence.
“Ed answered and we introduced ourselves,” Juneau said. “Danny was lying on the bed watching TV. He got up, and it was just like seeing all legs come up. He didn’t weigh a lot. He was pretty skinny, but boy, you looked up and said, ‘Oh my God, this is for real.’
“So the ride began.”
Both Juneau and Johnson recall Manning being very genuine and classy during that first meeting.
“My first reaction was ‘Holy (cow), this is a big kid,’” Johnson said. “My absolute number one first impression, other than man he’s tall, is what a nice guy. He was very polite. His mom would say ‘Danny,’ and he would say, ‘Yes mam.’ He was just a sincere guy and somebody at that time I didn’t know at all but was looking forward to getting to know and play with obviously.”
With the arrival of Manning at LHS, the fortunes of Lawrence High hoops and KU basketball would eventually undergo a dramatic transformation. Long known as a tradition-rich football school, suddenly fans were arriving early for the LHS Junior Varsity games to get prime seats to see the new miracle worker in action.
The gym was packed and rocking every game night, and Ed Manning and Brown were regular visitors. They’d sit in the balcony by themselves, and politely clap every time Manning scored a bucket or made a good play.
There would have been more powerhouse coaches in the stands had Manning not already signed with Kansas. In fact, then-North Carolina coach Dean Smith visited Lawrence High School before Manning committed to KU to give one last recruiting pitch to woo him to Chapel Hill.
The likes of Smith and former Georgetown coach John Thompson and N.C. State coach Jim Valvano sure missed a show that season. There’s one particular home game that stands out in my mind. It was Lawrence High’s battle against Wyandotte on Dec. 13, 1983, the Lions’ second contest of the season. Wyandotte was an extremely talented team featuring future Oklahoma forward William Davis and future KU football star receiver Willie Vaughn.
On the game’s first possession, Manning dribbled upcourt, stopped on a dime above the free-throw line, and swished a jumper. The crowd went off. On Lawrence High’s next trip down the floor, the 6-10 Manning again dribbled upcourt and pulled up at the same spot.
Swish.
The fans stomped their feet on the bleachers and roared. It was the loudest I had ever heard that gym; the cheers still echo in my mind 30 years later.
Manning finished with a game-high 27 points, but Wyandotte prevailed, 66-57.
While Manning could take over games at will, he always felt more comfortable passing to his teammates. Johnson remembers times “smacking him on the butt and saying, ‘Just shoot that.’”
Like Brown would cajole Manning at KU, Juneau urged Manning to be more assertive. Juneau and Manning now laugh about old times, but the former LHS coach had to “pull teeth” (in Johnson’s words) at times to get Manning to shoot the ball.
“I can remember telling him, because he was being so unselfish, sharing the ball, making the passes, not taking an eight-foot shot to get someone a two-foot shot, and the ball bouncing off someone’s nose because they weren’t expecting it, in some respects, he was being selfish trying to be so unselfish,” Juneau said.
“He tried so hard not to dominate the game,” Juneau added. “He just wanted to be one of the guys.”
Juneau, though, said he genuinely appreciated Manning’s selfless nature and respected him for being such a team player. He called Manning a true joy to coach.
“That made that season a lot easier for me as a coach because of his attitude," Juneau said. “If he had come in and said, ‘I don’t need to listen to you, I can do what I want,’ it could have been a struggle.”
While there were some games when Manning scored just 12 or 14 points, make no mistake, he could light up the nets. The next game after the loss to Wyandotte, Manning exploded for a season-high 36 points in the Lions’ 67-59 victory at Shawnee Mission West on Dec. 16, 1983.
Being a star player, opposing teams loved to heckle him. And they occasionally went over the line. Take the game at hostile Leavenworth on Jan. 13, 1984.
“There was a sign up saying, ‘Danny can’t read,’” Juneau recalled. “Danny looked at me and said, ‘We’ll see what they can read after this game’s over.’”
Manning was on a mission that night and scored 27 points to lead LHS to a resounding 73-54 victory.
Ten days earlier on Jan. 3, Manning and the Lions had a hostile awakening in K-State country at Manhattan High School. Students threw a banana at him when he was introduced in the starting lineups. They even lit firecrackers underneath the bleachers as the lights went out.
Juneau and Howard Fulton, a starting guard on the LHS team and my former basketball teammate at South Junior High, remember that night quite well.
“I think we (he and Manning) joked about it,” Fulton said. “He couldn’t believe they threw a banana. Danny said, ‘C’mon man, let’s just go out there and play.’ I think he was real pumped up after that.”
Manning scored 10 points in the first quarter and a game-high 20 to lead LHS to a 60-38 victory.
“The kids were so angry, and they went out with a real purpose,” Juneau said. “We buried Manhattan that night.”
Johnson said Manning always rose above the opposing fans’ rude behavior.
“Not to be a cliche,” Johnson said, “but he let his basketball do the talking.”
Manning’s ability to dribble and pass the ball like a point guard and shoot as well as any high school big man in the country had his fellow students, fans, and even NBA scouts talking a lot that memorable season.
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