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Flyers sisters split time between basketball, farm tasks

Sisters Kristin (left) and Kari Daugherty, 21 and 19, respectively, are two of the stars of the University of Dayton women's basketball team.

Jan Underwood Sisters Kristin (left) and Kari Daugherty, 21 and 19, respectively, are two of the stars of the University of Dayton women's basketball team.

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer 11:31 PM Saturday, December 19, 2009

Only one bunch has been able to put on a full-court press, so to speak, that repeatedly has given the Daugherty sisters fits when it comes to basketball.

But it wasn’t so much any of their opponents when they played at River View High, where Kristin was a two-time Miss Ohio Basketball player of the year and won back-to-back state titles. And where her younger sister, Kari, was the MVP at one of those state tournaments, the co-MVP of the other, later led the team to a third state trip and, like Kristin, was an All-Ohio Player of the Year.

And college rivals haven’t been able to stymie the sisters on a regular basis either. Kristin, a 6-foot junior guard, and Kari, a 6-foot-1 freshman, are two of the stalwarts of a Dayton Flyers team that has been hovering around a Top 25 ranking all season.

As it turns out, the only im-mooooo-vable presence that’s kept the sisters from doing everything they want to on the court has come when they’re back home on their farm in Coshocton County.

They have 1,000 acres of mostly corn and soybeans and there’s a large dairy herd, which gets milked twice a day. Since they were little — just as their younger siblings, 13-year-old Andrea and 11-year-old Kyle, do now — their job was to help their dad with the task.

“Dad always says, ‘Those cows don’t take holidays,’ ” Kristin said with a laugh. “When we were little, we took turns milking because it was one of our chores. When we turned 16, we started to get paid.”

Even so, that didn’t make it any easier on Sunday evenings in the summer.

“We’d be down in the barn milking and we’d look at those cows and go, ‘C’mon let’s go. Daugherty Court Time is about to start. We got to hurry up. We start at 6.’ ”

Daugherty Court is the full-sized basketball court — complete with glass backboards and nylon nets — they have in their backyard.

Some eight years ago, the family garden plot was paved over with concrete and now stands next to another smaller, older court, also paved, that has one hoop.

The weekly court sessions used to be on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Maybe a dozen and a half teammates of Kristin’s and Kari’s would show up for 5-on-5 games. Often other parents would pull lawn chairs up to the side of the court to watch.

“Early on, part of it was the girls couldn’t drive so their parents would just stay,” Kristin said. “But later I think some of the people just wanted to watch some good basketball out there.”

And though they’d never say it, when the Daugherty sisters were on the court, that’s what you got.

‘A wonderful family’

“Whenever I talk about the Daugherty sisters I find myself talking about the entire family — from the oldest to the youngest,” said UD women’s basketball coach Jim Jabir. “They’re really a wonderful family. They’re close and they care about each other so much. And they love basketball.”

Bill Daugherty, the girls’ dad, played basketball at Wilmington College. Their mom, Caroline, played at Ohio University.

“They dated in high school and after college they got married and moved back to dad’s dairy farm,” Kristin said.

Their nearest neighbor is a mile away. The nearest town is Warsaw, which has a population of 781, one stop light, a few stores and a huge interest in basketball.

From junior high on, Caroline and Bill were their daughters’ coaches. She was the ultra-successful head coach, he the assistant. “Mom loves to redo things — to redecorate — and she thought it would be worth it to put a full basketball court in our yard if we could get a full scholarship out of it,” Kari said.

Early on, their parents — hoping to add some instruction along the way — joined the girls in those backyard games. Some moments still make the sisters laugh.

Both remember their dad trying midcourt traps on Casey Bowman, the junior high point guard on Kristin’s team.

“She always wanted to throw it over the top and Dad wanted to teach her to bounce pass,” Kari said. “But he’s 6-foot-3 and he’d be flailing his arms. She was 5-foot nothing and soon she’d just be screaming.”

Just as their dad used to work with them on the smaller court when they were younger, Kari said their mom — who, like her husband, has retired from coaching this season to be able to come and watch UD games — takes Andrea and Kyle out every day in the summer to shoot layups and 100 free throws each. That familial closeness — something the Daughertys always have nurtured — helped everyone five years ago when Kyle was seriously injured in a farm accident.

Brother an inspiration

“He was helping my uncle harvest some corn and he fell into a grain auger,” Kristin said. “He ended up with his right leg amputated near the knee.”

Kari said while it was an emotionally difficult time for everyone, Kyle soon set the tone at Akron Children’s Hospital.

“His principal came to visit and he told Kyle not to worry about it. He said his son played college soccer and one of his teammates had a prosthetic leg and he was the fastest player on the team.

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