DETROIT (6/23/2020) -- Larry Salci wanted to be a Titan. Growing up in Warren, Michigan, and a star at Warren High School, the cager was destined to follow some of the great players in the city and head to U-D to follow some of the greats like Dave DeBusschere, Dick Dzik and Bill Ebben.

After all, the Titans were a nationally known basketball program who didn't shy away from competition and had played in the NIT or NCAA Tournament four times in the six years before Salci was able to suit up. Not only were they competitive on the court, but the private education was known to set up future success.

"Myself, Bruce Rodwan and Ralph Brisker were all Class A All-State players and we all went to U-D," said Salci. "It was the hometown team. I had offers from Michigan, Houston, but Detroit was my number one selection. My dad told me that I was going to follow Dave DeBusschere and go to U-D."

"College basketball was so different back then," he added. "There were very few conferences -- at least major conferences -- and our schedule, we played a lot of the Catholic private schools in Notre Dame, Xavier, DePaul, St. Bonaventure and when I was there, we picked up and played a few of the Big Ten schools like Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue and Iowa. We played Missouri and West Virginia, we played the best."

Freshmen were not allowed to be on the varsity team, so Salci sat back and played on the freshman team that had a short, compacted schedule and practiced and watched the 1964-65 team post 20 victories as well as a win in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). He recalls a day in practice when the freshmen squad beat the varsity team, but the joy was short-lived.  

"We played a lot of the Michigan schools and really drove ourselves to the game. Freshman year was a chance to get your feet under you and really get ahead of your education and classes. Well, we scrimmaged against the varsity once a week and the first time, Dorie Murray wasn't there for the varsity. He had an engineering class and we beat them and we were dumb enough to mock them a little bit in the locker room. There was a rematch the next day and they just beat the crap out of us, just pulverized us. They didn't just beat us on the scoreboard, they beat us physically playing so we learned our lesson."

As a sophomore, the team went 17-8 with big road wins at Indiana, at Notre Dame and at Xavier. He averaged 11.7 points per game, but he started his collegiate career with perfection as he hit all 10 shots from the field and finished with 20 points against Aquinas. 

"We really thought we could play with anyone and beat anyone. We beat a lot of good teams and we lost a lot of close games, but we felt we could really play with anyone. Back then, we didn't look at it like playing a big school because we played anyone," added Salci. 

"My first year playing was probably Bob Calihan's last great team," said Salci. "He had Spencer Haywood a few years later and that team was ranked and undefeated at one point, but as a team, that 1965-66 team was his last really good team I would say."

His junior year of 1966-67, he upped his scoring to a career-best 16.3 points and the Titans finished 10-15, but there were some memorable games. U-D visited Notre Dame early in the year and he hit the game-winning shot with seven seconds left in a 74-73 win on national television and then there was the double-overtime victory at home against Marquette, 94-92. Salci scored 23 points, but the story was the fireworks that occurred after the game in this Jesuit rivalry. 

"Playing against Al McGuire and those Marquette teams were fun," said Salci. "We were 1-5 against them, but we finally got them in double overtime. All of our games were close though and we got them in a famous game when I was a junior. They were highly ranked and our student body was on McGuire the entire game and he was upset. After the game, one of the Marquette players, Pat Smith, went up into the stands and started getting into it with our students and McGuire followed him to try and get him away and one of the police officers tried to stop McGuire and he took a swing at the police officer. I don't know if he knew it was a cop, but unfortunately, he ended up in the slammer and that is what the headlines said. I will never forget it. The most ironic thing about it all was the judge he has to go in front of is John Kirwan, a former captain on the U-D basketball team."

Now following his junior season, another opportunity came off his other athletic ability, being able to dominate from 60 feet, six inches. Now the first choice was to play basketball, but that is not saying that was the only choice he had. A star on the hardwood in high school, Salci was also a standout pitcher and had offers to play professional baseball. He would in fact end up on the U-D baseball team as a junior and a senior.

"I had a lot of offers to play baseball out of high school, but there wasn't really a lot of money to sign so I chose the basketball scholarship," said Salci. "At the end of my sophomore year, the baseball team used to practice downstairs because it was cold and they didn't have enough money to get down to Florida. They threw and took batting practice and one day after my practice, I knew coach Bob Miller, who also went to U-D on a basketball scholarship and ended up with a heck of a professional baseball career, and was joking around with some of the guys that I could strike them out and the following season, I was on the baseball team. Coach Miller was great. He had so many stories."

