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03-17-2006, 07:34 PM
March 17, 2006
Ray Meyer, Former DePaul Coach, Dies at 92
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/richard_goldstein/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Ray Meyer, a Hall of Fame basketball coach at DePaul University who launched his career by tutoring an awkward sophomore named George Mikan and went on to win 724 games over 42 seasons, died today, the school's athletic director, Jean Lenti Ponsetto, told The Associated Press. He was 92.
When Meyer arrived at DePaul in 1942, the Blue Demons played in the shadow of the Chicago elevated line at a drafty former theater known as the Old Barn. When he retired in 1984, DePaul was a perennial national power showcasing its talent at the 17,500-seat Rosemont Horizon in the suburbs.
Meyer led DePaul to 20 post-season appearances, relying mostly on homegrown talent. He made his first out-of-state recruiting trip at age 69. His 1945 team won the National Invitation Tournament and his 1943 and 1979 squads advanced to the Final Four of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_collegiate_athletic_assn/index.html?inline=nyt-org) tournament. When Meyer stepped down, his record of 724-354 placed him No. 5 in career victories among college coaches.
His son Joey, a former captain of the DePaul basketball team and his father's assistant coach for 13 seasons, succeeded Meyer as head coach and remained in that post for another 13 years.
As DePaul's coach for more than four decades and then a fund-raiser for the university while serving as an analyst for its basketball radio broadcasts, Ray Meyer was on hand for 1,467 consecutive games over a 55-year span. He had coaching offers from the pros and other colleges, including his alma mater, Notre Dame (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_notre_dame/index.html?inline=nyt-org), but always turned them down. His explanation: "I hate change."
Yet he adapted to changing times.
In his early coaching years, Meyer was so enraged by his team's poor play against Long Island University in a game at Madison Square Garden that he tore the coat hooks out of the locker room's plaster wall with his bare hands.
By the time he achieved his greatest success, in his final coaching years, he had tempered his gruffness and was known to flash a gap-toothed smile.
"Years ago you could rant and rave and shout and yell at 'em and scream at 'em," he said in the late 1970's. "If you do that today, they say, 'That guy's nuts.' You reason more. You explain to 'em."
Meyer was born in Chicago, the son of a candy wholesaler and the youngest of 10 children. He planned to be a priest but turned to the sports world after starring in basketball at Chicago's Quigley Prep and St. Patrick's Academy, which won the 1932 Catholic high school national title.
He was co-captain of the Notre Dame basketball team as a junior and senior, and after serving as an assistant coach for the Irish, was named DePaul's head coach in April 1942. DePaul wanted Meyer to sign a three-year contract, but he insisted on a one-year agreement, at $2,500. "I didn't know if I'd like the job," he recalled in his autobiography "Coach" (Contemporary Books, 1987), written with Ray Sons.
In Meyer's first season, he discovered a basketball hopeful who, like the coach, had once studied for the priesthood at Quigley Prep. The young man, within an inch or so of reaching his 6-foot-10-inch frame, had never played high school basketball, wore thick glasses and had enrolled at DePaul only after being spurned by the Notre Dame coach because his basketball skills were primitive.
As Meyer put it in his memoirs, George Mikan was "raw material with little talent."
Meyer taught Mikan every aspect of the game and made him take hundreds of hook shots, both right-handed and left-handed, every day while keeping a towel wedged under his opposite arm to maintain proper form. "I was a slave driver and he was a willing slave," Meyer recalled.
Mikan would rule the college game over the next three seasons, lead the Minneapolis Lakers (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/losangeleslakers/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to dominance in the National Basketball Association and be voted the greatest basketball player in the first half of the 20th century in an Associated Press sports media poll.
With Mikan playing alongside his 6-foot-7-inch brother Ed, DePaul won the 1945 N.I.T. championship.
During the 1950's, Meyer achieved a national presence by coaching the college all-star teams that toured the nation each spring playing the Harlem Globetrotters.
In the early 1970's, DePaul's basketball fortunes declined. Joey Meyer was captain of his father's worst team, the 1970-71 squad, which went 8-17. But Ray Meyer's career flourished in the late 1970's and early 1980's with the arrival of the outstanding big men Dave Corzine, Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings.
In February 1979, Meyer joined John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Frank McGuire as the only active coaches elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. DePaul went to the N.C.A.A. tournament's Final Four that season, losing to Larry Bird's (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/larry_bird/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Indiana State team, 76-74, in the semifinals. Meyer's teams lost only one regular-season game in each of the following three seasons, but were eliminated every time in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.
When DePaul opened the 1981-82 season against Illinois-Chicago Circle, the Meyer family made sports history. Ray Meyer was coaching against his oldest son, Tommy, in what is believed to have been the first meeting between father and son coaches in college basketball. The elder Meyer prevailed as DePaul scored a 78-53 victory.
Meyer left DePaul in September 1997, resigning as special assistant to the school president to protest the forced resignation of son Joey as DePaul's coach the previous April following a 3-23 season.
"I live with my family, and my family is kind of bitter about this whole thing," Ray Meyer told The A.P.
Meyer observed how the university would go on nicely without him. "I was only an employee," he said.
Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)
Ray Meyer, Former DePaul Coach, Dies at 92
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/richard_goldstein/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Ray Meyer, a Hall of Fame basketball coach at DePaul University who launched his career by tutoring an awkward sophomore named George Mikan and went on to win 724 games over 42 seasons, died today, the school's athletic director, Jean Lenti Ponsetto, told The Associated Press. He was 92.
When Meyer arrived at DePaul in 1942, the Blue Demons played in the shadow of the Chicago elevated line at a drafty former theater known as the Old Barn. When he retired in 1984, DePaul was a perennial national power showcasing its talent at the 17,500-seat Rosemont Horizon in the suburbs.
Meyer led DePaul to 20 post-season appearances, relying mostly on homegrown talent. He made his first out-of-state recruiting trip at age 69. His 1945 team won the National Invitation Tournament and his 1943 and 1979 squads advanced to the Final Four of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_collegiate_athletic_assn/index.html?inline=nyt-org) tournament. When Meyer stepped down, his record of 724-354 placed him No. 5 in career victories among college coaches.
His son Joey, a former captain of the DePaul basketball team and his father's assistant coach for 13 seasons, succeeded Meyer as head coach and remained in that post for another 13 years.
As DePaul's coach for more than four decades and then a fund-raiser for the university while serving as an analyst for its basketball radio broadcasts, Ray Meyer was on hand for 1,467 consecutive games over a 55-year span. He had coaching offers from the pros and other colleges, including his alma mater, Notre Dame (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_notre_dame/index.html?inline=nyt-org), but always turned them down. His explanation: "I hate change."
Yet he adapted to changing times.
In his early coaching years, Meyer was so enraged by his team's poor play against Long Island University in a game at Madison Square Garden that he tore the coat hooks out of the locker room's plaster wall with his bare hands.
By the time he achieved his greatest success, in his final coaching years, he had tempered his gruffness and was known to flash a gap-toothed smile.
"Years ago you could rant and rave and shout and yell at 'em and scream at 'em," he said in the late 1970's. "If you do that today, they say, 'That guy's nuts.' You reason more. You explain to 'em."
Meyer was born in Chicago, the son of a candy wholesaler and the youngest of 10 children. He planned to be a priest but turned to the sports world after starring in basketball at Chicago's Quigley Prep and St. Patrick's Academy, which won the 1932 Catholic high school national title.
He was co-captain of the Notre Dame basketball team as a junior and senior, and after serving as an assistant coach for the Irish, was named DePaul's head coach in April 1942. DePaul wanted Meyer to sign a three-year contract, but he insisted on a one-year agreement, at $2,500. "I didn't know if I'd like the job," he recalled in his autobiography "Coach" (Contemporary Books, 1987), written with Ray Sons.
In Meyer's first season, he discovered a basketball hopeful who, like the coach, had once studied for the priesthood at Quigley Prep. The young man, within an inch or so of reaching his 6-foot-10-inch frame, had never played high school basketball, wore thick glasses and had enrolled at DePaul only after being spurned by the Notre Dame coach because his basketball skills were primitive.
As Meyer put it in his memoirs, George Mikan was "raw material with little talent."
Meyer taught Mikan every aspect of the game and made him take hundreds of hook shots, both right-handed and left-handed, every day while keeping a towel wedged under his opposite arm to maintain proper form. "I was a slave driver and he was a willing slave," Meyer recalled.
Mikan would rule the college game over the next three seasons, lead the Minneapolis Lakers (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/probasketball/nationalbasketballassociation/losangeleslakers/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to dominance in the National Basketball Association and be voted the greatest basketball player in the first half of the 20th century in an Associated Press sports media poll.
With Mikan playing alongside his 6-foot-7-inch brother Ed, DePaul won the 1945 N.I.T. championship.
During the 1950's, Meyer achieved a national presence by coaching the college all-star teams that toured the nation each spring playing the Harlem Globetrotters.
In the early 1970's, DePaul's basketball fortunes declined. Joey Meyer was captain of his father's worst team, the 1970-71 squad, which went 8-17. But Ray Meyer's career flourished in the late 1970's and early 1980's with the arrival of the outstanding big men Dave Corzine, Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings.
In February 1979, Meyer joined John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Frank McGuire as the only active coaches elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. DePaul went to the N.C.A.A. tournament's Final Four that season, losing to Larry Bird's (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/larry_bird/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Indiana State team, 76-74, in the semifinals. Meyer's teams lost only one regular-season game in each of the following three seasons, but were eliminated every time in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.
When DePaul opened the 1981-82 season against Illinois-Chicago Circle, the Meyer family made sports history. Ray Meyer was coaching against his oldest son, Tommy, in what is believed to have been the first meeting between father and son coaches in college basketball. The elder Meyer prevailed as DePaul scored a 78-53 victory.
Meyer left DePaul in September 1997, resigning as special assistant to the school president to protest the forced resignation of son Joey as DePaul's coach the previous April following a 3-23 season.
"I live with my family, and my family is kind of bitter about this whole thing," Ray Meyer told The A.P.
Meyer observed how the university would go on nicely without him. "I was only an employee," he said.
Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)