Archdeacon: ‘He was everything’ -- Dayton Flyer legend Uhl remembered as special father, husband, friend

“I was a senior on the team and Bill was a sophomore who’d started out at Ohio State before transferring.

“When I met him, I remember how impressed I was by his size.”

Uhl was a dominant 7-foot center who became a first team All American and later was enshrined in Dayton’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

But size wasn’t the true measure of the man when it came to Bill Uhl.

“Everybody always commented how big his hands were when they shook hands with him,” Bill Jr. said. “But I think he had a heart twice as big as those hands.

“I’ve always said, ‘If I could just live my life half as well as he lived his, I’d be considered a friendly, happy, successful person.”

Bill Sr. was all that and so much more.

One of the greatest basketball players ever to wear a Dayton Flyers uniform and then the patriarch of a remarkable family, Uhl died just before midnight on Dec. 23.

He was 89. His health had been compromised over the past couple of years and he had been living at Bethany Lutheran Village on Far Hills Avenue.

He and his wife Cynthia, who he met at McClain High School in Greenfield, were married 65 ½ years. They had five children and 11 grandchildren, including grandson Brady, who is a walk-on guard on the current Dayton team.

Brady’s dad — Bill Jr. — was a 6-9 forward for UD from 1986-1990 and that makes the Uhls one of just two families to have three generations play for the Flyers.

As of late Monday afternoon, funeral arrangements were still pending.

But the family has had two days of personal tribute at their traditional Christmas gatherings held at two of the children’s homes.

“A lot of family was around for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and we definitely celebrated Dad’s life this year,” Bill Jr. said.

And there was a lot to celebrate.

“He was a special father, a special husband and great friend,” Bill Jr. said, “He was everything.”

Perfect fit at UD

When you talked to Bill Sr., though, he admitted Cynthia deserved top billing.

“She’s my rock,” he told me when I visited him at Bethany Village earlier this year. “Without her, I’d be lost. I couldn’t make it.”

He told me about the first day he saw her at McClain High.

She was then Cynthia Fetters, the daughter of a travelling salesman who continually moved his family around.

“I was in study hall, and everybody was talking about this new girl in school,” he said. “I saw her come through the door for the first time and was impressed right away. I got one good look at her and said, ‘I’m gonna marry that girl!’”

Six years later, in 1957, he did marry her.

It was another example of Bill Uhl showing he knew what he wanted in life.

Another time came after he left McLain and went to Ohio State to play basketball.

At McClain, he’d only played the sport as a senior.

“He didn’t play before that because his parents couldn’t find basketball shoes that fit him,” Brady told me last season.

While Bill did have a hard time finding size 16 shoes back then, he said there was more to the story than that:

“My mother wouldn’t let me play any sports. I had an enlarged heart when I was young, and she worried about too much exertion.

“But I grew into my heart and when my mother died while I was still in school, my dad sent me out to play football and basketball.”

Although he drew recruiting interest from across the nation — “I’ve got hundreds of his letters from people like Adolph Rupp, everybody, in boxes at home,” Bill Jr. once said — Bill Sr. wanted to go to OSU because “they had all that publicity.”

But it didn’t take him long to realize he’d made a mistake: “I didn’t like it and I called my father and said, ‘I’m coming home.’”

Unbeknownst to him, he said his dad had contacted UD coach Tom Blackburn and asked: “Would you like to have my son?”

Blackburn didn’t hesitate — 7-footers were a rarity then.

As Uhl remembered it: “So when I got home, my dad said, ‘Don’t unpack. You’re going to Dayton.”

Donoher said it was a perfect fit:

“He was accepted right away because he was such a hard worker. And Blackburn just showed him the way. He had him develop his left- and right-handed hook shot and Bill worked on them religiously. He was almost unstoppable with that size.

“He was a great teammate and just a good guy who everybody respected because of his work ethic.”

And no one liked him more than Blackburn, Donoher added with a laugh:

“Like we always said, ‘Blackburn just loved his centers. … He just tolerated the rest of us.’”

Uhl was the team’s leading scorer and rebounder all three years at UD.

He averaged a double-double for his career — 18.5 points and 14.6 rebounds — and remains the No. 3 all-time rebounder at UD (1,289) and is 13th on the career scoring list (1,627 points in just three seasons).

During his career, which went from 1953 to 1956, UD went 75-5 and finished as the NIT runners up two years in a row.

Although he was drafted by the Rochester Royals in the 1956 NBA draft, he chose to skip the pros, get married, and start an insurance business — The Uhl Agency which Bill Jr. now runs — to support his eventual family.

Over the years the Uhls especially embraced the Dayton Flyers program and have supported a Uhl Family Endowed Scholarship, given to a player who shows promise in the classroom.

‘Rest easy big fella’

Bill Jr. had some memorable moments at UD — playing for Donoher and then a season for Jim O’Brien.

Now Brady is making his mark and with injuries to two of UD’s starting guards, he’s been getting meaningful minutes on the court. As head coach Anthony Grant noted last week, he has “played well” and helped the team numerous ways this past month.

Just three days before his grandfather’s death, Brady stood outside the Flyers’ locker room following a game against Alcorn State and talked about how he was going to visit his grandfather over the Christmas holiday and share his good times with him.

With the loss, he’s now shared a memory on social media.

Beneath a photo of him as a little boy, with his grandfather’s arm wrapped around him, he wrote:

“Going to miss you a bunch big guy. Thank you for all the love and support growing up. Rest easy big fella”

Next to a red heart emoji, he added: “Love you”