Northampton, PA- Years later, there aren’t any regrets.

“I’d do it the same way,” Darryl Dawkins, 47, insisted.  “I’ve had a lot of fun.  I’ve  helped my brothers and sisters go through college and bought homes for my mother and grandmother.  I’ve enjoyed my life.”

Before Kevin Garnett, or any of the other 24 high school seniors who have been selected in the 1st Round of an NBA Draft since 1995, there was the 6’11”, 260-pound man-child from Maynard Evans HS in Orlando, Florida.  

The Philadelphia 76ers selected Dawkins, then 18, with the 5th pick in the 1975 draft.  The leap from high school into the NBA was a first for the league; just one year earlier, the Utah Stars of the ABA had plucked 19 year-old Moses Malone from Petersburg (Va.) High School.

Dawkins remembers, as a rookie, lining up alongside Julius Erving.  “He was a class guy.  We always had fun.”  More than anything, that is what he misses most.  “We always hung out together as a team, always ate together.  You don’t have that now in the NBA.

“I don’t really miss playing.  I just miss hangin’ with all the guys.”

He doesn’t miss the afro, either.  “I like the clean look; I think more girls like the clean look also, ‘cause they know there’s nothing hiding in a guy’s head.  A long time ago, we were told, ‘You guys are crazy.’  But, once Michael (Jordan) did it, everyone tried it.  Then, it was cool.”

Dawkins has always broken new ground.

“I was way ahead of my time.  I talked trash; I backed it up.  I named dunks and destroyed backboards.  If I had come along right now, they’d need a Brink’s truck (to pay me).  You’ve got to entertain people, as well as play the game.  If they just want to see a game, they’d go see a college game.

He appreciates flash as much as substance.  “They’re both part of the game.  The dunk gets ‘em hyped, gets ‘em excited.  But the pick-n-roll, the jump shot, the lay-up are still two points.”

Dawkins finished his 14 year career with averages of 12 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.  He established a league record with 379 personal fouls in 1982-83 and upped the ante with 383 the following season.

There was a great deal of intimidation in each of those fouls.  “The referees didn’t particularly care for me,” he recalled.  “But I did whack guys when they came through the lane.  I didn’t want them to think they were on a Sunday drive.  So I hacked them.  I used all of my fouls and used them good.”

By then, his reputation as a strongman had already been established.  In a November, 1979 contest in Kansas City, Dawkins escaped Bill Robinzine’s defense and shattered the seemingly-unbreakable Plexiglas backboard with a tomahawk slam dunk.  The moment headlined sports telecasts throughout the nation.

Dawkins dubbed that feat of strength, “If You Ain’t Groovin’-Best Get Movin’-Chocolate Thunder Flyin’-Robinzine Cryin’-Teeth Shakin’-Glass Breakin’-Rump Roastin’-Bun Toastin’-Glass Still Flyin’-Wham-Bam-I Am Jam!”  

Three weeks later, with San Antonio visiting Philly, Dawkins eradicated the rim with another dunk.  The break was so clean, only a big square hole (where the rim had connected the backboard) remained.

Again, he named the dunk; it was just one of, at least, 15 names for such occasions.  Similarly, the he rechristened himself “The Master of Disaster.”

Then, there was Lovetron, the planet on which his girlfriend Juicy Lucy lived.  But, only Dawkins -its discoverer- can explain its correlation to our solar system.

“It’s too far -one million, billion light years from here.  You couldn’t visit unless you went with me.  That’s a bit of a ride.  We’d probably have to use a C57 rocket. That’s the only way to get there.”

Here, on Earth, he was named USBL’s Co-Coach of the Year (with Atlantic City’s Kevin Mackey) in 1999.  Two years later, he coached the Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs to the league championship.  In October, the Dawgs won their second title in four years.

In his 2003 book, "Chocolate Thunder: The Uncensored Life and Times of the NBA’s Original Showman," Dawkins critiqued the confrontational coaching style of ex-76er coach Larry Brown.  Before his welcomed departure from the city of Brotherly Love, Brown had several well-publicized blow-outs with All-Star guard Allen Iverson.

Dawkins is an advocate of the direct approach.  Person-to-person.  No media.

“When coaches voice their opinion in the paper, it has a way of turning people against them, as well as the player.  I prefer to speak with the player and tell him what he’s doing wrong, or what he’s doing right.”

The coach thought for a second.

“Or what he could do to be better.”