Published in Sport Magazine, April 1970, Vol. 49, No. 4 pp. 60-61.

by TAD HEFFERNAN

The Celtics' Red Auerbach on Issel: "He shoots very well, he's quick, he comes down with the ball -- what more can you ask?"

THE ACOUSTICS IN the University of Kentucky's 11,500-seat Memorial Coliseum are so uncommonly good that the Metropolitan Opera has played it with no complaints. Adolph Rupp, the crusty old Kentucky basketball coach, has never cared much for opera or any other outside attractions coming in and scuffing his floor, but he appreciates the building's sound control. It enables him to sit at one end of the court during practice and criticize his players at the other end, a practice he has indulged in with glee for the last 100 years.

On the afternoon before Tennessee's game at Kentucky' this season, the Wildcats warmed up under Rupp's searching gaze with 20 minutes of shooting. And the Baron kept cackling: "If you can't pass the ball without opposition, how can you pass it tomorrow? . . . A fraction of a second late. . . A high pass takes longer. . . Naw, that won't suit me at all . . . God-dammit, no!"

Then suddenly his tone changed. He turned to a tall, rangy blond and asked softly, almost tenderly, "Dan, do you want to sit out now?" The young man, who was suffering from the flu, said he did. Odd behavior, indeed, from the normally insufferable Rupp, but when it comes to Dan IsseI (rhymes with "missle") his solicitousness is understandable. The 6-8 1/2 senior and team captain is among the best all-round centers in the country, and is virtually certain to repeat as All-America. Through the first week in February, IsseI was third in the nation in scoring with an average of 32.5 points per game -- this at a school not noted for high individual scorers-and he ranked second in rebounding in the Southeastern Conference with 14 per game. He was the player responsible for battling the opposing big man and getting the ball to start Kentucky's renowned fast break, which meant he was the key to Rupp's ambition of winning a fifth NCAA title. The Wildcats were 15-1 and ranked third behind UCLA and South Carolina a month before the playoffs began, so IsseI was obviously doing his job.

Additionally, he was providing quiet but inspiring leadership. Says Rupp: "Because of my health, things could have gotten out of hand, but not with a kid like IsseI around. He had them running on their own after practice. He's a pretty valuable animal."

IsseI is a handsome 22-year-old with large, luminous eyes set in a face shaped like an inverted triangle. At 242 pounds, he is not slender. His athletic background is odd for an All-America. He lived on a farm in Missouri and played no sports until the sixth grade, when his family moved to Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago. There he began to participate in athletics, simply because everyone else was, but he was hardly what you would call a phenom. It wasn't until his freshman year in high school that he became a basketball starter, and even then he got his position when the boy playing in front of him broke his leg. Progress was slow. "As a junior, I was a clumsy sophomore," he says.

But he overcame his clumsiness through extra practice and agility exercises. "Basketball never came easy for me," he admits. "Any talent I may have is the result of long, long hours. I've worked hard at trying to become a good player."

By the end of his senior year in high school, Big Ten schools began to recruit him vigorously. IsseI turned to his father, a self-employed painting contractor who had always taken a big interest in his son's basketball career, and asked for advice. Dan's father pushed Kentucky. He didn't have to push hard. "Kentucky was fine with me," Dan says. "More All-Americas and pros came from there than anywhere else."

A short while later, Issei had reason to doubt the wisdom of his choice. "I'll never forget my first visit to Lexington," he says with a laugh. "I picked up a newspaper and read that Coach Rupp's first choice for his 'Center of the Future' was somebody from Iowa-his name escapes me now-and that his second choice was George Janky (currently at Dayton). I wasn't even mentioned."

