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Mel Daniels
Melvin Joe Daniels (July 20, 1944 – October 30, 2015) was an American professional basketball player. He played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) for the Minnesota Muskies, Indiana Pacers, and Memphis Sounds, and in the National Basketball Association for the New York Nets. One of the greatest players in ABA history, Daniels was a two-time ABA Most Valuable Player, three-time ABA Champion and a seven-time ABA All-Star. Daniels was the All-time ABA rebounding leader, and in 1997, he was named a unanimous selection to the ABA All-Time Team. Daniels was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.
The son of Maceo and Bernice Daniels, Mel Daniels moved with his family back to his birthplace of Detroit, Michigan, from Lincoln, North Carolina, when Mel was a toddler. Mel had two sisters. Back in Detroit, the family first lived with Mel's grandfather, then in a tenement on 8 Mile Road and finally in a house on McDougall Street. Maceo Daniels worked in an automobile parts factory.
Bernice read poetry to Mel. He began writing poems by age eight and continued to write them throughout the rest of his life, generally focusing on the lives of athletes, but wrote poems about non-sports topics as well. Daniels mostly did not share his poems with his teammates, “This is the side I’ve kept quiet,” he said of his poems.
Daniels attended Pershing High School in Detroit. Pershing also produced Spencer Haywood, Ralph Simpson, Kevin Willis, Ted Sizemore and Steve Smith.
Will Robinson, physical education teacher and basketball coach at Pershing High School, recalled Daniels being absent from PE class for a few weeks. So Mr. Robinson went looking for the truant Daniels and finally found him in the hallway and ordered him to the gym. A few days later, Daniels still had not appeared in class, so Robinson went looking for him again. The way Mel Daniels, then a sophomore, remembered it, he was ordered by Coach Robinson to report to the gymnasium at 3:30 to join the basketball team.
"Chief, I want you in the gym today," Daniels recalled Coach Robinson telling him. "If you're not in the gym, I'm going to come get you and beat your a—." Will Robinson would win two state championships at Pershing, become the first black NCAA Division I coach at Illinois State in 1970 and later scout for the NFL Detroit Lions and NBA Detroit Pistons.
Daniels was slow to earn playing time in high school, playing sparingly in junior varsity games his first two seasons. He was also slow in running fitness laps under Coach Robinson's direction. "Jesus Christ, he would always be a bad last," Robinson recalled. "Not just last, but a bad last. The guys would lap him. He had a winning spirit. He tried all the time after he found out the swing of things."
Ted Sizemore, later a major league baseball player, was a high school basketball teammate of Daniels and recalled, "Will (Robinson) worked him. One thing Mel never did was give up. He kept coming back and Will made him work, work, work. He just kept developing and developing. He just did a lot of work. A lot of drills, footwork, handling the ball. He just got coordinated all of a sudden."
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Mel Daniels
Melvin Joe Daniels (July 20, 1944 – October 30, 2015) was an American professional basketball player. He played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) for the Minnesota Muskies, Indiana Pacers, and Memphis Sounds, and in the National Basketball Association for the New York Nets. One of the greatest players in ABA history, Daniels was a two-time ABA Most Valuable Player, three-time ABA Champion and a seven-time ABA All-Star. Daniels was the All-time ABA rebounding leader, and in 1997, he was named a unanimous selection to the ABA All-Time Team. Daniels was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.
The son of Maceo and Bernice Daniels, Mel Daniels moved with his family back to his birthplace of Detroit, Michigan, from Lincoln, North Carolina, when Mel was a toddler. Mel had two sisters. Back in Detroit, the family first lived with Mel's grandfather, then in a tenement on 8 Mile Road and finally in a house on McDougall Street. Maceo Daniels worked in an automobile parts factory.
Bernice read poetry to Mel. He began writing poems by age eight and continued to write them throughout the rest of his life, generally focusing on the lives of athletes, but wrote poems about non-sports topics as well. Daniels mostly did not share his poems with his teammates, “This is the side I’ve kept quiet,” he said of his poems.
Daniels attended Pershing High School in Detroit. Pershing also produced Spencer Haywood, Ralph Simpson, Kevin Willis, Ted Sizemore and Steve Smith.
Will Robinson, physical education teacher and basketball coach at Pershing High School, recalled Daniels being absent from PE class for a few weeks. So Mr. Robinson went looking for the truant Daniels and finally found him in the hallway and ordered him to the gym. A few days later, Daniels still had not appeared in class, so Robinson went looking for him again. The way Mel Daniels, then a sophomore, remembered it, he was ordered by Coach Robinson to report to the gymnasium at 3:30 to join the basketball team.
"Chief, I want you in the gym today," Daniels recalled Coach Robinson telling him. "If you're not in the gym, I'm going to come get you and beat your a—." Will Robinson would win two state championships at Pershing, become the first black NCAA Division I coach at Illinois State in 1970 and later scout for the NFL Detroit Lions and NBA Detroit Pistons.
Daniels was slow to earn playing time in high school, playing sparingly in junior varsity games his first two seasons. He was also slow in running fitness laps under Coach Robinson's direction. "Jesus Christ, he would always be a bad last," Robinson recalled. "Not just last, but a bad last. The guys would lap him. He had a winning spirit. He tried all the time after he found out the swing of things."
Ted Sizemore, later a major league baseball player, was a high school basketball teammate of Daniels and recalled, "Will (Robinson) worked him. One thing Mel never did was give up. He kept coming back and Will made him work, work, work. He just kept developing and developing. He just did a lot of work. A lot of drills, footwork, handling the ball. He just got coordinated all of a sudden."
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