Story #12
Leonard Thomas Blackburn
There is a photograph with hand-colored grass of five young men in their Peebles basketball uniforms. The one in the middle is holding a basketball with the date 1922. The team record that year was twenty-six wins and four losses. Team members were Harold Rotroff, Lyman Suiter, Ralph Crawford, and Ray Gorman, all seniors. The player holding the basketball is high school junior Leonard Thomas Blackburn. The following year his Peebles senior yearbook made note of his nicknames, Tommy and Tubby. It also related that he was president of the senior class, president of the athletic association, captain of both the basketball and football team, and a member of the high school yearbook staff.
He was born January 23, 1906, on a farm between Otway and Peebles. He had four brothers and one sister. As they grew up, they were all required to attend to chores on the farm. The boys were also called upon to help their father in a logging business. They worked together to drag logs to the nearby railroad tracks using horses and also transported the logs on oxen-drawn wagons. After work, the family loved to spend its leisure time playing sports, particularly baseball. Tom was always the designated pitcher. In school, he developed his baseball and basketball skills, but was mostly interested in playing football.
After graduation, Blackburn worked for the N & W Railroad for two years and eventually decided to pursue a college degree. His athletic abilities earned him a football scholarship to Wilmington College. In 1927, he began his studies and became quarterback of the football team, a player for the basketball team and a pitcher for the baseball team. He received his degree in 1931.
He stayed with sports after graduating from college. His coaching career started with winning teams in football and basketball for four years at West Carrollton, Ohio, High School. In 1935, his calling took him to Central High School in Xenia, where he again had winning records for both sports over an eight year period. His basketball teams produced five Miami Valley League titles, three Southwest District titles, and a state championship in 1942. At the same time, Blackburn was working as a golf pro at the Xenia Country Club. He had been asked, in 1941, if he had an interest in a basketball coaching position at the University of Dayton. He declined the offer, having more of an interest in coaching high school football, and because the two sides could not reach an agreement on salary terms.
Then, World War II began. In 1943, Blackburn felt compelled to join the war effort. He moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he began work as an instructor for the Navy's pre-flight program at the University of North Carolina and continued to work at a local golf course. He also met Libby Porter and a year later the two were married. Blackburn left his positions at the university and the Navy in 1946, and the couple moved to Dayton, Ohio. He began work as a golf pro and club manager at the Greenville Country Club and later worked at Madden Park as a golf pro.
After the war, a new middle class developed with more purchasing power and more products to purchase. With the availability of funding through the new G.I. Bill, returning soldiers were choosing to go to college. They prepared for life in the post-war economy based on consumerism. Enrollment at The University of Dayton dramatically increased and changes were made in the fields of study. Changes were also made in the athletic department. The basketball and football coach had always been the same person, with neither sport being successful. It was decided to split the two positions. Blackburn was again approached about the basketball coaching job and this time an agreement was reached. In 1947, with a $1200 a year salary, Tom Blackburn became the University of Dayton's first full-time basketball coach and an assistant professor of physical education. His first game was played December 6, 1947, in the Coliseum Gymnasium at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. Nine hundred people were in attendance to watch the Flyers defeat a military team from Wright Field with a score of 61-30.
Over the years, almost every game produced a memorable story, but it's the collective record that impresses. During seventeen years as head coach at U.D., Blackburn had a 352-141 record (.714) and a 22-12 record (.647) in post-season play. There were fourteen years of sell-out attendance with over one million spectators at the U.D. Fieldhouse. His teams played in two Catholic tournaments, two Kentucky Invitationals, five holiday tournaments, one NCAA tournament, ten National Invitational Tournaments with five second-place finishes and an NIT Championship in 1952. Over all, 675,000 people paid to see fifty-one games featuring the Flyers at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Coach Blackburn was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1962. He remained active with the team, but over a short time weakened to the point of having to use special seating to be at court-side. His last game was February 26, 1964. He died on March 6, 1964, eight days after his last game, and a day and a few hours before the end of the season. He is buried next to his wife, Libby, at Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum. An inscription on her gravestone reads: “MOTHER OF DAYTON FLYERS BASKETBALL.”
In Coach Blackburn's memory, an initial gift of $1,000 from the Flyers Club was used to establish The Tom Blackburn Memorial Scholarship Fund. He was inducted into the University of Dayton Athletic Hall of Fame in January, 1969, and the college's basketball court was named after the former coach. The winner of the annual Dayton-Xavier basketball game is awarded the Blackburn/McCafferty Trophy, named after the two former coaches at each university. Members of his first NIT team gathered funds to purchase a special monument for his grave-site in recognition of his contributions to the U.D. Basketball program. The inscription reads: “I DIDN'T WANT ANYTHING BUT THE BEST FOR YOU AND OF YOU.”
