Daryl Cleveland

Daryl Cleveland was a star on the Central High School basketball teams of the mid 1970’s. He was named to the All-Region and All-State teams while averaging over 25 points a game for the Yellow Jackets.

Daryl would earn a scholarship to continue playing basketball at the University of Louisville under legendary Cardinal coach Denny Crum. He was part of the 1980 national championship team that went 33-3 and earned the team nickname, the “Doctors of Dunk”, for their high-flying style of play. When the Cardinal team met then-President Jimmy Carter at the White House, Cleveland presented Carter with a t-shirt from “The Georgia Connection”, as three players from Georgia were on that team. The president specifically congratulated those players during his comments. Ironically, those same three Georgians – Cleveland, Wiley Brown, and Derek Smith – are credited with the invention of an American sports tradition that still lives on today: the ‘high five’.

Cleveland is the only male Thomasville/Thomas County Sports Hall of Fame inductee to have won a national title in basketball.

He has worked as a supervisor at Hamilton Printing in Louisville and resides there.