The Legend of Darren Daye
If you know me – and if you're subscribed to this newsletter, odds are good that you do – you know that I spend most of my time in t-shirts. It wasn't much different growing up. One of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite, was the "Green Stuff" t-shirt that featured a six pack of Celtics players, drawn in caricature and sitting on what must have been a gigantic rim:
The artist was Al Mudge. On his website, he has a section on these caricatures that were commissioned by Salem Sportswear. It's the kind of t-shirt that vintage traffickers like Homage or Ebbets Field Flannels would put out for sale, but back in the day was pretty standard fare. I got another one a few years later that was very "new class-ish" – it featured Kevin Gamble, Brian Shaw, Kevin Gamble, Reggie Lewis, and Dee Brown on it under the banner "Zip Boys." I'm still surprised Gamble wasn't a big star, but such is life. Mudge says of them:
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to have started my art career with Salem Sportswear. I remember when I was still in college needing summer employment and some part time hours during my senior year. I got my start at Salem working the Screen Presses. It was a Great Experience working with some Great people and seeing the whole process of silk screening designs on t-shirts come to life right before my eyes. My next break came when Doug Vennard, the Art Director, asked to see my portfolio and he gave me a shot at graphics production in the art department. There I did production art for bumper sticker and custom t-shirt designs after my classes at college finished for the day.
My Really Big Break came when Salem Screen Printers got into the Officially Licensed Sports Game. I believe that it was Bill Fickett who approached Keith Kennelly and Kyle Nagel, the owners of Salem Screen Printers about it and... Salem Sportswear was born.
Salem always had Top Tier Artists like Larry Johnson of The Boston Globe and eventually The Nationally Recognized- Bruce Stark, who was known for his amazing caricature work for TV Guide, Time, Mad, Golf Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, Forbes, ETC., ETC. These guys were responsible for the Big Projects involving Major League Sports' High Profile Super Stars . It wasn't long before The business of putting big headed caricatures of sports players on t-shirts Exploded. To Keep up with the Demand, Salem also knew that they needed other artists too. At the time, I was just a 22 yr. old art student working my way through school, but they gave me a break and I made the most of it. I've done well over a hundred caricatures for Salem. Thanks again for the Opportunity- Salem Sportswear!
Neat! The "Green Stuff" is not only the first shirt of the bunch, but also the best one in my opinion (though the Manute Bol, Doug Flutie, and Ickey Woods are pretty great too).
Anyway, back to the "Green Stuff" shirt. I can tell you it was my favorite, because when I outgrew it, I put it on my teddy bear, and he faithfully wore it in my room for ... well, decades. My mom, who is not a big fan of throwing things away, still had it up in my old room when I liberated it a couple of years ago. Seeing it again, I didn't realize that one of the players was one who I didn't know that well. The whole 1986-1987 starting lineup is here – Danny Ainge, Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish. But there's also Darren Daye. Darren Daye? I definitely remember the name, most likely because of the t-shirt, but I couldn't tell you a single other thing about him. So, I figured I'd look him up, because who doesn't love Remembering Some Guys.
It turns out that Daye had a pretty nice little career. The highest high was probably being MVP of the 1979 McDonalds All-American Game. It was just the third-ever edition of the game. Being MVP of this game is a big deal no matter what, but considering the game also featured Isiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins, James Worthy, Ralph Sampson, Sam Bowie, Byron Scott, Antoine Carr, Clark Kellogg, Greg Kite, Sidney Lowe, and John Paxson, among others, this one is a particularly notable achievement.
He would go on to a solid career at UCLA, and he played 13 minutes in the 1980 Men's Tournament National Final. On the way there, UCLA beat No. 1 ranked DePaul. But Louisville beat the Bruins, 59-54, in the title game. That 1979-1980 team was actually the very first team that Hall of Famer Larry Brown coached, which is pretty cool. Less cool is that the team had their tourney games vacated because two players were deemed ineligible. Brown would stick around for one more season. Daye would be a starter as a sophomore, and started and put in 12 points in UCLA's second-round defeat at the hands of the BYU. The 78-55 defeat apparently spelled doom for Brown. Daye would play his remaining two seasons under Larry Farmer, and would get back to the second round of the tourney as a senior, where UCLA lost to Utah.
