Ray Meyer, a Hall of Fame basketball coach at DePaul University who began his career by tutoring an awkward George Mikan, modern basketball's first superstar, and went on to win 724 games over 42 seasons, died Friday at an assisted-living residence outside Chicago, said Scott Reed, the university's sports information director. 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 as coach 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 postseason 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 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 13 years.
No change
Ray Meyer was present for 1,467 consecutive games over a 55-year span as DePaul's coach and as a basketball analyst for the program's radio broadcasts. He had coaching offers from the pros and other colleges, including his alma mater, Notre Dame, but he turned them down. His explanation, "I hate change."
But 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 grandfatherly 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 1970s. "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 sports 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 US$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.
George Mikan
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, a sophomore within an inch or so of his eventual 6-foot-10-inch height, had never played high school basketball. He 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."
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