![]() Turner still has that award as well as a trophy he received for being the NCAA’s best 3-point shooter that season. I just remember him always giving me encouraging words.” “He took me under his wing like a big brother. “That’s probably my fondest award I’ve ever received,” Turner said. Daniels died in his sleep of cardiac arrhythmia during Turner’s freshman season. The award was named after his former teammate. He won the Chris Daniels Award as the A-10′s most-improved player. Turner averaged 13.3 points and started all 33 games. It was a season that brought back warm memories for those old enough to remember the days when UD nearly always had strong teams.” “It was a season when they could wear their UD sweatshirts, stick out their chests and be proud of the team that represented them. “The 1997-98 basketball season will be remembered fondly by University of Dayton fans,” wrote Bucky Albers, of the Dayton Daily News after Dayton lost 77-74 to Penn State in the NIT that March. Dayton finished 21-12 and made its first postseason appearance since 1990, reaching the second round of the NIT. Then in the 1997-98 season, Turner and the Flyers improved in a big way. Turner averaged 6.6 points and started 17 games as a sophomore as Dayton slipped to 13-14 in Purnell’s third season. That hurt me a lot.” Explore » WHERE ARE THEY NOW: Kevin Conrad I couldn’t dribble with my left hand, and if anyone’s seen me play, even though I’m right-handed, I love going left. “I couldn’t move my left hand, couldn’t catch the ball,” Turner said. He re-injured the hand in January but missed only one game. He says now he should have redshirted that season because the hand bothered him throughout the season even though he was cleared to play. He had four metal screws placed in the hand during surgery in October and missed the first two games. “I feel I will be a big part of that.”Ī broken hand set Turner back in his freshman season. “I chose the University of Dayton because I feel there is a great opportunity for me to come right in and play with a program that’s trying to make a turnaround,” Turner told the Dayton Daily News in 1994. Lee High School in Springfield, Va., in 1994. At that time, Turner was attending Hargrave Military Academy, a prep school in Chatham, Va., after graduating from Robert E. Turner originally committed to Boston College but changed his mind on the last day of the spring signing period in April 1995. He recruited me to Old Dominion, and it just carried on to Dayton.” He was there from the very beginning of my basketball development. “The first camp I’d ever gone to, the only camp I’d ever gone to, was at Old Dominion. “I didn’t start playing basketball until the eighth or ninth grade,” Turner said. Turner got to know Purnell by attending basketball camps at Old Dominion University when Purnell was the coach there from 1991-94. The same was true for Purnell 26 years ago. “He’s proven to be the right man for the job.” Explore » WHERE ARE THEY NOW: Chip Hare “It’s great that a UD alum has come back and led the program in the right direction,” Turner said. Like other Flyers who follow the team from afar, Turner praised the job fellow alum Anthony Grant has done in four seasons. It was the first time he had seen the Flyers play at home since his senior year, though he often sees them on the road in Virginia or elsewhere on the East Coast. Last season, he saw Dayton beat Davidson to clinch the Atlantic 10 Conference championship and experienced the renovated UD Arena for the first time. Turner now has a 20-year-old son, Rodney, and two daughters: Corina, 14, and Giana, 12. “I got home, and my intention was to rehab and get stronger and go back over,” Turner said, “but after a while of being away from the game, I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to go into the workforce.’ It was a great opportunity to see the world and make some money. His career ended in part because of an abdominal muscle injury. Turner’s current career followed a pro basketball career that included a stint with the Houston Rockets in the NBA Summer League after his senior season in 1999 and then three-plus seasons overseas in Luxembourg, Belgium, Argentina and the Dominican Republic. He’s a training specialist in human resources and employee relations for WGL Holdings, a public utility company which provides electricity and natural gas throughout the region. Turner grew up in Alexandria, Va., and now lives about 40 miles south in Stafford, Va. As a junior, he made 61 of 118 3-pointers (51.7 percent). He still holds the single-season school record for 3-point accuracy. He ranks 47th in school history with 1,025 points. Turner, now 43, left his mark as an individual as well.
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