Darnell Valentine, the prep phenom from Wichita Heights, took a recruiting visit to North Carolina with fellow high school sensation Al Wood from Gray, Georgia, during his senior year. Valentine could see himself playing for legendary coach Dean Smith and the Tar Heels, a school with such rich tradition that was competing with Kansas for Valentine’s services.
“I was feeling very comfortable at North Carolina, and Lafayette (Norwood, Valentine’s coach at Heights) and I said, ‘Let’s go back to Wichita and sit down and gather ourselves and make the decision,’” Valentine recalled before the KU-Georgia Tech game on Jan. 1, 2005 in Allen Fieldhouse, where his jersey was retired at halftime.
However, everything changed for Valentine and KU when head coach Ted Owens soon made Norwood his assistant coach and the first full-time African-American assistant in KU basketball history.
“A week later I believe or somewhere in that space of time, they brought him as a staff member,” Valentine said. “It certainly laid things in Kansas’ favor.”
So Valentine picked KU instead of Smith and North Carolina while Wood chose UNC. D.V., a tenacious defensive player, was expected to have an immediate and profound impact after two down seasons for Kansas (13-13 in 1975-76 and 18-10 in 1976-77).
Valentine and Norwood were — and have always been — extremely tight.
“Lafayette, I don’t know if he adopted me or I grabbed his leg, but we’re attached,” Valentine said. “His family, we’re still very close.”
A reporter asked Valentine if he would have gone to Wichita State had the Shockers hired Norwood as an assistant coach.
“That’s a good one. I think he would have done very well, but I probably would have gone to North Carolina,” Valentine said. “Oh, Dean Smith and the tradition of North Carolina and the players that were there. It’s a phenomenal program, a phenomenal program. Phil Ford (star point guard) was a senior, I would have had the opportunity to learn and expand my game. That would have been incredible.”
But Valentine certainly has no regrets about becoming a Jayhawk.
“It’s something that I’ve never looked back on,” he said with a smile. “I’m 300 percent sure that it was the right decision to me.”
Valentine started from day one for that great and magical 1977-78 team, which was ranked as high as No. 5 nationally and finished at 24-5, losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to No. 2 ranked UCLA. Joining Valentine in the starting lineup were senior guards Clint Johnson and John Douglas and junior Paul Mokeski and senior Ken Koenigs up front. Senior forward-center Donnie Von Moore and freshman guard Wilmore Fowler were invaluable as the team’s Super Subs.
That squad, which had seven players average over 20 minutes per game with Douglas a team-high 27.8 mpg, had very good chemistry after some tough years, but throughout Valentine’s career, his extremely close and unique relationship with Norwood hurt team unity. Norwood once had a picture of Valentine in his office, which upset Owens. Ted told Norwood to take the picture down and told his assistant that if he’s going to have a picture, make it a team picture.
Valentine and Norwood were always inseparable at KU, apart from the other players and coaches. Max Falkenstien, the legendary KU announcer, wrote about this in his 1996 book, Max and the Jayhawks:
“In fact, it was a strange coach-player relationship. They were always together. In airports, hotels, they were generally in tandem, separated from the rest of the team. I always questioned whether this was a good situation for team unity, but we never talked much about it.”
A source inside the Kansas basketball program at the time told me Norwood’s salary was being paid by KU boosters in Wichita. This source called these boosters the “mafia.” While Norwood was taken care of, he had other issues to worry about.
“It wasn’t all peaches and cream when I took the assistant coaching job at the University of Kansas,” Norwood told the Johnson County Community College Campus Ledger on April 17, 2014. “It just wasn’t popular to always have black coaches at that level, so I ran into obstacles of opponents and even some of our own fans.”
While Norwood tried his best to do his job with fellow assistant Bob Hill and coach Owens, KU was having a dream season. This was a balanced, senior dominated team led by a freshman phenom in Valentine with four players averaging in double figures that season. KU was paced by Valentine (13.5 ppg), followed by Douglas (12.7), Keonigs (11.1) and Von Moore (10.7), while Mokeski averaged 9.3 points and Fowler 7.0 points per game.
Each player had its role and performed it to near perfection. Valentine was the playmaker, defensive stopper and scorer; Douglas, who sacrificed his game (team-high 19.2 points per game as a junior last season as an honorable mention All-American), was very athletic who could score and defend taller players; Johnson was a defensive scrapper who never saw a loose ball he didn’t like; Koenigs was a smooth shooting 6-10 forward and good rebounder; Mokeski added great size at 7-foot who could score and defend in the low post, rebound and block shots; and Von Moore was a great shooter who could rebound and block shots off the bench. Fowler, meanwhile, added outside scoring. He was a prep phenom from Palmetto, Florida, who the Detroit Pistons considered drafting out of high school.
