Mr. Indiana Basketball still contributing to NBLC
David Magley, former NBLC commissioner (and current TBL president), was crucial in helping set up the Canadian league for success in its unique 10th anniversary season. A former pro, he’s lived the basketball life …
The London Lightning and Flint United do battle Apr. 3, 2022 in an inter-league NBLC-TBL matchup. The partnership between the two leagues this season was made possible by former NBLC commissioner David Magley. (Photo: Bruce Laing).
* * *
David Magley didn’t grow up with dreams of being a basketball star in the NBA – or even college.
“But if I could someday play for LaSalle High School and run through the hoop with the paper in it with the Red River Valley played by the pep band and the cheerleaders cheering and the mascot dancing, I would have died and gone to heaven,” the South Bend, Ind., native said.
Magley, 62, achieved all that and more growing up in basketball heaven, as the former Indiana Mr. Basketball, Kansas Jayhawk, and Cleveland Cavalier has spent a lifetime in the game as a player, coach, commissioner, and builder.
Today, the former NBL Canada commissioner continues to make hoop dreams a reality – not only for hundreds of players across the United States as the President of The Basketball League (TBL), but also by supporting a unique cross-border partnership helping the NBL Canada emerge from the challenges of the pandemic.
* * *
Mr. Indiana Basketball. If you don’t know what that title means, think homecoming king for the state.
Presented by the Indianapolis Star, the award annually honours the top basketball player in the hoops-mad state. Starting in 1939 with George Crowe, the title has been held by some of the biggest names in the game’s history, including NBA Hall of Famers Oscar Robinson and George McGinnis.
Magley was named Mr. Basketball in 1978, a member of a high school all-star class where 11 of the 12 guys were drafted to play in the NBA. It’s an honour Magley remains humble about to this day.
The 1978 Indiana High School All-Star Basketball Team, including Eric Clark (coach); Ted Kitchel; Thad Garner; David Magley (Mr. Basketball); Wallace Bryant; Landon Turner; Bill Harrell (assistant coach); Tim Friend (trainer); Jack Moore; Curt Clawson; Dale White; Greg Jones; Randy Wittman; John Hegwood; and David Wright. (Photo: Ray Hinz Collection).
* * *
“Was I better than Randy Wittman who played 13 years in the NBA? I can’t say that. Was I better than Landon Turner and Ted Kitchell who won a national championship with Randy at Indiana University? I don’t know that. Was I better than ‘Poncho’ Wright who won a national championship at Louisville? The list goes on and on. Was I better? Who knows? But I was maybe the better story, and that’s probably what got me Mr. Basketball.”
Much of that story, Magley says, centred on his mother, a supporting light in his life who loved to watch her son play basketball – even arranging an ambulance to take her to one of her son’s games during her hospitalization with cancer. In a letter she penned to one of her brothers, she wrote about how important it was to her to make the trip, despite the struggle to get there, because she knew she wouldn’t be there to watch next season.
“My mother died on a Tuesday; we buried her on a Friday early in the morning so I could play that night. I had to attend one class to qualify by state rules to play in the game. We buried my mom and I went to class for an hour and then we continued the process of grieving,” Magley said. “That night we played, and I had 40 in the first half, and sat out the second half. That’s the stuff that people start talking about.”
Nobody realized at that moment that the school’s single-game school record was 41 – a record Magley broke the following week.
“My mom was told she would pass years before she did, but she just refused to go. She passed the week after my 18th birthday. Her work was accomplished. She had raised us, all four of us kids were adults, and she could move on. When people lose their parents, they may be gone from the Earth, but they’ll never be gone from their mind. My mom is fresh in my mind every day because that’s all I’ve had of her for the last 40 years.”
Magley went on to play four years at the University of Kansas, where the co-captain was an All-Big Eight selection and team MVP in 1982. He finished his Jayhawks career with 1,022 points and 596 rebounds.
Cleveland selected Magley in the second round of the 1982 NBA Draft, a draft that saw all-time greats James Worthy, Terry Cummings, and Dominique Wilkins go with the top three picks. Magley played one season with the Cavaliers before playing with the Wyoming Wildcatters, Albany Patroons, and Tampa Bay Thrillers in the CBA.
“But the best player I’ve ever played against, period, is my brother Pat,” Magley said. “He’s seven years older and he probably still remembers what our career record against each other was in 1967-68 playing one-on-one. It’s somewhere like about 1,260 to 118.
“He has beaten me for a long time. When we played, he was the Globetrotters. My brother is a minister, but he plays me in basketball, he hangs that collar up in the closet, kicks my butt and tells me about it, then puts the collar back on and says, ‘Praise God.’”
Magley’s hoops resume may top his brother, but there is pride in the younger brother’s voice when he speaks of his big brother’s South Bend, Ind., ministry that includes a barber shop, food and clothing bank, cafeteria that serves 55,000 meals a year, and three full courts – all free to those in need.
Magley isn’t kidding – he may have played against the biggest names in the sport’s history – names like Jordan, Dr. J, and Bird. “But if we go to the park, and I can pick anyone for my team, I’ll take my brother in two-on-two against anyone any day.”
