DaytonDailyNews.com

Ed and Tom Westendorf — the two brothers who so diligently, so quietly have run the shot and time clocks at University of Dayton basketball games — always embraced a simple rule:

"Our motto was the same," Tom said. "If nobody knew who we were or what we were doing, it meant we're doing a great job. But if the focus was on one of us, it wasn't good. There was a problem."

Saturday afternoon — when the Flyers open the season against East Tennessee State — everyone at UD Arena will be focused on Ed Westendorf.

And, sad to say, there is a problem.

The 57-year-old CPA from Beavercreek — a UD grad like his six sisters and brothers, his mom and dad, Jerry, who's enshrined in the school's Athletics Hall of Fame — died Monday of an apparent heart attack.

Tom, the UD registrar, had talked to Ed at 3:30 p.m. and said his older brother was "so pumped," about what happened earlier that afternoon at Thistledown race track outside Cleveland.

Along with running the arena shot clock 19 years, Ed had a love affair with thoroughbred racing. He was a minor partner in several horses and Monday, his two-year old gelding — Allsarott — had broken its maiden with a 10-length victory — the largest winning margin Ed had ever had.

I know I would have heard about that sometime Monday night. Before last Thursday night's exhibition game, Ed and I had talked about his beloved 5-year-old gelding — Hoofin' It — that had just been claimed. He acted as if he'd just sold off a son.

Every week he'd send many of us an e-mail detailing his modest racing ventures. In fact, when Tom found him, Ed was slumped over his computer.

"When he was late picking me up for (Monday night's) game, that just wasn't like him, so I drove over," Tom said. "When I found him, it looked liked he'd just done one of his runs. ... "

Ed seemed so fit. He didn't smoke and drink. He ran every day, and each Sunday night he and Tom played basketball with the parish priest at Incarnation church in Centerville.

Yet, just as he could post up a clergyman, he also could lend one a hand. During the River Downs racing season, he'd help Father Frank Niehaus, the track chaplain, set up for Sunday morning Mass in the grandstands.

John Engelhardt, the Rivers Downs publicity director who used Ed as a co-host on his "Regular Guy" racing show, told how he'd arrive at the track with pretzels for the workers and carrots for his horses: "Everybody loved him here."

It was the same around UD Arena and especially at home.

"He was my brother 50-some years, and I never fought with him one time," Tom said. "There wasn't a mean bone in his body. I'm going to miss him so much."

Ed — whose viewing is from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Westbrock Funeral Home on Wayne Avenue and whose burial Mass is at 10:30 a.m. Friday at St. Brigid's in Xenia — is being honored with a moment of silence before Saturday's game, and Tom plans to be there.

The reason for the focus isn't good. But the man sure was.