The high-powered Jayhawks won seven of their first nine games (eclipsed century mark in three of the first four games) with only losses to No. 1 ranked Kentucky and No. 4 Arkansas. KU then caught fire winning its next 17 of 18 games with the only defeat at Nebraska (62-58).
Leading KU’s charge was Valentine. Falkenstien wrote about his great addition:
“Although he was just one year removed from high school, Valentine was an instant hero. He arrived at Kansas and played an extraordinary role from the start. He was a tremendous athlete and was impressive in all phases of the game.”
I vividly remember going to the games at Allen Fieldhouse with my dad and getting chills knowing I was watching the No. 5 ranked team in the country and watching my heroes like Valentine, Douglas and Von Moore. To this day, that squad remains one of my all-time favorite KU teams.
KU won the Big Eight title (13-1) and all roads look paved to opening the NCAA Tournament in Allen Fieldhouse, where Kansas was expected to win the Big Eight Tournament and become the automatic qualifier in the NCAA Midwest Region. All the ‘Hawks would then need was to win two games to advance to their first Final Four since 1974.
Koenigs, a two-time Academic All-American, a longtime doctor in Springfield, Massachusetts, and one of the smartest players in KU history, raved about KU’s team chemistry.
“I think we all got along well,” he told me in a 2001 interview. “That whole season kind of fell into place. There were some good guys on that team.”
But heartbreak happened in the semifinals of the Big Eight postseason tournament in Kansas City at Kemper Arena, when K-State upset KU 87-76. Kansas had already beaten the Wildcats three times that season, but on this night, the fourth win was not the charm.
“It is very tough to beat your arch rival four times in a row, especially in that day and age,” Keonigs said.
So instead of being the automatic qualifier and having homecourt advantage in Allen Fieldhouse, the 24-4 Jayhawks were shipped to Eugene, Oregon, for a first-round matchup against heavyweight UCLA in the West Region.
It would be a tough test to get out of the first round. But KU held a 10-point lead in the second half with nine minutes left and seemed in command when Valentine picked up his fourth foul. Owens then had a huge decision to make.
“Ordinarily, I would have substituted for him, but the momentum was ours and I couldn’t allow the UCLA guards to take over the game,” Owens wrote in his 2013 book, At the Hang-Up. “I decided to leave him in the game...and on the very next possession of the ball, he was called for a charge. I must have looked like the dumbest coach in America--and I might have been. But if I had to do it over, I would do the same.”
Without Valentine in the game, the Bruins rallied and won 83-76. And just like that, KU’s magical season — a year where the Jayhawks had the talent to make the Final Four — was now over.
“I thought it was a great season,” Koenigs said. “It kind of ended abruptly.”
Valentine finished the season against UCLA with 11 points on 5-of-14 shooting and 1-of-2 from the free throw line in 29 minutes. He added six assists, three rebounds and one steal. Mokeski led KU with 18 points and 12 rebounds.
Von Moore, who posted eight points and four boards in 21 minutes, was so disgusted in the loss that he went to California with Clint Johnson and spent two weeks with Johnson’s brother before returning to Lawrence.
That loss still pains Von Moore all these years later.
“Especially after we were killing them, it was disaster,” Von Moore told me in a 2000 interview. “All those seniors. ... We lost to UCLA and had to go home.”
Von Moore was angry at Valentine and Owens. He implied D.V. was a very selfish player.
“Darnell got something he didn’t deserve. He was one of the reasons we lost the UCLA game,” Von Moore said. “He tried to have a personal one-one-one contest with Hamilton (Roy, star UCLA point guard). Darnell had two or three charges trying to take the man. Ted let him do it. It changed whole momentum and led them back in. (He got in) foul trouble. (It was) stupid, so pissed off. We could have went somewhere with all the players we had.
“They put the game in (Valentine’s) hands,” Donnie added. “Other than Darnell bringing the ball up the court, no shot. Had no jumper, no real overall game. He was just Darnell Valentine who had the ball all the time.”
While Von Moore’s college career came to a bitter end, Valentine’s magical career was just getting started. He had an outstanding season and established himself as one of the best freshmen in the country with the likes of Michigan State’s Magic Johnson and Duke’s Gene Banks.
The star point guard was named first-team All-Big Eight (along with Koenigs) and set a school record for steals (80), free throws made (106) and assists (130) in a season. His 13.5 points per game was also the highest of any freshman in KU history.
While Von Moore was extremely critical of Valentine, Koenigs loved playing with him.
”I think he was one of the final steps that helped us set it over,” Koenigs said. “His addition to that team was big. It was kind of a key issue and a key component. He blended in pretty well. Obviously, Darnell brought a lot to the table and helped finish off the picture and make a great contribution.”
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