Dr. Chuck's Basketball Career

 

Dr. Chuck came from a typical mid-western high school and ended up being the captain of the University of Kentucky basketball team.  

He has a delightful life story that is a testament (if ever there was one) to the role of luck, hard work, timing and mentors... 

Some of you may know that he and I are childhood sweethearts, so I can tell most of Chuck's story from having been along for the ride on most of the journey. We started dating when we were freshman in high school. Prior to that we knew of each other because we come from a small farming town called Lincoln Illinois and both our families were well known in the community.

 

Chuck's family in about 1969. He's the ham-bone in the hat and orange/white stripes!

Chuck grew up the 5th child in a large family with 7 children. His dad laid floor tile and vinyl flooring for a living, and his mom stayed home to raise the active family. While the family sometimes struggled to make ends meet, they were "wealthy" when it came to love for each other, and good-will in the community. Everybody in town thought the Verderbers were the best darn folks!

Whenever our kids won't eat what's on their plates, Chuck will start rambling about how he could never afford to leave a morsel on his plate. He had to eat fast or have it snatched by someone bigger, stronger and hungrier. He likes to expound about  his mom's knack for making one pot meals last for days.  He LOVES to tell our children how he would collect the money from his paper route and sneak over to the local bakery to buy a dozen donuts on Saturday. Then he would hide in the nearby junk yard so he could greedily eat the whole dozen by himself, in peace. He has stories about how he and his buddies would spend their afternoons throwing rocks at the brand new automobiles that were loaded on the freight trains as they passed on the rail road tracks right next to his house. 

We both grew up having to "make it work" a lot, and we tell our kids that "coping skills" may be one of the best things we ever teach them. Whenever our children act the least bit ungrateful, we like to whip out the next photo. In this day and age, of course everyone has to have a special shoe for every single sport, but here Chuck is running track in the 8^th grade,... on a cinder track,.... BAREFOOT!

 

One of Chuck's earliest, kindest mentors was a lovely nun, Sister Carol. He thinks that she could see something in him that he couldn't see himself. Chuck vividly remembers a day when Sister Carol took him aside in the 6^th grade and gave him a copy of the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach. You may remember it was a simple, yet powerful book about dreaming big and soaring to your potential despite the bonds of conformity. Chuck will tell you today, that this small gesture was a key that cracked open a door in his mind and from that point on he very privately began to dream big.

Chuck had two BIG brothers (seven and eleven years older than he was) whose friends would come by all the time to play basketball at the dirt court on the side of their garage. This was the mid 1960's and early 1970's, the time when Cassius Clay became Mohamed Ali (1964), and Lou Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971). Toughness and self-expression were sign-of-the-times. On the make-shift Verderber basketball court the long hair flew as much as elbows.  No one cut little Chuckie a break. He had to play with the big boys or suffer the consequences.

(Chuck is the little guy on the ground.)

 

And he did play! He played,.. and played, and played. By the time he was 15, it was clear to everyone that Chuck had something special. In 1978, he became one of the top 20 players in the United States, and was selected for the McDonald's All-American team.  

 

 

He had invitations to visit everywhere from Harvard to Stanford,..  From the University of Hawaii, to Notre Dame.  We still have all of the recruiting letters. The Harvard letter is still  un-opened. I once asked Chuck why he never opened that letter, and he said he thinks it was because he just never thought he was smart enough to go to Harvard. And that's the second part of Chuck's unusual story.

Chuck's parents were not college educated, yet they were the hardest-working and kindest people I had ever met. His two older sisters were the first in their family to go to college. Their parents had high standards for their kids grades, but when I met Chuck, college could not have been further from his plan for himself.

 

 

In fact, I vividly remember the first meal that Chuck had at our house when we started dating at the age of 14. My family was all "napkins in your lap" and we were sitting at our assigned seats in the dining room. As my family made small-talk during the meal, Chuck was seated beside my very stern father, who was a physician/surgeon. Eventually, my father asked Chuck the proverbial question "So son,.. What do you want to do when you grow up?" I remember Chuck's answer like it was yesterday. He proudly turned to my father and said with gusto, "Well,.. my brothers have it pretty good! I'd like to do it like them! They work construction in the summer and move to Florida for the winter and collect unemployment!"

 Aaaargh!!!! 

I'll never forget the look on my mother's face,...  and my father looked for a moment like he would commit Hara-kiri by falling on his knife right then,.. and save himself the agony of the next few years! 

Well,.. that is one part of Chuck's story where luck comes in. You see my father grew up in the depression in a very, very poor dirt farming family. He was near the youngest of 10 kids, and he left home at the age of 15 because of constant confrontations with his tyrannical father. He had little opportunity and few aspirations. In the navy, as luck would have it, my dad came across a chemistry book and he was mesmerized. He realized he had a knack for science and eventually my dad used the GI bill to put himself through college and medical school. My dad knew all too well where Chuck was starting, as far as his expectations for himself.

