Then & Now: Danny Nee

Then & Now: Danny Nee

Compiled By Dave Brandon

(Photo Courtesy Grand Island Independent)

Danny Nee is the winningest coach

in Nebraska history, and was at the helm of the Huskers

from 1986-2000. Nee, who posted a career record of

254-190, made the post-season eleven out of his fourteen

seasons at Nebraska, including five NCAA tournament

appearances. In addition to Nee’s collective team

success, several individual Huskers developed into NBA

players under his watch, such as Eric Piatkowski, Rich

King, Tyronn Lue, Erick Strickland, Tony Farmer, and

Mikki Moore.

Nee is currently the head coach at

Duquesne, and recently sat down with HHC for our latest

Sunday version of “Then & Now.”

HHC: Danny, we want

to start by telling you it’s an honor to have you join

us, and thank you for your time.

DN: Not a problem,

your website sounds great. I look forward to checking it

out.

HHC: Awesome, you’ll

find lots of Danny Nee stories! Hey, before we get into

your basketball career, talk to us about what it was

like serving two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and

more in particular, Vietnam.

DN: That was just part of my life, and at

that point, I just thought it was the right thing to do.

So, I volunteered, because like a lot of guys who are

going to Iraq now or after 9/11, at that point of my

life I thought it was the right thing to do.

HHC: You were awarded the Combat Air

Insignia Medal for your service in Vietnam, and have

always been known as a tough and fierce competitor. How

much of your mantra and personality stems from your

times in the service?

DN: Nah, that wasn’t a big deal, trust me,

it was just a little award. As far as my personality and

mantra, I do think that it has had an effect, but as far

as how or when, I don’t know. I will tell you that

Vietnam, just like Iraq, was a tough place to be.

HHC: I’m sure. Now, onto basketball. You

grew up in Brooklyn, and were a high-school teammate of

Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) at Power Memorial

High School. What was it like playing with him?

DN: It was fun,

because we won a lot of games, and it was just a very

exciting and enjoyable time of my life. We had a great

coach, his name was Jack Donohue, who ended up being an

Olympic coach, and to put it in perspective, everyone

who played on that team got a division one scholarship.

So, Jack was a great coach, and taught us all a lot.

As far as Lew goes, he was a great

player, although nobody knew at that time that he’d end

up being one of the top five players who ever played the

game. And, in my opinion, he is just that, along with

Bird, Magic, Jordan, and guys like that. But all the

kids on that team were just such great players, and it

was a pleasant experience. 

HHC: After your successful high school

career, you were a member of Al McGuire’s first

ever-recruiting class at Marquette. How did you end up

there?

DN: Well, Al really

recruited my parents, to be honest with you, because I

didn’t know anything about Marquette. I went there on a

visit, and my parents thought it was great, so yeah, it

was just all Al.

Playing for Al at Marquette was

very fun, and Hank Raymond coached the freshman team. He

was a nice man, and went on after Al to succeed him and

coach there. But Al McGuire, I learned so much from him,

he is just unbelievable and so unique.

HHC: Besides playing under Al McGuire,

your first major coaching job was as the top assistant

to Digger Phelps at Notre Dame, where you coached for

four years and helped lead the Irish to the 1978 Final

Four. What was it like working with Digger, and what did

he teach you about coaching?

DN: I’ll tell you what, it was a big break

to get that job, because the NCAA had just expanded from

two assistant coaches to three. At that time, it was a

“part-time” job, but it really wasn’t. It was a

full-time job.

I could give you volumes on Notre

Dame, as far as what it stands for. It was just great.

We had very good players and a very good team, and

Digger was just a very innovative coach who did an

unbelievable job there. We went to Four NCAA regionals,

in addition to the 1978 Final 4 that you mentioned, and

the experience was just very nice.

HHC: After your four seasons at Notre

Dame, you then went on to coach at Ohio U., where you

lead the Bobcats to the post season in four out of your

six seasons, including two NCAA’s and a Sweet 16

appearance. What was Athens like?

