Spring 2013

Where Are They Now?

Xavier basketball is more popular now than ever, but the program has always attracted a litany of talented and touted players. Some have gone on to the professional ranks; others have simply gone on. As this year’s season gets underway, we tracked down some former players to find out what they’ve been doing in the years since they left campus. Here we check in with Ralph Lee. You can find links to other profiles at the bottom of the page.

RALPH LEE '86

A jet roars past Ralph Lee’s office window, partially drowning out his voice. “The Boeing planes are the loudest,” he says. Lee’s office overlooks two runways at the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. For the last nine years he’s been with Comair Inc., and in September became the airline’s vice president for human resources.

“I had a human resources class with Dr. Lawrence Donnelly,” he says, “and that’s when I realized this is what I wanted to do.”

And it’s exactly what he’s done since graduating in 1986, minus a one-year stint as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Maryland and three years as vice president for in-flight services for Comair. He’s also stayed close to Xavier basketball, doing color commentary for locally televised games in the late 1990s.

Work and family commitments forced him to put away the microphone, but he still takes his sons, Cameron and Kyle, to a couple of Musketeer games a year. He also pops in a video on occasion to show them his glory days—he still holds the Xavier record for most career assists.

“They just look and say, ‘That’s not you, Dad.’ When they realize it is me they’ll start telling me what I could have done better. Or they’ll say, ‘Man, you were skinny,’ or ‘How come your shorts were so small?’ ”

Today, he says, his only court time is one-on-one games against his pastor. “When he wins he says, ‘The Lord takes care of me.’ Says, ‘It’s divine intervention.’ ” Lee pauses and smiles. “But he very seldom wins.”