“Doug Penno?” Charlie Coles, the late Miami RedHawks coach, said to me that same year. “I love Doug Penno.”
Just as it took the most unbelievable of seasons to get Miami University to an almost certain berth in the NCAA Tournament this season, it took a just as unlikely moment — one that tapped into opposite sides of the heart — to get the RedHawks into their last NCAA Tournament back in 2007.
Although they had gone just 15-14 in the regular season 19 years ago, the RedHawks made it to the title game of the Mid-American Conference Tournament against Akron at Quicken Loans Arena (now Rocket Arena) in Cleveland.
But with 6.6 seconds left, it looked like Miami’s luck was about to run out.
Akron had a 54-52 lead and Cedric Middleton, the Zips’ senior guard who had just been named the MAC’s Sixth Man of the Year, was headed to the foul line and a 1-and-1 opportunity that could seal the victory.
Instead, his first attempt hit the front of the rim and bounded upward. The Zips Romeo Travis — who four years earlier had teamed with LeBron James to lead Akron St, Vincent-St. Mary over Alter in the state title game — leaped for the rebound, but only got a hand on it.
The ball was deflected to Michael Bramos, the star of the Miami team, who began a frantic dribble through Akron defenders to the other end of the court. Realizing he was running out of time, he spotted teammate Doug Penno on the wing and fired a perfect pass.
Penno had played on that Alter team LeBron and company had beaten though he was better known as one of the greatest running backs in Knights’ history and, in fact, this past fall, he was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.
Basketball, though, was his first love and he had turned down football offers to walk onto the Miami basketball team as a 6-foot-5 guard.
Although he hadn’t had the kind of highlight career he had hoped for in his four seasons with the RedHawks, that was all about to change.
“Growing up I had dreamed of moments just like that,” Penno recounted a couple of days ago in a phone conversation from his home north of Dallas. “I’d be out in the driveway — most of the time by myself, though sometimes with my brother Jeff — and I’d do the countdown: ‘3…2…1….Penno shoots!’
“Sometimes I’d do it for an hour out there and wouldn’t stop until I made so many shots in a row.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Always a fantasy, it suddenly was real in that MAC title game and, with time almost gone, Penno grabbed the pass, sidestepped Akron defender Nick Dials and launched a desperation three-point shot.
It hit the glass backboard at an angle and banked perfectly into the hoop for the seeming game-winner that not only would give the RedHawks the MAC title, but hand them the league’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.
As he turned and bounded down the court, Penno was chased by his jubilant teammates, who were followed by Miami cheerleaders, team managers, an assistant coach and even some fans.
He jumped into the arms of 6-foot-8 center Tyler Dierkers and they tumbled backward under the crush of the rest of overjoyed RedHawks who piled on them.
“I just put it up and said a prayer while it was in the air … and God answered,” Penno said that day.
As Akron coach Keith Dambrot protested to the huddling refs about the start of the clock, Coles ran around the court in a daze, asking, “The shot was good, right? We won, didn’t we?’”
Coles almost had made his way to the scorer’s table when a security guard blocked his path and told him to hold up.
“I got a little unruly,” Coles would later admit. “I almost got in three fights. I thought they were waving off the shot. When I found out they were just figuring out the time that was left, I was OK.”
Officials determined .6 of one second remained, but that was not enough time for the Zips to respond.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
“I remember leaving the game that night like I was on Cloud 9.” Penno said. “Our team stayed in Cleveland that night and I’ll never forget lying in the hotel bed and watching SportsCenter over and over and over.
“It was a Top Ten play and I just kept watching it until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.”
‘I was really lucky’
As an Alter running back, Penno set several rushing and scoring records, and fabled Alter coach Ed Domsitz has said: “If he’s not the greatest running back I ever coached, he’s one of the top two or three.”
While he had scholarship offers in football, Penno’s heart was set on basketball.
“Football came easy to me, and I liked being good at it, but down deep I always wanted to focus on basketball. That was the sport I loved.