DN: That was my first

head-coaching job in college, and I really enjoyed it. I

really liked living in Athens. The Bobcats were kind of

special, and a lot of that success had to do with some

of my great assistants. I had Billy Hahn and Fran

Fraschilla, and both of them turned out to be great head

coaches. So yeah, Ohio U was a good time.

HHC: You came to Nebraska prior to the

1986-1987 season after turning down several other

high-profile jobs. At the time, many people thought you

were crazy for coming to a “football school,” but you

publicly stated that if you could win at Notre Dame, you

could at Nebraska. Describe to us how difficult it is to

win at a “football school.” Is the label overrated, or

accurate?

DN: I agree with your

statement and understand it, but I never looked at it

that way. The first reason was because of Bob Devaney

and Tom Osborne. They were both so special to work for

and with. I never felt it was a football school because

they were always trying to help me and help the

basketball program try to get on its feet.

I thought it was a tremendous

advantage to have a great football team because of all

the accolades and accomplishments that the football team

had; it just overflowed to all the sports. We had a

great strength and conditioning program with Boyd Eppley,

and a great training table. Whatever it was, we were

always on the cutting edge of equipment because of

football.

So, I just never thought that was

an excuse, because there’s no law against having both a

great football and basketball program. I always had a

pro football attitude, and I really thought the football

teams were magnificent. I really enjoyed going to them

and seeing them, because I’d never been part of that

before, and I thought that Lincoln Nebraska and the

state’s commitment was something else.

Football complimented us as we were

trying to build a basketball program. And the other

positive was that anywhere I went, and I said Nebraska,

it was instant recognition, which was very positive. So

we always sold that we have great football, but also

basketball. We would tell recruits we were in a great

conference and committed to winning in both football and

basketball.

HHC: Talk about your first few seasons at

Nebraska, and how difficult it was to transition from

Moe Iba’s players to your own?

DN: It wasn’t

difficult at all. We had Brian Carr, Bill Jackman, Mike

Martz, Bernard Day; they were all great, man. They were

super to deal with, and we had a very successful year

right away because of those guys.

Coach Iba was such a great teacher

of the man-to-man defense, and that first team was so

fundamentally sound. To be honest, that first year might

have been the easiest coaching job I’ve ever had,

because when I unleashed them and put in a fast break,

and told them to run and shoot, to go along with the

quality Iba defense, we were pretty potent.

Those kids were such great people

and easy to coach, and it was so fun coaching them. It

was unbelievable. I can still remember Marquette,

Arkansas, and Washington coming into the Devaney Center

to play in the NIT that first year, and we beat them all

in really good games. It was really exciting.

HHC: The 1990-1991 team is probably the

best in school history, as they won 26 games and

finished the year in the top ten of some polls. What do

you remember most about that season, and be honest, did

you have any clue they would be that good, especially

coming off of a 10-18 season?

DN: We were paying

our dues up to that point, and there were so many great

players on that team that were just developing. I mean,

you had Rich King, Beau, Scales, Bruce, all those guys.

The core had been either redshirted or in the program

for a while. And then you had the addition of Tony

Farmer, Jose Ramos, Keith Moody, and then we also had

young players like Piatkowski, Carl Hayes, Dapreis

Owens… Go back and see, three or four of them are 1,000

point scorers. All of those guys had very strong

careers, and they were all uniquely different.

It came together and popped that

year, and we were building that for three or four years

prior to going there. So, we played with Iba’s players

the first few years, and then we started recruiting our

own. It was just a very experienced and mature team that

just came together. Those guys were all great players.

HHC: Talk about the four-year run of NCAA

Tournaments you enjoyed from 1991-1994. What sticks out

most about those teams?

DN: Winning. (Laughs) We won. You can go

over the list of who we beat, and the great

accomplishments, such as winning the Big 8 Tournament,

when we beat Coach Sutton and Big Country in the finals.

We had an unbelievable night with Oklahoma in the first

round, and Missouri in-between. But yeah, we broke

streaks and won at places we never won before. Big 8

basketball then was amazing. It was pretty damn good

basketball.

HHC: Many critics say that your teams

“choked” or “underestimated” your first-round opponents

in a couple of those NCAA Tournaments. What is your

response to this?

