A short Maloy story

If you stick with me long enough, if you keep coming back, you might be able to piece together the whole darn manuscript of the unfinished, unpublished old book.

A small bit:

Durwood Settles was never a basketball superstar. He played the game of his life in the Virginia state tournament in the spring of 1960 with Lefty watching from the bleachers. After enrolling in Davidson’s Class of ‘64 with grandiose visions of basketball glory, he broke his foot in his freshman year and was never a factor, really, in the Wildcats’ plans after that.

That, however, didn’t mean he was completely out of the picture. Working in a management training company at a New York City insurance company, Settles received an unexpected call from Lefty in the spring of 1966.

“Durwood,” the coach said. “We got a ballplayer up there. And we need him down here. Can you drive him?”

A 10- to 12-hour drive with a kid he didn’t even know? Settles told Lefty absolutely. After all, in spite of his abbreviated basketball experience at Davidson, Settles felt a debt of gratitude to Lefty, the school and the program.

Two days later, he drove his two-seat MGA sports car to Queens and picked up the kid who was to become Davidson’s third basketball All-American.

Mike Maloy.

“A smarter, more jovial, more gregarious kid you couldn’t find,” Settles said. “All the way down he’s spouting Shakespeare. He was a bit of a poet, a real bright, engaging and delightful young man. And he wasn’t putting on some sort of New York con.”

Settles, impressed, went out of his way at Davidson to find Ed White, then the school’s director of admissions.

That’s how Durwood Settles played his part -- however small -- in the continuation of Davidson’s basketball success in the ‘60s.

“I take credit,” he said, “for having whispered into Ed White’s ear.”