Former Jayhawk Jeff Dishman was a fierce battler on and off the court

I first met Jeff Dishman in the summer of 1981 at Allen Fieldhouse, still an impressionable teenager about to enter my sophomore year at Lawrence High School. Dishman was hanging out around the trophy area outside the court when I approached him and asked: “Are you a KU recruit?” He replied: “I signed with KU.” My friend Phillip and I then had a very nice conversation with the new KU signee and rebounded for him as he shot free throws. It was quite a thrill for me rebounding for the new Jayhawk. He was as kind and nice as can be.

KU assistant coach Bob Hill came over to Dishman and spoke briefly with him. Hill would go on to become head coach in the NBA with the Knicks, Pacers, Spurs and Sonics.

My friend’s dad drove us home that dreamy hot afternoon as I dreamed of Dishman creating his hardwood magic at Allen Fieldhouse. I began making up nicknames for him during the drive home, counting the days when he would suit up and don the crimson and blue.

A Medicine Lodge, Kan., native and junior college star at Hutchinson Community College, Dishman battled valiantly for two years as an undersized 6-5 power forward. He never backed down competing against the likes of North Carolina superstar Sam Perkins in his first college game (he even drew a foul on Perkins while driving the left baseline) and the Big Eight stars.

Unfortunately, Dishman played on two losing teams at Kansas, which marked the end of Ted Owens’ 19-year head coaching career. He averaged 33.2 minutes per game his first season (junior year) while his minutes dropped to 21.4 minutes as a senior as Owens went with the youth movement.

“(Owens) had some heat on him,” Dishman told me in a Where Are They Now? interview in 2003. “He was banking on the future. He was basically saying, ‘This is going to be kind of a building year,’ and he ended up using that year trying to build it and playing a lot of younger guys (KU had three highly touted freshmen in Kerry Boagni, Ron Kellogg and Calvin Thompson). I was a much better player my senior year (Dishman averaged 5.7 ppg) than my junior yea (9.3 ppg), but my minutes were diminished because Ted had basically said, ‘I’m going to go with the youth movement.’ You’re not happy about it when it’s happening. I took it. When you look back on it, you understand it, because the guy was trying to save his livelihood.”

Despite two losing years, Dishman cherished his KU experience.

“After you get done at KU, you think about some of those games and you think about some of the good times and stuff,” Dishman said. “I can’t tell you every score. I can’t tell you every loss or win, but I can tell you the camaraderie and the friendships you develop over the years and the stuff that happens on road trips and the fun you had and those kind of relationships you develop. That’s the thing about college basketball.”

Dishman was a fierce battler on and off the court. Diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1986, he had his bladder removed the following year and has been cancer free since 1987 at the time of our interview. He gained a greater a appreciation of life through his battle.

Dishman boasts career averages of 7.4 points and 5.1 rebounds in 56 games while shooting 45.4 percent from the field and 69.2 percent at the free throw line. He led the team in free throw percentage his senior year in 1982-83 (82.9), where he was also a co-captain and earned Academic All-Big Eight honors.

“I couldn’t ask for two better examples of hard work and discipline,” Owens said at the time about Dishman and fellow co-captain Mark Summers.

Dishman is currently working as a financial advisor at Stifel in Topeka.

No, Dishman certainly isn’t one of the all-time KU greats, but his accomplishments at KU can never be forgotten as the consummate team and role player. I will always respect him for the great, genuine kindness he showed me and my friend when I first met him that summer of 1981. And I had a wonderful Where Are They Now? interview with him as well.

Here is Dishman recalling growing up in Medicine Lodge, B.H. Born, and his major college basketball dreams during our 2003 interview.

