Saturday, 04 September 2010 16:58

Darryl Dawkins (born January 11 1957 in Orlando, Florida) is a former professional basketball player, most noted for his days with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, although he also played briefly for the
Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz late in his career.

Dawkins was one of the first players to go straight from high school to the NBA, drafted fifth overall out of Maynard Evans High School, Florida, by the Sixers in the 1975 NBA Draft.

One night he single-handedly changed the NBA for the better. In a game against the Kansas City Kings in November 1979 Dawkins threw down such a massive dunk that the backboard shattered into a thousand tiny shards, sending the Kings’ Bill Robinzine ducking for cover and amazing a nation of fans. Three weeks later he did it again. A few days later the NBA ruled that breaking a backboard was an offense that would result in a fine and suspension.   Soon thereafter, retractable rims were adopted thus revolutionizing the game forever.

Dawkins named his backboard-breaking dunk "Chocolate Thunder Flying, Glass Flying, Robinzine Crying, Babies Crying, Glass Still Flying, Rump Roasting, Bun Toasting, Thank You, Wham, Bam, I Am Jam."

An ultimate fan favorite - he named other dunks as well: the Rim Wrecker, the Go-Rilla, the Look Out Below, the In-Your-Face Disgrace, the Cover Your Head, the Yo-Mama, and the Spine-Chiller Supreme. The 76ers also kept a separate column on the stat sheet for Dawkins’s self-created nicknames: "Sir Slam," "Double D," and "Chocolate Thunder."

"I think I was ahead of my time, because I entertained people and I had fun," Dawkins said. "During that time they wanted you to be a dead serious guy on the basketball court, and there was no way I was going to do that, I was going to have some fun."

His nickname was "Chocolate Thunder" and he claimed to be an alien from planet Lovetron where he spent off-season practicing "interplanetary Funkmanship" and where his girlfriend juicy Lucy still lived.

Currently, Darryl is Coaching The Lehigh Carbon Community College Basketball Team, works as an Ambassador for the NBA, works diligently with the Special Olympics and is an avid cook. He learned his culinary skills in the kitchen while growing up watching and sampling his grandmothers Southern Cooking. He has also been featured on Emeril Live, The Next Best Kept Secret Chef, ESPN Cold Pizza, and Food Network.

Darryl has been working on a made for television Cooking Show Thunder & Lighnting with Chef Max Tucci.