Candid coach covers Wright State, Blaze, ABA

by Mac Claire, www.ABAsite.tk
Published on July 28, 2004 under American Basketball Association (ABA)
Cincinnati Monarchs


Cincinnati Blaze Coach Ralph Underhill is no stranger to success. During his 18 year tenure as coach at Wright State University, a Division II school, he authored an impressive won-loss record of 356-162. Only in two of those seasons did his team lose more games than they had won.

Coach Underhill molded and guided his 1983 squad to an NCAA Division II National Championship. Ten years later, Wright State earned a Division I NCAA Tournament berth.

November of 1996 though, was not one of his best moments.

Coach Underhill was cited for petty theft for shoplifting vitamins at a store close to the campus which is located in suburban Dayton, Ohio. He was dismissed by Wright State for the alleged offense, but after a mistrial, Wright State settled out of court with him. Coach Underhill denied today by phone that he did anything wrong.

"It simply was not true," he said convincingly. When asked what good came out of the experience, he explained, "I had coached -at that time - for about 34 years. I spent about 40 thousand dollars to clear my name. The trial never came up."

He holds no grudge against his former employer. "It was unfortunate, but things like this happen and you move on", he said. "I still talk to people at Wright State." He seemed very comfortable discussing this potentially embarrassing, career threatening experience. To that observation he said, "Oh I'm fine discussing it, and I have discussed it several times." Then he repeated, "You move on."

When asked how he would warn the young professional players that he will surely come into contact with about what can happen if they are not careful, he said, "You know, I've coached now for 40 years. In that time, I never had one of my kids dismissed from the team." He went on to say that there have been situations that occurred, but that he always backed them up. "But if they were wrong, we dealt with that too," he mentioned.

Coach Underhill bounced back from the adversity rather nicely.

In 1997, he was inducted into the Greater Cincinnatti Hall of Fame. Last season, his name and statue was added to the list of greats inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA.

When the topic turned to the present, his Cincinnatti Blaze and the ABA in general, the excitement in his voice was evident. "The league is strong," he commented when asked about the state of the Blaze organization and what lessons have been learned from the Kentucky Pro Cats (Underhill coached them in the ABA's first season) and the Cincinnatti Stuff of the old IBL, now defunct teams. "In Kentucky, we got off to a late start (the season started in November but they were put together in early October). "All the teams (there were eight) experienced the same thing: little interest, no sponsors. Back then, I was actually an owner."

"Back then" is when George Spencer passed away during the off season and the Pro Cats never came back. Spencer was the majority owner of the Kentucky franchise.

Coach Underhill again landed on his feet. He went overseas for a stint, but then he also undertook a new business which included getting drivers their Commercial Drivers License (CDL) for the purpose of driving a truck.

He mentioned several times during this interview the fact that when the ABA took a year off to reorganize, they improved their business plan. It was the revision of the plan that attracted not only himself, but owners like Andrew Haines of the Maryland Night Hawks, another new ABA franchise.

So, what do you think of the ABA now, Coach? "We have a strong league with strong owners," he stated. The Blaze owners are "great gals", according to the coach. "They have different marketing backgrounds and are involved in other things besides this." The owners are known to many in the ABA as the "Three Divas" also known as Culpatrice Foster, Sonseeahray Ross-Bigbee, and Marlene Ditto.

Caoch Underhill is one of only a handful of coaches going into this season with previous ABA coaching experience. Asked if he, Skip Willis (Detroit Jammers) and Joe Bryant (Boston Frenzy) will have any advantage over the new coaches when it comes to some of the rules, Coach Underhill suggested that it was not a big thing. "The 3-D rule for instance comes into play for each team only a few times during the year. I've always been a trapping, pressing kind of coach.

"The no foul out rule, they used that in the old ABA." He said that in a close game late, if a player has five fouls, "you can protect -say - your shot blocker by playing a box in one. Yeah, you may take the chance and keep him in there."

In the ABA, after a player commits his sixth foul, he can still play (unlike the NBA where the player would be disqualified). However, any foul he commits from that point on is costly. The opposition gets two free throws and they get the ball back.

Clearly, Ralph Underhill is no stranger to success. He expects to have more success in Cincinnatti with the Blaze. After all those great years at Wright State, and then in Kentucky, and a few cups of coffee following, Coach Underhill is now ready to move on to the next phase of his career in Cincinnatti.

Note: OurSports Central no longer actively covers the American Basketball Association (ABA) as a professional league due in part to its inability to publish and play a schedule and the transitory nature of many of its teams. For information on professional minor leagues, please see OSC's basketball section.

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American Basketball Association Stories from July 28, 2004


The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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