"Bill Forsyth (from Medicine Lodge) played at KU also. Us three (B.H. Born is the other) are the guys that played at KU. B.H. and I have met a couple two or three times and had some nice conversation. In fact, I saw him in Medicine Lodge about three years ago. He was down, they were retiring his jersey and stuff at the school and putting him in the Kansas Hall of Fame. It was nice visiting with him. I really enjoyed that. B.H. was the guy back in the day. He was really quite a dominant force back in his day playing for Medicine Lodge High school. I heard a lot about B.H. whenever I got in high school. I heard he got a lot of scoring records, had scored a lot of points and went on to play at KU. 

"Of course, I knew of KU because growing up Wilt Chamberlain was always one of my favorite players, and I always enjoyed watching him play. When I was in junior high, he was still a fairly dominating force in the NBA Then, hearing about B.H. Born, it eventually became a pretty good fit for me to go to KU. You hear stories on how many points he scored. He was pretty much an unstoppable post player and struggled a little bit because he was behind (Clyde) Lovellette. After Lovellette, everyone thought it was going to be a down year, and B.H picked up the slack. I remember hearing about all the stories, and people around town talking about B.H. Of course, he was a little bit bigger guy than I was at that time. In small towns, word travels pretty fast. He had quite a reputation as being a pretty strong, physical player. When you’re in Medicine Lodge, you’re so far removed from big-time basketball. 

"My thought was I’m going to do whatever I can possible do to try and get there. Obviously, you hear about those guys. You watch Wilt on TV and you hear about B. H. Born. To me, I had some goals to play major college. And if KU was one of them, that would be great. I kind of had to take a little bit longer route to get there. You’re so far removed when you’re in Medicine Lodge from being around big-time basketball that you don’t know if you can get there or what it’s going to take for you to get there. By me going to the junior college route, it kind of opened my eyes a little bit and let me figure out how hard it was going to be to get there. I had a lot of work to do. In fact, I was more highly recruited in football than anything. I had more major colleges looking at me for football. All the junior colleges and small four years were looking at me as a quarterback, basically. I put up some nice numbers in high school. We went to the state playoffs and had a nice senior year, but my love was basically basketball. I think probably looking back on it, football would have been a better avenue for me to get in the pros. I kind of had more of a build for a football player. But I just had that basketball in me. I don’t know if it was because of watching Wilt play or B. H. Born, or all the great athletes you’d see on TV. I just had this interest in basketball more so than football. Maybe kind of like a Tony Gonzalez type deal, love to play basketball, but football, he’s kind of done it right. He loves to play basketball, and football is something he’s really good at. Even though he’d love to be in the pros probably more so than the NFL, he’s a premier tight end. I was kind of a tweener like he is, I mean a big strong body. In the NBA, you got to be really tall and big. He just doesn’t fit the mold for what his game is. I was kind of the same way. A lot of people that played pro football, I know they got a great deal there. 

"(I have) no regrets. I had a great time at KU. I met a lot of great people, and had a lot of great relationships and memories. When you’re playing at one of the premier programs in basketball in the country and you get to do that, I don’t know if you’d trade that for anything. I wanted to play major college basketball no matter how I had to get there, basically my way to get there was through Hutchinson juco. I really liked Hutch and wanted to go to Hutch.”

Now, here is my 2003 Where Are They Now? story.

...

Jeff Dishman’s life story is about hard work, discipline, perseverance and heart. From defying the odds and earning a basketball scholarship at Kansas, where he fought like a warrior as an undersized 6-5 power forward for two trying seasons, to at 26, contending the battle of his life in cancer, Dishman has always tested his will and triumphed over the human spirit.

His inspirational roots were planted in little Medicine Lodge, Kan., where Dishman grew up and developed a passion for basketball. As a 6-5 high school post player, though, Dishman didn’t exactly have the college basketball world beckoning at his doorstep. So he took the next route of going to Hutchinson Community College in hopes of achieving his dream of playing major college basketball.

After working on his wing skills and achieving All-America honors his sophomore year, Dishman decided to follow his heart and become a Jayhawk. KU was, quite simply, a perfect fit. After all, B.H. Born was a Medicine Lodge native as well who starred at Mount Oread in the 1950s.  