David Magley in Indiana Feb. 25 for a matchup between the NBLC’s KW Titans and the TBL’s Lebanon Leprechauns. (Photo: Dan Congdon).
* * *
Magley had been coaching at Bradenton Christian School in Bradenton, Fla., for 11 years when he was recruited north to help establish a prep school in Orangeville, Ont., as well as serve as GM/head coach for the Brampton A’s in the fledgling NBL Canada.
He coached the team for two years, leading them to a 45-27 overall record, including a trip to the division semifinals in his first year and to the division finals in his second.
On May 28, 2015, Magley was named commissioner of the NBL Canada. “Maybe it was being fresh off blowing a 3-1 lead in the semifinals that inspired my owner to suggest that I might be a better commissioner than a coach,” Magley laughed.
Magley actually drew attention after artfully navigating the then-commissionerless league through the fallout from the 2015 NBL Canada Finals where members of the Windsor Express and Halifax Rainmen brawled prior to Game 7. Subsequently, the Rainmen refused to play the game. The incident resulted in numerous fines, suspensions, two lifetime bans, and a seemingly unrepairable black eye for the league in only its fourth season.
Magley admits to that moment being among the greatest leadership tests.
“Everybody needed to take some blame. Without a commissioner at the time, no one was watching the escalation of the violence between the two teams right and no one was keeping an eye on the social media posts every time there was a foul in the series. You could see it bubbling and all of a sudden it just blew up,” he said. “If they all could do it over, they wouldn’t have done it. No one was out to hurt the league. The two owners involved were childhood best friends. It just escalated out of control.”
The incident made the league a laughingstock and shook its power players to the core. If not handled properly, Magley said, the league might not have survived the black eye.
Magley helped rally the league, but he refuses to take credit for the solutions. He points to the owners who took control in getting the league back on its feet, from putting aside petty squabbles to even helping underwrite the league operations out of their own pockets.
It was all key to getting the league back up and running, something Magley felt it was doing when he left the commissioner’s chair after two years to return to The States and start the TBL in 2018.
“We went from five solid franchises to leaving two years later with 11 teams with all good ownership groups, and the league being on its way to something really special.”
* * *
The Basketball League, formerly North America Premier Basketball, is a minor league basketball organization which launched in 2018 with eight teams. It has since expanded to more than 30 teams divided into four regions across the country.
The NBL Canada-TBL partnership is off to an exciting start for both leagues, although the Canadians are holding a 12-6 edge on the Yanks.
The partnership has added four U.S. opponents to the London Lightning’s schedule, including visits from the Lansing Pharoahs, Syracuse Stallions, and Flint United, as well as road trips to the Albany Patroons, United, and Pharoahs.
The Lightning are 3-1 against American opponents so far, with home victories over the Pharoahs, Stallions and United. Last Thursday, the Lightning fell to the Patroons, 97-90, in the team’s first trip over the border to play a regular season game in the United States. That loss broke the Bolts’ near record-breaking 11-0 start to the season.
Magley and Audley Stephenson, NBL Canada Vice-president of Basketball Operations, led the creation of this unique partnership. The pair go back to Magley’s coaching days. When Magley moved into the role of league commissioner, Stephenson got to work even closer with him.
“Quite frankly, he was a big contributor to my development into my role that I’m in now,” Stephenson said. “I have a great deal of fondness for him. I love him dearly. He is a good man and a very, very good friend.
“In any kind of venture like this, you need to have a great deal of comfort, of trust in the other side for it to work. We had that. And so, when we talk about the potential for what it does for our league now, it certainly gives us something special and different as we celebrate our 10th season, which is very much a big deal for us. We can celebrate in a special way, in a unique way.”
The partnership also provides the NBL Canada with a creative way to balance out its schedule with the loss of the Atlantic division this season. “This has never been done where two leagues in two countries are coming together to collaborate in this fashion,” Stephenson said. “We are excited. It provides a different look.”
An NBL Canada-TBL All-Star Weekend is set for April 15-16 in Syracuse, and Magley would love to see future plans to include possible expansion from west to east along the shared border. Although it has huge short-term benefits for the NBL Canada, neither side is viewing this as a one-off partnership.
Magley is proud of his league, from the quality of play to the way it handles its business. He does, however, draw inspiration from his former league home north of the border.
“As a league, we look at the NBL Canada as a stronger league than ours. They pay their players better. They play in bigger venues,” he said. “For us, getting to play 24 games against the NBL Canada, it’s a great exposure opportunity for the players in our league to get to play against a great, great league like that.”
Support Independent Sports Journalism
Enjoy what you just read? Please consider supporting Gameday London. Our independent, not-for-profit journalism is filling a void in local sports coverage with insightful storytelling. Your support of Gameday London will help us continue our in-depth coverage of the teams and athletes that you follow. Thank you.
Around the Perimeter: London falling short from three, free throw line; Busy stretch to close out 2024; Will Bolts add to roster?; Fun with math. Columnist Jason Winders’ latest Lightning news & notes …