DN: I have no answer to that, its almost

stupid. I think the thing is, you learn about winning,

and you learn how to win. Once you learn how to win, you

build a winner, and we just didn’t get comfortable in

those games. I really think the first time that we went

it had nothing to do with overconfidence. We had a

couple of minor problems we had to deal with it. Plus,

it was a new experience.

I would agree with critics who say

we should have beaten Xavier, Arkansas, Connecticut,

etc. But, the timing and things weren’t totally right. 

I feel those teams in the years of

1991-1994 were just another step in the program that we

were getting closer to. Before I got there they didn’t

go to the NCAA’s, and since I’ve left they haven’t. We

were getting very close to taking that next step, and

its something that’s very difficult to do.

HHC: Talk about how gratifying it was for

you to win the NIT Championship in 1995-1996 after all

of the controversy surrounding that year?

DN: It was great, and I was happy for the

players and coaches. I was also happy for Nebraska,

because it was another milestone. A national

championship had never been won on any level at Nebraska

basketball, but we did it. And then, right after we won

it, people came at us and criticized us. And I didn’t

get it. All we were trying to do was win and try to make

it the best program we could make it.

Nebraska is what it is - I can’t

change that. We were in there competing and getting good

players, and they were graduating. And, obviously we

were recruiting well because the players we had went

onto the NBA. Yet, my critics liked to rail on me, and

its stupid. They did the same thing with Frank, too.

There was always something we didn’t do, so that’s just

how it is.

HHC: Tell us some of your all-time

favorite players at Nebraska, as far as kids who really

grew and became men under your watch.

DN: Well, on your

site alone are three of them, in Beau Reid, Bruce, and

Cary. I remember bringing them all in. Rich King is up

there. But just any of those guys, it was easy, because

they were all self-made players. They came in with

talent and worked their butts off, and became very good

college players. I know Bruce played some ball overseas,

and I think that Beau could have easily played pro, too,

had he wanted to.

HHC: Who were some of

your more successful projects?

DN: Again, Rich King goes from a kid in

Omaha, who I don’t even think was starting all the games

his senior year, to a first round NBA draft pick. He

grew into a great player. Mikki Moore had two division

one scholarship offers, and Jimmy Williams went down

there and found him. My only regret with him is that we

didn’t redshirt him his freshman year.

And of course, you can’t forget

Venson Hamilton, Clifford Scales, Dapreis Owens, Eric

Piatkowski. God, we haven’t even mentioned Erick

Strickland.

HHC: Yeah, he was

featured on our Then & Now segment awhile back. Even

Kimani Ffriend is bouncing around the NBA now!

DN: Yeah, that’s

right; Kimani would be another player in that successful

project mold.

HHC: Absolutely. Hey, before we let you

go, talk to us about your current situation at Duquesne,

and how is your team looking this year?

DN: We’re very

optimistic about this year, and to be honest with you, I

think we are real close. With my experiences of Ohio and

Nebraska, Duquesne is very similar in many ways. They

had a rich tradition before, and now we’re rebuilding.

It actually reminds me a lot of Creighton. A small,

catholic university of 10,000, that just hasn’t won in

awhile, and we’re looking forward to turning it around.

I will be honest and tell you that we are very close.

HHC: And, are you

still sporting the cool ties?

DN: (Laughs) I’ll tell you what, ask my

wife that question, because she’s in charge of that. If

she gives me clearance, then I’ll wear it. (Laughs) And,

a guy named Gary Novatney back there in Lincoln deserves

a lot of credit. I’m not sure if you know who he is, but

he owns Gary Michaels.

But yeah, Janet used to scream at

me and pick out the ties. She just hunted them down,

especially when we were on big time TV. I’ll tell you

what, it wasn’t easy, but she’d always make me look

good. It was a really fun time. 

HHC: Danny, thanks a

lot for taking the time to talk with us.

DN: It’s not a

problem at all. I’m actually excited to give my son

Kevin this website, because he was born in Nebraska and

loves Nebraska basketball. I love Nebraska too, and I’m

glad to do this. My only regret is that I haven’t stayed

in better touch with some of the former players at

Nebraska, as far as wives and kids, and how they are all

doing. But again, thanks for doing this.<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">