Dan Issel
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Daniel Paul Issel (born October 25, 1948 in Batavia, Illinois) is a former professional basketball player and coach.
Issel played college basketball at the University of Kentucky under legendary coach Adolph Rupp. Issel was at UK 1966-1970 and scored 2,138 points (an average of 25.7 per game) while being named an All American for two of his three seasons there. (Freshmen were not eligible to play varsity basketball at the time.) Issel's career point total still stands as the highest in school history (among men; one women's player, Valerie Still, outscored him).
Upon Issel's graduation in 1970 he signed to play basketball for the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association. In 1975 he won an ABA title with the Colonels, who also featured sharp-shooting guard (and fellow ex-Kentucky Wildcat) Louie Dampier, as well as 7-2 center extraordinnaire Artis Gilmore. After the Colonels' championship season Issel was sold by the Colonels' owners to the short-lived Baltimore Claws franchise and ended up with the Denver Nuggets for the following season. Issel played through the 1984-1985 season, scoring over 25,000 points in his career. At the time of his retirement the only professional basketball players to have scored more points than Issel were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving.
After his playing career Issel retired to a horse farm in Woodford County, Kentucky. He returned to the Nuggets as head coach in 1992 and led them to the playoffs in 1994. The Nuggets had only won 44 games in the past two years, but Issel led them to their first winning record in four years. That year, the Nuggets pulled off the biggest upset to date in NBA playoff history, knocking off the Seattle SuperSonics in five games. He retired three games into the 1995-96 season after facing criticism for his coaching style, saying he didn't like the person he'd become. He returned in 1998 as president and general manager, naming himself head coach again in December 1999, yielding his general manager's title to Kiki Vandeweghe. His second tenure was far less successful; the Nuggets did not post a winning season during this time.
His tenure ended on a rather sour note in December 2001. On December 10, after a close loss to the Charlotte Hornets, Issel heard a fan taunting him as he walked off the court at the Pepsi Center. Issel screamed, "Hey, go drink another beer. Go drink another beer, you (expletive) Mexican (expletive)." The incident was captured on Denver's NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV. A day later, Issel was suspended four games by the team. Several members of Denver's Hispanic community thought the suspension was a joke, and called for him to be fired. Hours before he was due to return, Issel took a leave of absence to decide whether he wanted to return. He finally decided to resign on December 26, though some reports circulated that he'd been fired.
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