University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Lotz Played Role On Legendary Team
August 20, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
Danny Lotz, who died Wednesday at the age of 78, loved to joke about his role on the 1957 Carolina national championship team. At 6-foot-7, Lotz provided valuable size for a team that was depth-shy in the post.
But he also knew head coach Frank McGuire preferred to use primarily his five starters—Lennie Rosenbluth, Joe Quigg, Tom Kearns, Bob Cunningham and Pete Brennan—and that the team's most infallible offensive set was “feed the monster,” which meant, quite simply, pass the ball to Rosenbluth and get out of the way.
When the 1956-57 season began, McGuire would often encourage the reserves in practice—including Lotz, Tony Radovich and Stan Groll—by yelling, “By the Dartmouth game, you guys will be starting!”
Radovich, a jokester, immediately latched onto the comment. Every day in practice, he would creep up to Lotz and shout, “Hey Danny, is it the Dartmouth game yet?” The reserves probably knew they had little chance of displacing the Tar Heel starters, but the charade continued. Just make it to the Dartmouth game, they told each other, and they'd be starters. They'd sit on the bench watching the Tar Heels blow away another early-season opponent and Radovich would say, just loud enough for McGuire to hear, “Is it the Dartmouth game yet?” The coach would fume, the reserves would laugh, and the starters would continue bludgeoning the opponent.
Finally, after a 64-59 Carolina win over NYU in Madison Square Garden on Dec. 20, it was the Dartmouth game. The Big Green, an Ivy League school, was little competition for Carolina on the hardwood. Groll, Radovich, and Lotz didn't crack the starting lineup, but they had high hopes for significant minutes in what promised to be a blowout. The Tar Heels stretched their lead beyond 20 points in the first half; Rosenbluth finished with 30. Lotz and Radovich elbowed each other on the bench. This was their chance.
"Tony must've said it 50 times in that game,” Lotz said in an interview for The Best Game Ever. “'Hey Danny, is this the Dartmouth game?'”
Finally, with a minute to play and Carolina holding a 30-point lead, McGuire grudgingly inserted the reserves. Radovich, naturally, knew exactly what to say: “This must be the Dartmouth game!”
When they got on the floor, Radovich, Lotz and Groll could barely suppress their laughter. The game was long since decided and the Boston Garden crowd probably wondered what was so funny.
But McGuire knew. After the 89-61 victory, he unloaded on the trio in the locker room. With snow swirling outside, he informed them they would not be welcome on the team bus. Still laughing about their plight, the trio hitchhiked back to the team hotel.
Despite all the jokes, Lotz played an integral role in Carolina's win over Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in the 1957 NCAA championship game. The Tar Heels ran into foul trouble in the second half, including Rosenbluth being disqualified in what first appeared to be a devastating loss. Lotz had made a token appearance in the first half, but played a key stretch early in the second half, including tipping a potential offensive rebound away for Chamberlain—in an eventual one-point game in which every touch for the Jayhawk seven-footer was potentially game-changing.
With Kansas leading 53-52 and six seconds remaining in triple overtime (Carolina's second triple-overtime game in as many nights), Quigg was fouled. McGuire called timeout and inserted Lotz for defensive purposes. “When Joe makes these two shots,” McGuire told his team, “here's what we're going to do.”
McGuire wanted Lotz to front Chamberlain on the in-bounds pass, with Quigg playing behind him, hopefully bracketing the Kansas star to prevent him from making a game-winning hoop. Indeed, Quigg sank both pressure-packed free throws, the Tar Heels tipped the ball away from Chamberlain, and Carolina had its first NCAA basketball title.
The team returned to a huge welcome at the Raleigh airport, with fans parking along the side of the road just to get a glimpse of the plane. The celebration continued at Woollen Gym, where a raucous crowd welcomed the team back to Chapel Hill. The only people pretending to be unimpressed by the hoopla were Danny Lotz's suitemates in his Chapel Hill dorm. They had traveled to Woollen to welcome the team back but arrived late and ended up on the periphery of the celebration.
They couldn't fathom that their Danny, the same guy with whom they'd sat on the bed in the dorm and discussed this mythical figure named Wilt Chamberlain, was now a celebrity. They returned to Cobb Dorm and went to their individual rooms. They threw open every door so it was obvious that they were hard at work studying.
About a half-hour later, Lotz charged through the front door with a broad smile on his face. He'd been greeted royally by fans and expected the same from his friends. Instead, he was greeted with…nothing. He peeked in the first room and saw a classmate engrossed in a textbook.
“Hi guys,” Lotz said. “I'm back.”
“Oh, hi Dan,” came the reply.
The same conversation was repeated at each room, with Lotz growing more perplexed by the moment. He was the lone Tar Heel who had called his parents after the win over Kansas; he, perhaps more than anyone on the team, knew what a frenzy the win had caused in the state of North Carolina. Was his dorm the only place unaffected by the impact?
He went to his room, where suddenly he heard the sound of muffled laughter. His roommates had been able to maintain the charade for only about five minutes. Soon, they were piling into his room firing questions about Chamberlain, Kansas City, and being a national champion.
Those were questions Lotz would answer for the next 58 years, in a rich life that touched hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people. The complete obituary of an incredible life is available here.