Now Kentucky feels like home, a fact that the Kentucky Colonels of the ABA were banking on when they picked IsseI as their No. 1 choice in the league's highly publicized "secret" draft. "After you're down here for a while, you can't help but think of yourself as a Kentuckian," Issei says. "Everyone goes out of his way to make you feel at home. I know this will be Louisville's big pitch to me . . . to keep playing before the same people who cheered me in college. But still I want to see what the NBA club that drafts me is going to offer. I guess I have some obligation to Kentucky, but I have a greater obligation to my own and to my wife's future. If you want to put it this way, 'Money Talks.' "

IsseI's regard for his new Kentucky home includes a warm feeling for the far-from-Iovable Rupp. Asked how he adjusted to the Baron's ways, Dan replies, "It wasn't that difficult. My high school coach was real strict too, and ran basically the same offense. I learned that you have to take coach Rupp's criticism constructively. You can't think about the words - he wants everything perfect. I certainly respect him. He stresses teamwork, and I'm as surprised as anyone that I've scored so much here. This is far from a one-man team. I'm scoring more because we have a productive offense, over 90 points a game, and our guards are inexperienced and not shooting much. I'm proudest of my field-goal percentage, 56 percent. I don't get many layups."

IsseI, who has started every game at Kentucky since he got there, averaged 16.4 points and 12.1 rebounds per game as a sophomore. Last year he averaged a school record 26.6 points and grabbed 13.6 rebounds. Both years Kentucky won the conference championship. IsseI and Rupp, understandably, were getting along quite nicely.

Then last June, they nearly had a falling out. Rupp bristled at Issel's decision to get married. It didn't matter that the girl was a cute, long-haired Kentucky cheerleader. What mattered to Rupp was that marriage was a distraction from basketball. In the past no Kentucky player had dared defy the Baron's monastic philosophy. But IsseI's marriage was the fourth on the current team. "I ought to kick 'em all off the squad," Rupp grumbled.

However, with the Wildcats' subsequent success, Rupp conceded that matrimony might not be the threat he envisioned. "The trainer thinks it has steadied IsseI, especially in his studies," Rupp says. "He passed 22 hours last semester majoring in business administration."

IsseI isn't sure what he will do with his degree, but leans toward advertising sales or the horse racing industry. He has been observed test-driving harness horses, his outsized legs ludicrously buckled up in the tiny cart. "It's a fascinating business," he says. "You can't live here for four years and not become interested in it."

The game against Tennessee started at 5 p.m. for television. As the teams loosened their muscles, one was struck by the close-clipped appearance of the Wildcats in our age of Aquarius. There was nary a hint of a sideburn, mustache or beard, and they all looked as though their last act before leaving the locker room was to scrub their faces thoroughly."

This was about the closest thing to a crucial game left during the regular season for Kentucky. It did not seem a good time to observe IsseI, who was sick and playing an unfamiliar forward position against defense-minded Tennessee's 1-3-1 zone. The Volunteers' offense consisted of giving the ball to Jimmy England, a clever guard, who dribbled it for an hour or so and then popped up a jump shot or tried to work it in to 6-10 Bobby Croft. At half time, Kentucky led by a slender 26-23 margin. IsseI seldom had the ball. Looking gruesome without his top teeth (because of a tumor operation two years ago, he can't play with false teeth in his mouth), he still had been impressive the few times his teammates were able to feed him. Maneuvering mainly along the baseline, he was accurate with wristy 20-foot jump shots from the corner and tip-ins under the basket. Twice he moved out to the top of the circle and scored. Another time he hit a hook shot' underneath. He rebounded strongly, blocked three shots and stole the ball twice.

The turning point in the game came with 15 minutes remaining. IsseI grabbed a rebound, whirled and banked in an eight-foot jump shot and was fouled. His free throw made it 34-27, but, more important, it put Croft on the bench with four fouls. "I didn't know where he was most of the time," the dejected Tennessee center' said of Issei after the game.

His chief opposition out of the game, IsseI turned it on. Hawking defensive rebounds and twice racing in front to lead the fast break, he got the Wildcats running and they simply ran away from their opponents. IsseI had 28 points and 11 rebounds before he left the game early, drained by the flu. Kentucky won, 68-52.

Afterwards, one of basketball's shrewdest authorities, Red Auerbach, talked about IsseI. "You figure the kid's going to be a helluva pro cornerman, but then again he's strong enough to play center," said the Celtics' general manager. "He shoots very well, he's quick, he comes down with the ball-what more can you ask?"

The question is rhetorical.

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