Johnny Orr First In The Door

Date: July 3, 2026

Title: 

By: Doctor Dunkenstein (a.k.a. Christopher Lee Winans)

In the 1980’s the NCAA college athletic regulation and enforcement organization had strict rules regarding recruiting.  There was a 60 day period when college coaches could visit your family and hometown.  The Head Coaches along with an Assistant Coach of the individual basketball programs would travel to the college basketball prospects town.  The visiting coaches had  arranged a  ‘speed dating’ visiting schedule during August to see as many potential recruits as possible. 

Johnny Orr was begin as one of those rapid recruiting introduction visits to my home town in Garrett, Indiana during August of 1979,

While many coaches recruiting me focused on traditional basketball pitches, Johnny Orr built a personal bond with my family over a period of years.

 It  was a misnomer that Head College Basketball Coaches actually recruited you back in those days.  Assistant coaches did the actual recruiting,  Head Coaches, for the most part, made telephone calls.  They were busy running a basketball team, they visited with you once in the summer for an hour or so, then once again for few hours during your official recruiting trip visit, and they could attend games.  In person meetings and conversations were restricted by the NCAA rules book.   

Verbal contacts during the season were limited by the NCAA rules and nobody wanted to be turned in the the NCAA for violation of the rules, although rules were often broken by many coaches. 

The rule book had hundreds of pages  —   my father actually  read much of it —  In reality, you didn’t have a lot of personal contact with Head Coaches recruiting you.  But Johnny Orr was different, he contacted my father by phone throughout the recruiting process.  Coach Orr was someone I had years of personal experience and hundreds of hours withon the basketball court. 

I knew all the Head Basketball Coaches I wanted to play for in college.  I had spent countless hours with all of these different coaches during the summer camp sessions for many years,  …

My High School coach was skeptical if I  could play at Michigan.

The  volume of different coaches who put me on the ‘Speed Dating Recruiter List’ for summer time was somewhat overwhelming.  My High School Coach began to filter out the visitors.  It was a time when everybody from every school in the country tried to get their foot in the door.  My recruiting door had a small opening.  I had many years of contact with all of the college basketball coaches I wanted to play for,  and I was certain that was what I would do, eventually. 

In my mind, I was going to play for one of those coaches.  They all had one thing in common, they had taken a basketball team to the NCAA Final Four weekend. 

I had personal contact and many hours of playing demonstrations over a period of years in front of the coaches I wanted to play for in college.  They all knew my basketball skills level and personality well. 

My first choice was Dean Smith, I had years of attending the ‘Dean Smith Basketball School’ at the University of North Carolina.  But I was not ever going to play as a starter in front of James Worthy or Sam Perkins.  The UNC staff went to great lengths to investigate whether I could play the small forward 3 spot.  In the end, they selected Matt Dohrety for that position. 

I had many years experience and many days of basketball with Johnny Orr of Michigan, he had befriended my father years before he recruited me to play at Michigan.   He spent dozens of days with me at the HBC basketball camp.  Michigan was my second desired school until a phone call from Iowa State to Johnny Orr ended the possibility of playing for him at Michigan. 

Johnny Orr left Michigan to go Coach at Iowa State,  he asked me several times to consider Iowa State, but he knew I wanted a school that was going to the NCAA tournament.  Iowa States was years from doing that with Coach Orr at the Helm.   His replacement, Bill Fieder. was still recruiting me as my Senior season in High School ended, he was not a guy I trusted at that time.  I later in life learned that I had completely misjudged Coach Fieder. 

 I had just survived a demanding week of playing basketball in front  of Bobby Knight of Indiana, … … .  (read:  ‘Bobby The Butt Slapper’)  Playing at IU did not seem very enjoyable and I just  did not need to join a basketball program that was like the military with a raving General.  Not selecting Indiana was made by Knight’s awareness of the misfit of the program to the player. Eventually, he moved on from me …

Rick Majerus, of Marquette – who won the 1977 national Championship – had run the Medalist basketball camps I attended for three years.  We talked about Marquette until the week I made my decision to go to Utah.  We stayed friends for decades after my time in college.

Lee Rose left Purdue and the  coaching profession all together during my Senior year of High School.  I think he knew he was leaving before he started recruiting me.  I instantly had verbal conflict issues with Gene Keady, and had already signed my letter of intent by the time he became Coach at Purdue. 

In my mind, I was going to play for one of those coaches.  They all had one thing in common, they had taken a basketball team to the NCAA Final Four weekend. 

My basketball program requirements were simple, play in the NCAA final Four.  Don’t sit and watch the games in the final four, play. 

 I knew I wasn’t going to walk into a top programs and take a starting position.  But I had excellent team skills and need a place were playing time would be available and starting would be possible in my later college years.

I needed to select a coach and basketball program that was going to make the very limited 32 team invite NCAA Tournament dance list, not the current 2026 year 68 team dance invite list.   I had my list of coaches, schools, and teams set, with a few alternative possibilities if things didn’t work out and offers to play were not made by my desired coaches. 

Evansville, was about to be coached by Jimmy Crews, Oklahoma was coached by Dave Bliss, a former Knight assistant at IU,  and Toledo University, which made the tournament in previous years, had all made me a full scholarship offer before my Senior year in High School.

I maintained contact with all these schools and took recruiting visits to each of these schools.  My list had been set before summer started, these August speed dating recruiting events just seemed like it was just going through the motions, until Tracy Tripuka and Jerry Pimm showed up at Garrett, Indiana, prepared to show me how great the Utah basketball program was, how good the educational opportunities would be, how I could fit into a team as a Freshman that was going to have two All-american Senior players in Danny Vranes and Tom Chamberes, and then they pushed me hard to make a visit with my father.  During that visit they applied their secret recruiting weapon on me, the Wasatch Mountains and the Grand Canyons of lake Powell.

On my recruiting visit to the school, I felt welcomed and wanted by the players that were a year ahead of me, and I was shown just how much damn fun it was to live as a college student and play in Utah.  My eyes were beginning to open soon after the first visit of many visits Tracy Tripuka made to Garrett Indiana.. 

But Utah was not my first selection because it was 1,500 miles from my family.  I was a small town boy. 

   All the schools and coaches recruiting me were aware of my personal long term relationships with all the other coaches.  There was no war, there were no surprises.  My list was set.

There would not be any chance at all for under the table deals and rules violations in my recruiting.  My High School Coach, Larry Piety was a straight arrow, he always  played by the book.  Most importantly regarding how my recruitment would be conducted was my father, he was a walking ‘Book of Rules’.

My father was a 25 year District Criminal Prosecutor.  He also ran a general law practice.  He graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1957.  Nobody broke many rules around him during my lifetime.  He also knew when a person was lying, part of his profession. long before my Senior year of High School, I had figured out in life that it was just better to tell my father the truth in a bad situation than to lie about something to his face.  He seemed always to have already known the truth about things before issues were discussed, and it was always better to immediately deal with the consequences.  

I was close to my father and my eventual decision to attend Utah was only hindered by being 1500 away from him and my family.

Soon after checking Utah out,  was quite aware of what Utah had to offer in regards to my basketball requirements.  The team was going to a highly ranked team my Freshman year with great Seniors.  After those guys moved on to professional careers, there would not be any other upperclassmen big men to play in my position.  An opportunity to earn a starting position would avail itself, and my Freshman year offered playing time as a substitute on a great team.  

Most of the new basketball coaches who came in to visit me during the speed recruiting sessions, presented themselves as all knowing, prime and proper basketball aficionados, offering instant court time.  I wasn’t that naive.  If I was going to play as a Freshman starter, your team probably wasn’t very good.