Kansas men’s basketball assistant Neil Dougherty has to be the biggest basketball fan ever.
He was probably one of those kids who played the game from sunup to sundown while growing up in Leav-enworth. Chances are he could explain the intricacies of the much-heralded triangle of-fense so a toddler would understand or discuss the finer points of a bounce pass with a wily veteran.
It might even be safe to say Dougherty devours the game like a thick, juicy steak. Either that, or he’s just a dedicated assistant and an adoring parent.
To say Dougherty, now in his sixth season with the Jayhawks, is a busy man is to say Dick Vitale is bald. Between a grueling 28-game regular-season college basketball schedule, countless cross-country re-cruiting trips and his three children Megan, a junior at Free State High; Neil, a sophomore at Free State; and 10-year-old Ryan Dougherty figures he’s probably seen a game a night for the past few months.
“I wouldn’t even be able to give you a number,” Dougherty quipped during halftime of the girls Class 6A state tournament last week in Emporia, where he was watching his daughter.
To get a better feel for Neil Dougherty The Parent, one need only take a close look at his hectic schedule during the first weekend in March.
Dougherty’s son was starting for the No. 8-seeded Firebirds during surprising sub-state victories over No. 1 seed Leavenworth with KU signee Wayne Simien and cross-town rival Lawrence High on March 1 and 3.
Meanwhile, daughter Megan was helping Free State’s girls team to its first state tournament with wins over Topeka High and Olathe East on March 2 and 3 at Olathe East.
To make matters worse, Free State’s girls and boys sub-state championship games were just hours and 40 miles apart. And, to top it all off, Ryan Dougherty was playing in a four-day tournament at Sport 2 Sport.
Then there was that KU-Missouri game on March 4.
“That’s kind of how a weekend can go,” Dougherty said.
When he isn’t fulfilling his main responsibilities as a KU aide he’s probably talking about or distributing Atomic Fireballs, a spicy candy.
“It started as a joke inside the team,” Dougherty ex-plained, “that if you weren’t going to play for some reason, due to injury or illness or whatever, that you’d take a Fireball just to suck it up for the team.”
The team rules stated you couldn’t take the Fireball out of your mouth, couldn’t bite into it and certainly couldn’t take a drink.
“Now, it has grown,” Dougherty said with a laugh. “There’s a campout group called ‘Neil’s Atomic Fireballs’ and they’ve kind of taken it and run with it a little bit. But there’s also fans around that are doing the Fireballs as they see fit.”