“Once KU came into the fold and I came to visit, it was pretty much a done deal,” Dishman said.

Soon after Dishman arrived at Kansas, an unexpected happening occurred. Center Victor Mitchell left the team, which forced power forward Kelly Knight into the five spot and Dishman was pegged as the new four man. Recruited as a shooter to back up small forward David Magley, Dishman was now counted on to log major minutes and guard bigger players at power forward.  He excelled in his new role. Dishman averaged 9.3 points and 5.9 rebounds in 33 minutes per game in 1981-82.

“I suppose being a naive kid from Medicine Lodge, I think I felt like I’d have an impact,” Dishman said. “I don’t know if I thought I’d play 33 minutes per game. I don’t know if anybody really thought that would be what we would end up doing, but our bench was not very deep. The drop-off was pretty dramatic. I don’t know maybe if playing three or four minutes less a game might have helped us out down the road. By February, our legs were pretty much gone.”

While KU started the season off well, disaster happened when the already thin Jayhawks lost Knight with a sprained ankle just before conference play. He was out four weeks.

“That really killed us,” Dishman said. “I don’t know if we ever got our confidence back. Kelly came back, and was never quite the same that year. It was disappointing.”

Dishman, 42, started the season slowly, but came on strong down the stretch. A tweener with good hops, he was a fabulous role player who did the dirty work inside and got the ball to Tony Guy and Magley. Unfortunately, KU, which had advanced to the Sweet 16 the previous season in 1980-81, finished the year at 13-14. Coach Ted Owens was under some fire to bring a winner back to Kansas. 

He named Dishman and Mark Summers co-captains for 1982-83.

“I couldn’t ask for two better examples of hard work and discipline,” Owens said.

Dishman took his role as senior co-captain very seriously.

“I was probably more of a leader by example than by being a rah-rah guy,” he said. “I was more a guy who would lead them in wind sprints, be first in line in for drills, and bust your butt and do those type of things.”

Dishman started the first seven games that season before assuming a backup role. His best game of the year was at Nebraska on Feb. 5, where he had 16 points and 10 rebounds. Overall, Dishman said his senior campaign was very trying.

“(Owens) had some heat on him,” Dishman said. “He was banking on the future. He was basically saying, ‘This is going to be kind of a building year,’ and he ended up using that year trying to build it and playing a lot of younger guys (KU had three highly touted freshmen in Kerry Boagni, Ron Kellogg and Calvin Thompson). I was a much better player my senior year (Dishman averaged 5.7 ppg) than my junior year, but my minutes were diminished because Ted had basically said, ‘I’m going to go with the youth movement.’ You’re not happy about it when it’s happening. I took it. When you look back on it, you understand it, because the guy was trying to save his livelihood.”

Owens ended up being fired after leading Kansas to another down season (13-16). Despite going through two losing years, Dishman said he loved playing for Owens and relished his KU experience.

“After you get done at KU, you think about some of those games and you think about some of the good times and stuff,” Dishman said. “I can’t tell you every score. I can’t tell you every loss or win, but I can tell you the camaraderie and the friendships you develop over the years and the stuff that happens on road trips and the fun you had and those kind of relationships you develop. That’s the thing about college basketball.”

After his collegiate career ended, Dishman spent the 1983-84 season as a graduate assistant under new KU coach Larry Brown. He then taught and coached high school basketball in Bartlesville, Okla., for a year before playing a season overseas in the Persian Gulf. Dishman returned to coaching for the next six years (1986-92) at Mission Valley High School southwest of Topeka, where he was also the athletic director. He then switched careers and worked for five years selling building materials for a wholesale company. In 1997, Dishman changed directions again and became a financial advisor for U.S. Bank Piper Jaffray. He manages stock and bond portfolios for people.

“It was a chance for me to get off the road,” he said. “I had been traveling every day, and now I work two minutes away from my house. The first two years were really good, the last three have been really difficult with the market and all. I’m enjoying it.”

