Quintin “Q” Dailey (January 22, 1961 – November 8, 2010) was an American professional basketball player. A 6’3″ guard who played collegiately at the University of San Francisco, he later went on to a career in the NBA, playing for the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers, and Seattle SuperSonics over the course of his 10-year tenure in the league. Dailey was born on January 22, 1961, in Baltimore and was a schoolboy star at Cardinal Gibbons School. Heavily recruited out of high school, Dailey chose to attend the University of San Francisco from among the 200 colleges that pursued him and play for the school’s basketball team. Dailey scored 1,841 points during his collegiate career, averaging 20.5 points per game. The 755 points he scored during his third and final year at USF, averaging 25.2 points per game, broke the team record that had been held by Bill Cartwright. In February 1982, Quintin Dailey was arrested for sexually assaulting a female resident assistant two months earlier. He pleaded guilty in June to a lesser charge of aggravated assault. During the investigation, Dailey admitted to accepting $5,000 for a no-show job at a business owned by a prominent USF non-sports donor. A month later, university president the Rev. John Lo Schiavo announced that he was shutting down the basketball program. USF had been on NCAA probation twice in recent years, and LoSchiavo called the revelation about Dailey’s no-show job “the last straw.” The program wouldn’t return until 1985. Four days after his guilty plea, the Bulls selected Dailey as the seventh overall pick in the 1982 NBA Draft.

The controversy followed him to Chicago. Women’s groups and the Chicago press protested against his presence on the team, and building owners refused to have him as a tenant. John Schulian of the Chicago Sun-Times criticized the preferential treatment he had received as a star basketball player, saying that “if he were just another creep off the street, he would still be learning what a chamber of horrors the halls of justice can be.” Dailey didn’t help his cause at his first press conference after being drafted, when he refused to express any remorse for the victim and claimed no one gave him a chance to tell his side of the story. The student sued him in 1983, and Quintin Dailey settled by paying $100,000 and apologizing to her. Despite the off-court distractions, Dailey averaged 15.1 points per game in his first season with the Bulls and was chosen for that year’s NBA All-Rookie Team. With the Bulls in 1985, Dailey carped that Michael Jordan received more attention from the team, arguing that he was “a player who likes to shine a little bit myself”. Dailey gained some notoriety when, in a game against San Antonio on March 20, 1985, Dailey had a ballboy bring him food during a game. As the third quarter drew to a close, Dailey was on the bench eating a slice of pizza, nachos, popcorn and a soft drink.

Over his ten years in the NBA he averaged 14.1 points per game but continued to be a distraction off the court, missing games and violating the NBA drug policy on two occasions. QuintinDailey died in his sleep in Las Vegas at the age of 49 on November 8, 2010, due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. He was survived by a daughter and a son.