Back to the dinner table story: Without a moment's hesitation, my dad piped up with "Well son,.. your brothers are young and living the kind of life I did at their age. That's a start,.. But I'm sure all of you will go on to great things." (And Chuck's brothers did! They enjoyed their youth, and then went on to have great careers. They are both very successful people, who also enjoy reputations for being the nicest guys in town.)

From that day forward, I think my parents made a pact to help Chuck realize his educational potential. They were always there to suggest a more challenging course and reward excellence.  They framed conversations as if college was a given, not an option. And he did make the most of their support and the support of SO MANY other local people who were his mentors. Dozens of major mentors each gave Chuck an important piece of the puzzle. Chuck was always in the honor society, and by the time we were seniors in high school, we had hatched a plan to BOTH become dentists.  We were both artists and we both had a brain for science. It was the perfect profession! That course plotted, we could never afford to get anything lower than an A-, or a rare B+ in college. We treated our studies like a job.

In 1978, the University of Kentucky was -  hands down -  the premier college basketball program in the country and not coincidentally, they won the NCAA tournament title that year. (UCLA had been in decline. North Carolina and Duke were just hitting their stride.) Kentucky recruited Chuck very aggressively and in those days, no one in their right mind would pass up a chance to play at Kentucky. Chuck didn't either. It was the Cadillac of college sports programs. 

 

This is a photo of Chuck in the fancy office where he signed the Letter of Intent to go to the University of Kentucky.  This was a BIG day with press coverage and a lot of fanfare. This decision changed our lives and set a course we could never have imagined. 

In doing the research to write this piece about Dr. Chuck, I had completely forgotten about this photo of his signing day. After I pasted it here for you,  I noticed something in the photo for the very first time.... It's uncanny,.. Can you see a kind of "goose-bump" detail in this photo?...

Sister Carol's Seagull is in the painting behind Chuck!...  Jonathan Livingston Seagull was right there in the room, looking on that day! Ooooo!.. This is kinda spooky. I HAVE NEVER NOTICED THAT! Whowa,.. I have to sit here and let that soak in a bit folks.

HHhhhhhhh....

Well,.. back to our story...

Back in the 1970's most of the players at highest levels of college basketball came from humble beginnings. Rarely did they come from privilege. There was no AAU basketball,.. no one had $100 basketball shoes,.. There was no adult supervision. It was all street-ball or backyard ball and bloody noses. Chuck was brought up on the school of hard knocks on the basketball court - literally and figuratively - and his older brothers (and their friends) were his best teachers. Both his brothers were big guys and fabulous athletes. In fact his brother Bob, at the age of sixty (sorry Bob) was still so athletic that he would play basketball with his 20-something nephews and score more than 50 out of 100 team points!

 

When Chuck arrived at the University of Kentucky with one old and very small suitcase, he came to know the meaning of the term "lap of luxury". The Wildcat Lodge was a special dormitory built by big donor money and it was solely for the exclusive use of the basketball team. It was almost a necessity to have the ability to cloister the Basketball players at Kentucky, or they would never have a minute's privacy. They were celebrities in Kentucky on the order of the most well-known celebrities in athletics or entertainment anywhere. Chuck got fan mail every single day. Still today, he gets a request in the mail  for an autograph on a collector's sports card about once a month.

The Wildcat Lodge had custom made beds the right length for people the size of giants. They each had a private bathroom with a custom-sized toilets and fixtures. And the dormitory was decorated with details and finishes right out of Architectural Digest Magazine. It was truly amazing. Of course, several years later, the NCAA took exception to the luxuries of the Kentucky program, and some regular students were eventually housed in the fine building.

 

That didn't dampen the magical quality of the experience. I could go on and on to tell you stories of how it felt a little like the Cinderella Story for us both. Every home game was like a gigantic Rock Concert!  23,000 people would pack into a sold-out Rupp Arena for every home game. As the girlfriend, and eventually the wife of a player, I felt like I was getting ready to walk the red carpet at the Grammies every afternoon when I was preparing to go to a game. We met wonderful, generous successful people. We hob-knobbed with famous people. We spent 4 dazzling years learning about the ways of the world - both good and bad -  through our experiences in the Kentucky basketball program together there.

 

One of the BIG things we learned was that everybody puts their pants on the same way.  And we've never been star-struck about anybody since. Most people are basically good and just regular-Joe's below the surface.

Chuck showed some leadership skills at Kentucky right from the beginning as he was always a "nose to the grindstone" student. He took the hardest courses and the most number of credit hours you could take. We were Pre-med/Pre-dent and the instructors in those courses showed no favoritism to the "jocks". It was all business in our basketball life, AND all business in our biochemistry world.