“Maybe it has something to do with my dad, he’s a Hoosier. He grew up in Indianapolis and was a die-hard Bobby Knight and Indiana fan. Something from that passed over to me at an early age and I just loved basketball, too.
“And I’m thankful Charlie Coles gave me a chance at Miami.”
He played in 104 games for the RedHawks, started 17 and averaged 4.3 ppg for his career. Along the way he did have some big outings: going 6-for-9 from three-point range for 21 points against Eastern Michigan, twice scoring 16 against Northern Illinois and getting 15 versus OU.
“I wasn’t the happiest about how my career went,” he said. “I thought I was capable of more and wish I’d gotten the opportunities, but I did get that experience at the end, and it meant a lot to me and my teammates and my coaches. So in some ways I was really lucky.”
After the shot that sent Miami to the NCAA Tournament, he got hundreds of text messages from well-wishers, including Chicago Bulls general manager John Paxson, who was an Alter grad, and Oakland Raiders linebacker coach Don Martindale, who had once coached with Domsitz at Alter.
Penno was a guest on the ESPN2 morning show, Cold Pizza, and he was interviewed by sportswriters from across the nation who saw him as the perfect Cinderella story to launch March Madness.
The 14th seeded RedHawks would be sent to Spokane, Washington to face No. 3 seed Oregon and though they battled back from an 11-point deficit, they came up two points short, losing 58-56.
Although that game is just a footnote in the program’s hoops history, The Shot became a part of Miami basketball lore.
And yet, after college he ventured back to football, and an ambitious dream to make it to the NFL.
An agent convinced him his best shot would be to follow the path of former college hoops standouts Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez who became tight ends.
The last time I interviewed Penno at length was at Millett Hall in early 2008. He had gotten a job at the school as an assistant equipment manager and was working with trainers there to remake his body.
He added some 40 pounds and showcased himself as a 250-pound tight end prospect at Miami’s Pro Day.
When no NFL offers materialized, he gave up the bid, lost the added weight and eventually got a job as a grad assistant with the Division II Pace University basketball team in New York.
He recruited for the Setters, helped coach and though he said he loved it, he also said he realized he didn’t want a career as a college coach.
Today he’s 40 years old, married, and the father of four young children, ages 7 to 2.
He’s in medical sales for a company called RION, which he described as “regenerative medicine meets skin care.”
His athletic pursuits are now limited to recreational running and weights, although he is training for a half-marathon. And he’s enjoying his two oldest sons’ first ventures into sports.
He told how they shoot baskets with him outside and then they want to see some kind of video of him playing.
He said the only one he can find is of The Shot: “They don’t understand any of what was at stake, but they like seeing Daddy make a basket and run around and then have people jumping on him.”
‘A dream come true’
Penno said he doesn’t follow college basketball and had no idea of Miami’s hot start this season until two friends — with Dayton Flyers ties — told him he needed to focus on his alma mater.
“I first heard about them when they were 18-0,” he said. “I started seeing mentions of them on SportsCenter and I started to follow the scores and I was impressed.
“I didn’t know about the team, but I knew what they were doing and where they were doing it.
“I know all those places on the (MAC) road. I know what it’s like to play at Buffalo, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan and OU and I know how tough it is to win at those places and they were doing it game after game.”
He didn’t watch a full game until nine days ago when the RedHawks travelled to Athens and outlasted Ohio University, 110-108 in overtime, to finish the regular season 31-0.
After they were upset by UMass in the quarterfinals of the Mid-American Conference Tournament Thursday, the 31-1 RedHawks — whose anemic nonconference schedule has been the source of much debate — have had to deal with doubters and denigrators in their path to the NCAA Tournament.
Penno’s team faced some of that in 2007, as well.
Then he got the chance to show what he had practiced in the driveway since he was a kid.
“It’s hard to put into words what that experience was like to me back then,” he said. “After I hit the shot, I knew there were guys all over the country who had the same dreams to be able to do what I had done. I got lucky. I got a chance to experience a dream come true.”
Today, the RedHawks are looking for the very same thing.
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