From the Archives...

The following is an article from March 19, 2008. Above, Cornell's Louis Dale. Dale makes his return home to Alabama on November 14 when the Big Red take on the Crimson Tide.

Dale helps the Big Red change game's culture

Ray Melick
Birmingham News
March 19, 2008

When Cornell University basketball coach Steve Donahue first saw a tape of Altamont guard Louis Dale two years ago, he couldn't believe what he saw.

"I asked my assistants, `What's going on here? What's up with this?'" Donahue recalled. "And they assured me he was for real, and we had a real chance to get him."

When Dale first walked around the Cornell campus, he couldn't believe what he'd walked into.

"I stopped a random person going to class and said, `Do people go to the basketball games here?'" Dale recalled. "And he said, `Are you joking? Nobody goes to basketball because the team isn't any good. Everyone here goes to watch hockey.'"

But partly because Dale fell into Donahue's lap, Cornell plays this week in its first NCAA Tournament in 20 years, and suddenly everyone is going to basketball games at this Ivy League school in Ithaca, N.Y.

Cornell, 22-5, won the Ivy League championship with a 14-0 record, earning a 14th seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Big Red will play No. 3 seed Stanford in Anaheim at approximately 4 p.m. on Thursday.

The Birmingham native has played a large part in changing the culture of Cornell athletics.

"I don't necessarily know why people passed on Lou out of high school," Donahue said. "But I knew that he was going to be the best point guard in the league as soon as he stepped on campus. I've been coaching in this league for 18 years, so I know talent. And I've coached three guys in this league that went to the NBA from the guard position, and Lou has that kind of ability."

Dale, a sophomore, has started every game but one of his Cornell career. Last week, he was named the Ivy League Player of the Year, after leading the league in assists (5.0 per game) and ranking sixth in scoring (13.5 ppg), He ranked second on the team in rebounding (4.4 per game), first in steals (34), and made .906 percent of his free throws - at one point hitting 52 in a row.

A first-team all-state selection at Altamont School, Dale was coached by two of the best point guards in the history of the state - UAB's Barry Bearden, who is Altamont's head coach, and Alabama's Terry Coner, an Altamont assistant.

"Terry coached him on fundamentals, and I coached him on trusting his teammates and not doing too much," Bearden said.

As a senior, Dale led Altamont to a 28-5 record and the Class 2A regional basketball final. Altamont won the state title in track, with Dale winning the triple jump and placing second in the high jump.

Despite the numbers, at 5 feet 11 inches tall, Dale was considered small for a college point guard, even by Ivy League standards. Bearden put a tape together for Dale, and because Dale was one of the top students at Altamont, his mother, Willette, began sending tapes to schools with high academic reputations.

"Cornell was the first to bite," Bearden said. "So that's where Lou went. Later, other schools started wanting him, but Lou fell in love with Cornell."

Still, hockey is king at Cornell, one of the traditional powers in Division I. Because the seasons overlap, "about the only time people came to watch us play basketball was between periods of a hockey game," Dale said.

That began to change this year. First, Cornell went down to Duke and played the Blue Devils much closer than anyone would have thought possible. The Big Red lost, 81-67, but was down only eight points with two minutes to play.

"That really changed the attitude of this team, to go to Duke and play as well as we did," Donahue said.

Dale, who scored nine points with five assists in the game, remembers the atmosphere.

"We went out to stretch an hour before the game, and already there were more fans in there than were at most of our home games. They were talking trash and stuff like that. It was amazing."

That was Jan. 6. It would be the last game Cornell lost all season.

"When we started winning, word started going around and people started coming to the games," Dale said. "We started selling out." Cornell plays in a 4,400-seat arena.

Not only did people at Cornell start to care, so did people from home.

"Last year, I kind of think people at home didn't know where Cornell was," Dale said. "But then people started keeping up with us. And now that we've made the tournament, I'm hearing from lots of people."

Dale is majoring in policy analysis - "it's like a business major," he said - and is starting to get recognized around the Ivy League campus.

"It's certainly not like being at Alabama or an SEC school," said Cornell director of athletic communications Jeremy Hartigan, who came to Cornell after working with the basketball program at the University of Cincinnati. "Lou probably doesn't get any more accolades than a top engineering student. These students are the next leaders of the country, so the atmosphere is a little different when it comes to sports."

With a trip to the NCAA Tournament, that could be changing, at least temporarily.

Told of Dale's freshman question about who goes to basketball games at Cornell, Donahue laughed.

"I always hope my recruits don't ask that question," he said. "But I don't mind now."