Even though road trips took Chuck away from classes a lot, we were a good team and I diligently tutored him to make up for all the lost time. We always knew we would finish our educational goal of being a dentist, even though continuing to play basketball after college seemed a real possibility. Chuck was a candidate to be an Academic All-American and even qualified to be a Rhodes Scholar, but sadly, we later learned that the basketball program failed to think that was important. They had not even told Chuck about it. He didn't even hear about it in time to apply. In those days, scholarly pursuits were not well-rewarded in the Kentucky Basketball system.  No complaints now,... but THAT missed opportunity is one of our only great regrets about those years.

Chuck was a starter on the team for Kentucky much of his sophomore, and most of his junior and senior years. Eventually he was the team captain. He was smart and usually got the toughest defensive assignment. He played against Michael Jordon, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, and Dominique Wilkins. It can go to your head! The dream of playing in the pros is very seductive. But we watched very successful players at Kentucky shoot for the pros and wash out quickly, so we never relied on that plan. My father reminded us constantly: "ALWAYS have a strong Plan B.", and we were always glad we heeded his warnings.

 

 

The previous picture is a large framed Converse poster in our office. If you look close you can see that in the photo Kentucky playing North Carolina. That's Michael Jordon with the ball and Dr. Chuck (#34) in the right side of the picture. Chuck says that he remembers that exact moment, when the Kentucky player on the left side of the picture lost the ball to Mr. Jordan. :) 

We were married in the summer before his senior year and at the end of that year I was able to join the team on a 3 week tour of Asia. It was the beginning of our passion for travel abroad. We were seduced by a different dream after that trip! Our "home" became wherever we hung our hats!

 

 

In the last semester of our senior year in college Chuck was drafted in the 7^th round by the Chicago Bulls (1982), but the realities of making that team, and making a life in professional basketball in the United States did not thrill us. In those days, the starting salary for a bench player was very meager. We thought about how our family-life would look with those prospects and we decided to move to Europe so Chuck could play ball in Spain and we could have an adventure.

It was an adventure, all right!... Chuck quickly became the leading scorer and rebounder in Spain. We traveled Europe and North Africa,.. Learned Spanish,..  Ate things we'd never heard of,.. Made friends who we still keep in touch with today. But as fate would have it, one night in a routine game Chuck blew out his Achilles tendon and that ended his basketball career completely. 

We were in a very remote part of Spain and as Chuck lay there on the court writhing in pain, I knew we were in DEEP trouble: This town was no place to offer yourself up on the operating table! Locals had told us that the only reason why people went to the area hospital was to die! As luck would have it though, the coach from the other team on that night was an American fellow. (What are the odds? We hadn't spoken English in months!)  Fortunately, the American coach left his own bench and leaned over Chuck to say, "You're coming with me back to Barcelona. I can get you the best surgeon in Spain. You can't let them touch you here!"   And off Chuck went that night with our new friend - Jack Shrader (Now a college coach in Missouri.) The surgery was amazingly successful and Chuck might have played again, but we were realistic and my dad's words rang in our ears.

 

 Chuck and his cast in a Spanish hospital bed.

 

"Always have a strong plan B",....  "Always have a strong plan B".

The rest of Dr. Chuck's story includes us both going back to Kentucky to enter dental school.  Chuck played for a team out of Chicago, sponsored by Marathon Oil, through our dental school years and that gave us an opportunity to travel abroad often. During that period, there was some talk of Chuck playing professionally again in Northern Ireland, so we applied and became dual citizens. In those days, airliners were frequently high-jacked and everyone let off the airliner accept the Americans. They were usually kept as the hostages. At that point in our life, we thought we would always live abroad and it didn't sound like a bad idea to have another identity in our back pockets if we were ever caught in a bad situation. The Irish basketball situation never materialized but we have carried Irish passports ever since. We finished dental school in 1987 but had no interest in starting on the whole "Job, Mortgage, Kids" treadmill. (Much to our parents chagrin!) So, still feeling like rolling stones, we moved to Italy to practice dentistry there. 

I could start an entirely new story with that misadventure, but suffice it to say that we got a third language under our belts, but not much else worked out as planned. (Always have a strong plan B, C, and D.)  We eventually found our niche here in Vermont and have been happy as clams here since 1989.

 

 Our 6th grader is the "BIG BOY" in front!

 

Now we have 2 athletic daughters, and a son of our own who is already 5' 8" tall and 190 pounds in the 6^th grade. At the age of 12 he LOVES basketball and is always talking about where he wants to play in college (Kentucky is in the running.) and how he wants to play pro-basketball. We are chasing our tails to get him to practices and AAU tournaments.

Who knows what the future holds for him. We'll be happy as long as he always does his best and follows his passions. But we DO make sure he appreciates the good basketball shoes he has the luxury to have on his feet,...  and we are constantly muttering "Always have a strong Plan B. Always have a strong Plan B."