That meant Kincaid would be going to Fairmont, not Stivers, the high school he said he’d dreamed of attending since he was a young kid.
“All I ever wanted do was go to Stivers,” Kincaid recalled the other day. “I knew so many people who had gone there and the school had one hell of a good reputation. Oh God, I was elated to know I was going to go to Stivers.
“And when my parents said we were moving out to Beavertown, I said, ‘I’ll find someone else to live with! I’m not going to Fairmont!’ I planned to find someplace else to hang my hat.”
His parents instead moved to Hulbert Street off Xenia Avenue, which meant Kincaid would still become a Stivers Tiger.
And now, at age 84, that bond between Kincaid and the school has never been tighter.
Sunday, he – along with nine other individuals and two teams – will be inducted into the Stivers High Athletic Hall of Fame.
Held at the Presidential Banquet Center in Kettering, the event begins with a noon social gathering, followed by a meal and an induction ceremony emceed by legendary Dayton Flyers basketball coach, Don Donoher.
Kincaid was a standout baseball pitcher at Stivers. His last two seasons for the Tigers, he had a 1.84 earned run average and as a senior threw two no-hitters, one of them just one walk away from being a perfect game.
That season he stopped Fairview’s nine-game winning streak when he outdueled the Bulldogs’ Ron Nischwitz, who went on to be a relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers and then a Hall of Fame coach at Wright State.
Kincaid also played three years of basketball at Stivers and was part of the 1953-54 team that went 16-5 and was the City League runner up.
After graduation he was offered a tryout by the Cincinnati Reds, but had to forego that because he he’d joined the U.S. Air Force and soon would be sent to post-war Korea.
When he returned he joined the Dayton Police Department where half of his 30-yeer career was spent in the homicide division as a detective and sergeant.
Sports has always a part of his life. He pitched and played basketball for various teams in the Air Force, played for a Dayton semipro team and, at age 36, became a starting pitcher at Sinclair Community College, where he got an associate’s degree before getting a criminal justice degree at the University of Dayton.
He played on police softball teams for over 40 years.
Since 2003 he’s volunteered as a cold-case investigator with police departments in Dayton, Apache Junction, Ariz., and now Marion County, Fla., where he and his wife Barbara moved two years ago.
Through it all he’s stayed connected to Stivers and has served two terms as the president of the Alumni Association.
But he said the Hall of Fame induction left him “stunned.”
“I’m surprised and elated and humbled,” he said. “I’m honored to have my name associated with so many accomplished people from our school.
“It’s a great club to belong to!”
‘It’s a real passion for me’
“I used to sell newspapers in front of some of the bars downtown, places like Samu’s and Sons Grill and Bar,” he said. “One time when I was about 9 or 10, I was at Fifth and Wayne when a couple of older guys came up and took all my change.”
With a laugh, he added: “That might be the moment I was pointed toward law and order.”
After the service – in 1959 – he joined the Dayton Police Department and said his first beats were around UD and Stivers. By 1965 he’d been selected for the detectives section of the DPD and worked in criminal intelligence, homicide/robbery and arson.
Eventually he was in charge of the homicide division and that work still resonates now, long into his retirement.
He said he first volunteered for cold case work in 2003 and spent nearly 10 years assisting the Montgomery County Cold Case Task Force.
“I always wanted to work with that squad,” he said. “I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but I think I have a pretty good memory. At least, I used to.
“And I’m nosey.
“I like to dig for things and I’m not going to give up until I have exhausted everything. It’s a real passion for me.”
Cold-case work
While Kincaid helped the cold case unit solve the 12-year old murder of Edith Morehead, the 20-year-old mother who was found beaten and stabbed to death in a creek beyond Hickorydale school in 1996, he was left frustrated by the still open case of Kevin Brame, the 31-year-old Dayton Police officer who was ambushed outside his estranged wife’s home in 1999.
“That’s the first cold case I helped with,” he said quietly. He knew Kevin’s father, Gerald, who was a Dayton police officer, and he calls Kevin’s mother, Rosemary, “a class lady.”
“I worked eight or nine years on that until we moved to Arizona,” he said. “We had a $100,000 reward and I thought someone would drop a dime in a heartbeat, but we got no calls. We even went to Philadelphia a made a presentation to the Vidocq Society that does crime solving.”
Police have previously said they think the murder was planned and that Brame’s estranged wife – who moved out of state following the murder – has not been as cooperative as they’d like.
When Kincaid and his wife Barbara moved in retirement to Arizona, he was part of the unit that helped solve a 26-year-old case involving a woman who was killed in her home. They found the guy responsible in Vine Grove, Ky.
Before he left Arizona he said he was involved in another case of a Jane Doe, whose remains were found off Interstate 10: “We had billboards up and down the interstates hoping to identify her.”
Now in Florida, he said he just got his first cold case: a guy found in a plastic container dumped in a field.
Kincaid has a system he follows on each case. He starts from scratch, reads all the reports a couple of times before taking his own notes on the third read and “highlights things in the murder book.” He said they resubmit DNA because there’s been great strides in that area in the last few years and he said they now rely on genealogy studies, as well.
He and Barbara, a Meadowdale grad, enjoy their trips back to Dayton and at Sunday’s ceremony they’ll be joined by several family members.
And while this trip is all about the Hall of Fame celebration, Kincaid was reminded there is one other cold case back here he hasn’t solved.
He never did catch those two guys who took his newspaper money almost 75 years ago.
STIVERS ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME
2021 INDUCTEES
George Eisen – 1936
Larry Kincaid – 1955
Dave Everhart – 1962
Matt Dawicke – 1968
John Rudd –1969
Bob Poling –1971
Mike Denny – 1972
Gary Forrest –1973
Jerry Woodbury 1974
Don Postway – 1975
1954-55 – Stivers Football Team
1972-73 – Stivers Cross Country Team
About the Author