Tuesday morning, Lori Santos — now a special education teacher in Streamwood, Illinois, a northwest Chicago suburb, but once a rebounding beast at Wichita State — was remembering a story from 3 ½ decades past that re-echoed in the Dayton Flyers’ season opener against SIUE, Monday night at UD Arena.
“My freshman year I started at Wichita State,” said Santos, whose maiden name back then was Findahl. “At halftime of a game, one of my teammates said something I wasn’t expecting.
“She goes, ‘Findahl, stop taking my rebounds!’
“I looked at her like ‘Whaaat?’
“I mean I wasn’t going to stop. If it’s coming off the boards, I’m getting it!”
That 1985-86 season she led the Gateway Conference in rebounding, averaging 10.3 a game, and was named one of the top freshmen in the nation by Women’s Basketball Yearbook.
Monday night — after the Flyers finally had pushed aside SIUE, 63-47 in front of a sellout crowd of 13,407 — DaRon Holmes II and Lori’s 6-foot-7 son, Nate Santos, were brought to the postgame media session and sat down next to each other at a table in the front of the room.
Santos had led the Flyers with 14 rebounds.
The 6-foot-10 Holmes — who had led the team with 12 boards in the final exhibition game with Cedarville nine nights earlier — ended up with eight rebounds against SIUE.
“I’m just trying to make winning plays,” Santos explained when asked about his rebounding. “I’m trying to help the team in any way I can and if that’s rebounding, then I’ll go out and do it.”
With a playful, but oh-so-true interjection, Holmes quipped: “Yeah, he stole some … I should be the one that had 12 rebounds.”
After a pause, for effect, Holmes said quietly: “I’m just playin’.”
Later, once the pair left the media session and were in a nearly deserted hallway in the Arena, Santos looked over at Holmes with a grin, then admitted he’s not playin’ out on the court:
“Yeah, he’d be like, ‘I got it! I got it!’ And I’m like ‘Naah.’”
In truth, Holmes appreciates that attitude from Santos:
“He did a great job. He’s been doing that in practices and the exhibitions. He’s very, very skilled at that. He’s very special at that.”
Santos — who transferred to Dayton in June after paying his first two college seasons at Pittsburgh, where he came off the bench — said he’s found his “niche” at UD as a defender and especially a rebounder.
“For that, I’ve got to give credit to my mom,” he admitted. “When I was younger, I didn’t like to rebound. I didn’t like getting in there like that.
“But my mom was like, ‘You want the ball? Go rebound! Go after it!’”
That’s how she played the game back at Union Township High school in East Moline, Illinois, — she averaged 11 rebounds a game there as a senior — and especially at Wichita State.
“It was just instinct,” she said. “I was basically a 4-player (power forward) and I was so highly competitive that when that ball came off the rim, I had one mindset:
“‘It’s gonna be mine!’”
Nate has heard stories about the way she played the game. When we spoke this summer, he brought that up:
“She was real aggressive and hit the boards hard. An old coach once told (us) about how nasty she was on the court.”
His mom explained it a little differently: “It’s just so much fun to rebound. And it’s really rewarding.”
That instinct to give no quarter inside got Lori Findahl a lot of boards … and one beau.
She ended up marrying Jose “Joe” Santos, who had played at Southern Nazarene College and in Puerto Rico for the national team and as a pro. He was a grad assistant on the Wichita State men’s team and when he played, he too had made his mark on the boards.
“He played the same position as me,” Lori laughed. “He always jokes, ‘The reason I married you, Lori, is because you could rebound.’”
‘It’s a blast battling for the boards’
Each of Lori and Joe’s kids ended up playing college basketball.
Their oldest daughter Ashley played at Marquette and Louisiana Tech. Daughter Sydney played at Oakland. And their oldest son K.J. — who is 6-foot-8 — played at UIC and then Missouri. All the children, including Nate, have played for various Puerto Rican national teams.
“I’m big on learning fundamentals and I was one of those crazy moms who’d take the kids out and do drills,” she said. “We had a sidewalk in the front of our house and in the winter, I’d take them out and they’d dribble down it with their right hand and then back with their left. Over and over.
“I showed them how to post up and how to get wide, bend at the knees and block out. "
Ashley embraced all that, Lori said: “She’s extremely aggressive, which is how I am. We named her Wild Thing because if (the ball) comes off the rim, she’s getting it.
“My boys had to learn. If you’re not part of the offense, you don’t stand around. You go in and rebound. Nate played a 1 and a 2 (position) out front early on and he had to learn about coming inside.
“He and his brother both had to get used to pounding against the big bodies in there. You get tired blocking out, but when you get the ball, you start to catch on.
“The boys were like, ‘Mom, you’re right! It’s a blast battling for the boards.’”
‘It’s gonna be mine’
Although he had starred at Geneva High School in Illinois and then at a Connecticut prep school, the Loomis Chaffee School, Santos was mostly a back-up player at Pitt. He played in 54 games, started six and averaged 2.1 points and 1.5 rebounds.
While he wanted a chance to play more, it was difficult leaving the friends he had bonded with his mom said:
“But he’s been able to make a wonderful adjustment at Dayton and DaRon has been phenomenal about that. He has kind of put Nate under his wing. When he sees Nate frustrated in practice, or whatever, he goes right to him and just gets him settled and in the right mindset.
“I appreciate that.
“That’s a leader.”
You saw some of that bond forming at their postgame media session. When they first sat down, DaRon held off on any questions until he could hold up his phone and take a selfie of the two of them.
Holmes was just announced as one of 50 players in the nation on the watch list for the Naismith Men’s National Player of the Year. And while this may be his team — he led UD with 19 points Monday — it’s often Santos’ ball when it caroms off the glass or rim.
He had adopted his mom’s belief:
“It’s gonna be mine.”
But while mom may share that mantra, she’s not ready to give up her title.
“He still hasn’t beaten my record out there,” she said with a laugh.
One game she had 15 rebounds at the half and finished with 20.
So when it comes to Nate Santos, the Flyers hope it continues to be:
“Like mother, like son.”
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