Salci was a freshman when the baseball team made the NCAA Tournament and he helped the team to 25 wins in two seasons. 

Back to basketball and Salci and his team were able to rebound from the losing record the year before to finish 13-12 with wins over Indiana, Xavier, West Virginia and Notre Dame. He averaged 14.9 points and during his senior season, he became the 11th Titan to score 1,000 career points. He ended his career with 1,059 points and still ranks fifth in school history in free throw percentage at .832 - first when he graduated - with his .854 mark as a junior and senior tied for ninth in school history and another top spot in the record book when he left. He would be inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1986. 

"It was a lot of great times I had and I loved every minute of it," said Salci. "Football was canceled when I was there and the students really rallied around basketball after that. There was definitely more focus on basketball after that and maybe some extra pressure on us because we were the big sport now on campus."

Salci graduated with a finance degree in 1969 and a MBA in 1975 from the University. He had opportunities to turn professional, but decided to move into a career outside of sports. 

"The academics is the embodiment of my career, I can't really thank the University enough," said Salci. "I was the first generation graduate of my family and my first semester, I didn't distinguish myself because I was busy thinking about sports and I failed a class or had a withdrawal, something like that and a couple of guys on the varsity team, particularly John Watson one of the seniors, kind of grabbed me by the neck and told me that I am here to get an education. You're going to play basketball because you're a good player but you're here to get an education and that really set me into a whole different direction."

He joined Chrysler after graduating from school as part of its Basic Manufacturing Group in Detroit, but just after starting his career, like so many, he was drafted to the military during the Vietnam War and served for two years from, getting a military leave of absence from Chrysler. When he came back from the war, he decided to pursue his master degree while working full time at Chrysler.

From there, it was all about the U-D connections that led him to his next journey with the Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA-Detroit) and within six months and a year shy of 30, he was promoted to General Manager and CEO. In his time there, he helped build SEMTA into a multi-modal regional transportation agency and helped bring in a $600 million federal grant for major capital improvements. 

"Through a close friend of mine and U-D alum Ron Thayer, he called and nominated me to take his place as Secretary to the Chairman for SEMTA. He had accepted another job. Now SEMTA was going through some financial hardships, but I ended up going there to take over for Ron and six months later, I was the CEO, which was never planned, but it was my Chrysler experience and business training at U-D that the board looked at and was impressed with."

Another U-D connection led him to Plante Moran in 1981 as a partner with the friendship he had developed with managing partner and chairman Frank Moran. 

His career then took him to Philadelphia after as the President of the Budd Company's Transit Group and eventually to the Bombardier Corporation in Washington, D.C., Morrison Knudsen's Transit Group in Chicago and the Colorado Railcar Manufacturing in Denver. These companies were responsible for the design and manufacture of over 3,000 passenger railcars of all modes and technology for major transit agencies, State DOTs and Amtrak and was also involved in the oversight and management responsibility for the Florida and Texas High Speed Rail Projects by Bombardier. He would go on to be appointed President & CEO of the Bi-State Development Agency, the agency responsible for bus and rail transit and the downtown St. Louis Airport, in the early 2000s. 

In his 40 years of professional service, he spent 32 as the President and CEO of four passenger railcar companies and two major urban transit agencies throughout the Midwest. He has also served on the American Public Transit Association Board of Directors, the Board of Directors of the American Passenger Rail Car Company, the Board of Directors of the Railway Progress Institute including as Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Passenger Rail Committee and the Board of Directors of numerous local charities, civic organizations, and government planning agencies like the United Way, Urban League, and the Metropolitan Planning Organizations in St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit.

"It all started at U-D and I am so grateful for the opportunity to get an education," said Salci. "The professors were tough, but they were great and they helped us. You didn't get a lot of slack, even for someone like me who played two sports, they helped you but you had expectations. I look at our freshman class and we had a big one, but I went on to the business world, Charles Bellock is a CPA lawyer, Rodwan is an attorney and Al McIntosh is a broker in Chicago and it all came from the great education we got at U-D."