He also loves being back in coaching. Dishman took over the head-coaching job at Hayden High School in Topeka this past year, where he is rebuilding a program that went 2-19 a year ago. He said he accepted the position, in part, to “give back to these kids, and try to teach them something about the game and life in general.” Dishman, who was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1986, certainly has many lessons to teach. He had to have his bladder removed the following year, and has been cancer free since 1987.

 

Dishman said that cancer helped give him a greater appreciation of life and taught him to keep matters like coaching in perspective. He now revels in the day-to-day moments which capture his imagination.

“What you figure out is there’s a lot of other important things out there than winning or losing a ball game,” Dishman said. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like losing. But in the scheme of things, winning a high school basketball game or losing is not life or death like some people would like to make it. It is important, and that’s how I coach. I coach it to be very important. I also try to strive and tell my kids that you need to go at these things full force with your mind, your body and your soul, because you never know when those things are going to be taken away from you.  They can be taken away from you at the snap of a finger. They need to live life to the fullest every day.”

And that’s exactly what Dishman does. He’s at peace with himself 20 years after playing his last basketball game at Kansas. Dishman played hoops like he battled cancer. With passion. With determination. And with heart.  

“I’m a very optimistic person,” Dishman said. “I guess I always thought you could work hard enough to get things right, and if you do that long enough and hard enough, eventually you’d get to where you want to be. I never had a quit attitude whatsoever, and that’s how I practiced and that’s how I played. If I was overmatched, I’d still give it all I had. I just wouldn’t throw up my hands and say I can’t do this, because that’s not my nature. And I think that’s how you attack a deal like cancer. You just have to say,  ‘Hey I got to fight this thing, because the other alternative is not very good.’ You got to keep as positive mentally and emotionally as you possibly can, too. You can’t be thinking the worse is going to happen. You got to be thinking the best can happen.”

A Closer Look at Jeff Dishman:

Years at KU: 1981-83

Career Notables: Career-high 21 points versus Michigan State on Dec. 5, 1981, and career-best 11 rebounds against Rollins on Jan. 9, 1981...Co-Captain in 1982-83...Led ‘82-83 team in FT percentage at 82.9...Academic All-Big 8 in 1983.

Family: Wife, Tammy, and son, Caleb, 14.

Education:  1984. B.S. Education. 

Since Leaving KU:  Dishman served one year as a graduate assistant at KU before coaching high school basketball in Bartlesville, Okla., in 1984-85. He then spent a year overseas playing basketball in the Persian Gulf. Dishman returned to coaching from 1986-92 at Mission Valley High School near Topeka, while also serving as athletic director for five of those years. He left coaching and spent the next five years selling building materials for a wholesale company. In 1997, he accepted a job with U.S. Bank Piper Jaffray.

Currently: Dishman is a financial advisor for U.S. Bank Piper Jaffray, and also the head boys coach at Hayden High School in Topeka.

Hobbies: Golf.

Favorite Memories: Shocking Oklahoma in the first round of the Big 8 Tournament on March 8, 1983 (KU won, 87-77). “We kept running a play for Calvin (30 points) to get open. We kept running the same play over and over again, and they never could get it stopped. And, of course, then our whole deal on the other end was stopping Wayman Tisdale. I think we held him to his lowest season total (13 points). I remember it being a  total team effort, and Calvin stepped up and hit some big shots. We pretty much knew if we could close down on Wayman a little bit, we’d have a shot. Nobody expected us to do that, I don’t think, have a shot against them at that point in our season. It was a good memory.” ... Battling North Carolina and freshman Michael Jordan on Nov. 28, 1981 (KU lost to UNC, 74-67). “We stretched them as far as they could go. We had a shot, but then Kelly Knight fouled out with five minutes left...Michael really didn’t stand out on that team at that point in time, but we heard about him because of his vertical jump and his athleticism that everybody had been talking about. It was on ESPN, and that was one of their first games that year. ESPN was just getting started, and so it was a pretty big deal.”