After cementing his reputation as one of the most prolific players ever to wear a Flyers uniform, Perryman — following a year teaching high school in Michigan — spent eight seasons playing professional basketball in Hungary, Korea, Dominican Republic, Chile and especially Argentina.
Playing for Atletico Argentino Junin in Buenos Aires, he led the Argentine league in rebounding every season he was there, and in the process developed quite a following.
“When I’d come into a gym, it was like ‘Here comes Perryman,’ ” the former Flyer said with low-key nonchalance. He wasn’t bragging — that’s never been his style — he was just telling it how it was.
“I was known as a rebounder, a guy who played physical and played hard and the people there — a lot of them are soccer fans — they love that style of play.”
Choosing Dayton
It was no different back here in the mid-1990s as Perryman scored 1,524 career points (17th on UD’s all-time scoring list) and grabbed 1,156 rebounds (fourth all-time). His 469 offensive rebounds are No. 1 in the Flyers record book.
At 6-foot-7, he was undersized for the inside work he did; and yet his senior season he led the nation in rebounding, averaging 12.5 per game.
Most of the players who managed a similar feat in college — guys like Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Artis Gilmore — were much taller.
And yet far more important than just grabbing every loose ball in sight while he was a Flyer, Perryman grabbed hold of a UD program that had broken loose from its moorings and was adrift in failure.
In the early 1990s, the Jim O’Brien-coached program bottomed out with a 4-26 record in the 1992-93 season and then a 6-21 mark the following year.
It was in February of that latter season that Perryman — a senior at Oak Park High in Michigan — first heard of UD.
“I was at the end of my college visits — I had one left — and my dad said, ‘Why don’t you go take a look at Dayton? They have some real tradition,’ ” Perryman said.
“I said, ‘Should I?’ I had never heard of Dayton.”
He visited on Feb. 13, 1994, a day when Dayton managed to beat St. Louis in overtime thanks to Shawn Haughn, who put on the greatest 3-point shooting display — hitting all eight of his attempts — in UD hoops history.
“He went absolutely nuts against St. Louis,” Perryman said. “And Dayton fans are great anyway, but that day they were just crazy. I remember thinking, ‘What a great place this would be to play. One day they might cheer me like that.’ ”
He laughed as he thought about it: “I’ve often wondered if Shawn Haughn had not had that game, would I have ever come to UD?”
Thanking the fans
The 33-year-old Perryman took a little time to reminisce the other day between sales stops in Williams County. He’s an elementary school textbook representative in northwest and central Ohio for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Although he retired from pro basketball a couple of years ago, his hoops career — especially his UD days — keeps coming up.
“I’ll be in schools and somebody will always bring it up,” he said. “Today I gave a presentation in Columbus and one of the teachers recognized me.”
And when he is approached — especially by a UD fan — Perryman said he always tries to show his appreciation:
“When I see Dayton fans, I try to show a lot of respect. I remember my first year at UD, we put out a weak product. We just won seven games and we still had 10,000, 12,000, 13,000 show up and cheer us night after night.
“I tell them now, ‘You didn’t have to show us any respect back then, but you did, and I never forgot that.’ ”
The Flyers got better, thanks in a large part to the yeoman job that Perryman did.
“I wasn’t as big as everybody else inside, so for me to compete I felt I had to find an edge, and that was by outworking you,” he said. “I figured you might be with me the first 10 minutes of the game and even the next 10, but will you be there the 10 after that and then the final 10? I tried to keep going and wear people down.”
And that’s just what he did.
After a game with Xavier that year — in which Perryman had 28 points and 17 rebounds — the Musketeers’ Torraye Braggs spoke for everyone:
“The guy is a beast. Every time you think you got the guy shut down, he comes right back on you. He just never stops. Wherever the ball is, that’s where Ryan Perryman ends up. He’s got to be one of the five best players in the league ... Maybe THE best.”
Coach Oliver Purnell — who took over for O’Brien prior to Perryman’s freshman year at UD — felt the same way.
“He has been our lifesaver, our rock, our foundation,” Purnell said near the end of Perryman’s senior season — when the Flyers went 21-12 and made the second round of the NIT.
“Without him, our first two years at Dayton we would hardly have been considered a Division I program. But he gave us hope. He gave us something to build on. Every night you knew he was going to go out there and fight and muscle and work until he got the basketball. And with the ball, you make things happen.”
Seeing the world
Nothing changed when he went to the pros. Season after season, he got as much out of his situation as he could, both on the court ... and off.
“I learned Spanish so I was able to navigate around a lot of the countries I played in,” he said. “If you don’t learn the language and just stay around the gym and the place you live, you don’t get as much out of it as you could.”
And yet no place remains any more special to him than UD:
“We had good fans and the students were great. I got my education there and that’s where I met my wife.”
He married Laura Iwinski, a former Alter track athlete and UD grad. They have two children — 22-month-old Pennie and six-month-old Roman — and they live in Columbus.
Perryman said he follows UD some from afar, but also tries to make a game or two every year with his best friend and former UD teammate, Zach Thomas, who lives in Chicago.
“When I come back and see how they’re doing now, I feel proud,” Perryman said. “When I came here, I wanted to help build the program back up and get it to where it once was. I figured if I worked hard and just stayed at it, I had a chance to leave a mark.”
And he did just that.
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