Against the advice of many (especially some teachers at Stivers High School who had seen their individual promise), Doug Dowler and Sondra “Sandi” McKinney had gotten married in a Presbyterian church on Smithville Road.
He had just graduated from Stivers and she, a year younger, had decided to quit school before her senior year. After borrowing $35 for their wedding, Doug decided to take Sandi on a one-night honeymoon to a Richmond, Ind., motel.
“On the way I saw this sign that said, ‘See a two-headed calf,’ ” he laughed. “It cost like 10 or 20 cents, so I pulled over.”
Sandi shook her head at the memory: “I’m in my white shoes and we’re walking through mud to see this stupid calf and he just keeps going, ‘C’mon, you got to see this!’ And right about then I’m thinking, ‘Oh boy, this is just the beginning.’ ”
She was right. That cheap roadside attraction has turned out to be something of a totem for the rich times that lay ahead: Put two heads on one set of tough circumstances and you can beat the odds.
Doug and Sandi are proof.
Their 1955 marriage has now lasted 56 years. And while they had to borrow a few bucks just to get started, they were millionaires by the time they were in the early 40s and ended up running their own business in Dayton and employing more than 50 people.
And today the school where many shook their heads when they left is inviting them back with arms opened wide.
Today, Doug Dowler — with Sandi at his side — will be inducted into the Stivers High Athletic Hall of Fame. Fourteen other former Tiger athletes and coaches also will be enshrined at a luncheon and ceremony at the Presidential Banquet Center in Kettering. Basketball legends Don Donoher and Bill Hosket will serve as masters of ceremony.
When the nomination committee first approached Doug, he didn’t quite embrace the idea. Compared to some of the storied athletes already in the Stivers Hall, he said he didn’t think he had done that much.
To that, Sam Morgan, his friend since high school, the best man in his wedding and the guy who will introduce the former All-City quarterback today, basically said the same thing Sandi said on that honeymoon tromp through the mud:
“Are you crazy?”
Football, hot water
Doug said he “didn’t have an easy life” growing up on Sherman Street: “I had a good mother, but my dad was a bartender at places like the Red Fox and Cub Café and then he became a sheet metal worker and he pretty much drank up the money he made.
“We never had furniture in the front room of our house and we never had hot water or a bathtub or a shower. To get cleaned up, you had to boil water in a teakettle on the stove and then pour it in a wash pan we had behind a curtain in a little room off our kitchen.
“I always say that’s why I went out for football.”
In exchange for soap and running hot water, he called his own plays, threw to a bevy of gifted receivers and led the 1954 Stivers team to its first city championship in 17 years. The highlight of that senior season came when he and his Tiger teammates upset perennial power Chaminade, coached by Fuzzy Faust.
After starring in the annual Red and Blue All-Star game here, he got scholarship offers from Kansas, Louisville and The Citadel.
As for Sandi, she grew up in Belmont where she said her parents were alcoholics and there was abuse. At Stivers, though, she was popular and good looking and people noticed.
“She’s not telling you this, but she won a beauty contest at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” Doug said. “She was named Miss Sabre Jet. And she got to ride in a car down Main Street with Robert Stack, the movie star.”
Sandi laughed and nodded: “It went with the opening of his movie (“Sabre Jet,” 1953) at the Victoria Theater. He picked me up at my house in a limo and I got to spend the evening at a big party with stars of the film like Coleen Gray and Amanda Blake.”
Listening to his wife, Doug beamed: “She’s not telling you the other side of the story. She was also a hell of a singer and performed at UD Fieldhouse.”
Sandi said she sang “mostly things like Doris Day did” and that brought a recording contract offer from Capitol Records.
“I had a choice to make and I decided to marry Doug instead,” she said.
Of the same mind, Doug turned down his scholarship offers and decided to become an apprentice sheet metal worker and marry Sandi.
“A lot of folks said it was a mistake, that it wouldn’t last, that I was throwing my life away,” he said, smiling. “I remember Mr. Rhodes, the machine shop teacher, calling me into his office and asking if I was turning down those scholarships. When I told him that’s how it was gonna be, he told me I was the dumbest person he’d ever seen.
“Well, then I get out and joined my dad and uncle doing a sheet metal job at NCR. We worked round the clock on weekends and when I got my first check, it was for $175. I remember taking it for Mr. Rhodes to see and him telling me, ‘Golly, I guess you do know what you’re doing.’ ”
Successful business
When it comes to Stivers, though, Doug is unwavering:
“Stivers was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was a great school with teachers who really cared. It made me realize that I could get ahead in life.”
And that’s just what he and his wife did.
He ended up working for Huffman and Wolfe, a large heating, air conditioning and sheet metal company in Dayton. After rising up the ranks there, he joined Enterprise Roofing and Sheet Metal and was at the forefront of such huge projects as the Winters Bank building downtown, Good Samaritan Hospital and Miller Brewery in Trenton.
“I made a lot of money back then and finally in 19 and 84 Sandi and I decided to start our own company,” he said. “We started with just a few people and within a couple of years we were doing $3 million worth of business.”
The Dowlers have three children — Doug Jr., Kim and Julia — and have homes in Vandalia and Fort Myers, Fla. They did have a small farm outside Jackson, Ohio, too, that included a three-acre lake, a bunkhouse for guests and a big dance floor and covered bandstand to accommodate the area bluegrass musicians who were regulars.
For years, Doug played slow-pitch softball — up to 160 games a year — around the state. He was an avid hunter and fisherman and golfed until a fall from a ladder left him with three bulging discs in his back.
Other than that, he looks nearly as fit at 74 as that guy Sandi first saw walking down the hallway at Stivers.
“I was with my friend and I said, ‘God, look at that guy,’ ” she recalled with a laugh. “He had his sleeves cut off and he was real muscular and everything.
“My girlfriend said, ‘You don’t know who that is?’
“I said, ‘Nope,’ and she said, ‘Well, that’s that football player everybody is talking about.’ ”
In some ways nothing has changed. Today at the Presidential, they’ll all be talking about Doug Dowler, the football player, again.
Doug, though, said Sandi deserves to share the spotlight:
“From that tough start, we’ve gone on to have just a wonderful, wonderful life. We’ve really been good for each other.”
Since that honeymoon surprise, they have shown that two heads truly can be better than one.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156 or tarchdeacon @DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author