He would go on to be a third-round draft pick by the Bullets, and would play most of four seasons with them, and a single game with the Bulls, before being waived by Chicago on Dec. 8, 1986. He would sign with the C's three days later, and would appear in 61 games in that title defense 1986-1987 season. As you may know, the C's were supremely banged up that season. Nothing exemplifies that more than the fact that Daye – who wasn't even on the team at the season's outset – ended up finishing ninth in minutes played during the regular season. In the playoffs, he'd slide past Kite and into eighth place in total minutes played. More than half of those minutes came in the famous 1987 Eastern Conference Finals series vs. the Detroit Pistons.
But first, an interlude. Whenever the '87 Eastern Conference Finals is mentioned, we are legally obligated to watch a clip of "The Steal." Sorry, I don't make the rules!
In that version, you can see the headlines of the injuries. In this version that is more a straight replay, you can see how chaotic it really was, and why teams always call time out in this situation now:
The greatest play in NBA history? That's a topic for another day. Let's get back to Darren Daye.
Daye wasn't one of the five players on the court during "The Steal," but I believe you see him pop right up off the bench and onto the court to high five guys after Detroit calls time out. He played 22 minutes in that game, and put in seven of Boston's 11 bench points. He would arguably play the best game of his career the next night in Game 6. Daye would score 20+ points 12 times in his regular-season career, and in Game 2 of the 1985 first round, he put up 19 points, nine assists, and five rebounds for the Bullets in a loss to the Sixers, but given the context, you'd have to vote for Game 6 in Detroit as being his best.
The C's did not have Robert Parish for Game 6. For one, he had re-sprained his left ankle. But that wasn't good enough for the NBA, just in case he tried to play on it, and they suspended him for beating the shit out of Bill Laimbeer, mainly because the little bitch Pistons complained to the league. Sorry, let's take another interlude to watch:
The shot that led to the punches was actually taken by Daye, and the foul on the play is actually given to Daye! Who knew?!?!? Not me, and I've watched that replay a billion times.
The Chief explains what he felt here:
Back to the program. The C's didn't have The Chief for Game 6, so Daye got the one and only playoff start of his Celtics career, and he stood up to the moment. He shot 8-for-13, and his 16 points trailed only Bird's 35 and Kevin McHale's 23. Bird, McHale, and Daye combined to shoot 32-for-49. But Dennis Johnson crippled the team with a 3-for-17 performance, and Danny Ainge's 6-for-18 wasn't much better. So back to Boston for Game 7 we went.
It was here that Daye moved back to his customary ~10 minutes off the bench, but for four games, he had a bit of a moment. Let's look at the minutes played for the series:
Games 3 and 4 were Detroit victories that the C's seemed to throw in the towel on a little early, but Game 5 memorably came down to "The Steal," and Game 6 was a one-point game entering the fourth quarter. Daye was one of six players to log 20 minutes in Game 5, and one of just five to log 20 in Game 6.
Daye wasn't just a solid option off the bench that postseason, he was also a healthy option – he tied with Bird, DJ, and Jerry Sichting for a playoffs-high 23 games played.
Daye would not make it all the way through the next season with the C's, and though he had some good games – he averaged 17.8 points on .528 shooting to go with 4.0 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.3 assists in his eight games started – he was waived toward the end of February. He would play for five teams over the next decade in France, Israel, and Italy, so it's not like he vanished altogether.
At the end of the day, his inclusion on my "Green Stuff" t-shirt could cynically be viewed as a testament to the C's paper-thin roster in 1987. I'm sure that Salem would have preferred Bill Walton on the shirt, but he never played. You can see above he played a grand total of one minute in that Detroit series, and that was probably rounded up. But we don't need to be cynical. Daye helped a banged-up C's get to an NBA Finals that in retrospect they had no business getting to. He scored 60 points in that series. It's 60 more than I scored, I know that. If that's not worthy of being featured on a t-shirt, I don't know what is!