I’ve heard dozens of stories, but person was ready to appear officially. Officially, absolutely, but none of them would be cited by name.
Finally, my friend Joey Meyer, who coached at DePaul and never hid behind an anonymous quote, explained it to me: “There are two kinds of coaches these days: those with Nike contracts and those who want Nike contracts.”
Bingo. In one sentence, he explained the problem – and he did it on the record.
Joey Meyer died Friday at age 74 following serious health problems, including cancer, in recent years. We became friends during DePaul’s run to the 1979 Final Four, when Joey was the primary assistant to his father, Ray. Joey was one of my best sources – as in the most honest and intelligent – before he took over from his father in 1984, and he remained a friend long after he left DePaul in 1997.
Joey was a very good player for his father at DePaul, averaging 16.4 points and becoming the school’s fourth-leading scorer with 1,233 points. He went to work for his father in 1974 and, according to the elder Meyer, was the driving force behind DePaul’s turnaround that led to that Final Four appearance.
DePaul last made the Final Four in 1943 – when it was an eight-team tournament. Thirty-six years later, the Blue Demons beat UCLA in the regional final before losing 76-74 to Larry Bird’s Indiana State in the national semifinals.
“We made some shots that we usually make, and Bird-Magic never happens,” Joey liked to say, referring to the Indiana State-Michigan State championship game that remains the highest-rated game in basketball history -college ball. “Probably my fault.” I was the shooting coach.
This comment was typical Joey: self-deprecating, funny and probably accurate.
“The reason [Ray] Meyer is in the Hall of Fame and Joey,” said Jim Molinari, Meyer’s assistant coach at DePaul and a successful head coach (with 302 wins) afterward. “He turned the program around. Before he got there, DePaul was just walking around.
When Joey arrived, the Blue Demons had not made the NCAA Tournament since 1965. They reached the tournament in seven of Ray Meyer’s last nine seasons and had a four-year streak, starting with the Final Four team, in which they went 105-12. But they have been upset in the second round of the tournament in each of the last three years of this series.
The most famous of these losses occurred in 1981, when St. Joseph’s defeated the top-seeded Blue Demons, 49-48, in Dayton, Ohio. I was in the DePaul locker room when Mark Aguirre, still in uniform and sweating, came storming out with his headphones on, waving people away. Several of us turned to follow us.
Joey put a hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s your job to pursue it,” he said. “But be careful. I have no idea what he’s going to do. What Aguirre did was cross a bridge that connected the arena to the hotel where DePaul was staying. Halfway to the bridge, he stopped, removed his headphones and said: “The game is the game. We lost the game. That’s all I have to say.”
He put his headphones back on and continued. When I reported what he had said to Joey, he smiled and said, “You did better than I thought.”
Joey took over for his father after the 1984 season and made the NCAA tournament in seven of his first eight seasons. In 1986, DePaul reached the Sweet 16 as a No. 12 seed and returned the following season. But the bottom fell out in the 1990s. Joining a conference before the 1991 season didn’t help DePaul, and Joey was fired in 1997 after two straight losing seasons.
He was only 48 years old at the time, and although he was hurt by his dismissal by the school to which he had given so much, he continued to coach, winning two NBA D League titles in Asheville , in North Carolina. He never had a chance in the NBA and never wanted to coach at any university other than DePaul.
In 2012, he decided he had enough of life on the road – he had always kept Chicago as his home base – and became a scout for the Los Angeles Clippers, focusing primarily on players from Chicago and of its surroundings. He also became a radio analyst for Northwestern.
In 1980, when DePaul was ranked No. 1 in the country, I took a trip to Chicago to write about the Blue Demons and the late-career success of Ray Meyer – he was 67 at the time. At that time, DePaul still played in the 5,000-seat Alumni Hall, small enough that one of the handball courts was right next to Meyer’s office. The sounds faded away as he spoke.
“You get used to it,” Meyer said with a laugh.
He continued: “The reason we got good again was Joey. He came here and said, “Dad, I’m not going to let you retire after several mediocre seasons.” We have too many traditions here for that to happen. And then he went out and got the players we needed. I’m still coaching now because Joey made it even more fun.
He leaned forward and pointed at me. “And don’t let Joey tell you otherwise.”
Naturally, Joey tried to tell me otherwise. “Coach,” as he always called his father, was the heart and soul of the program; he simply stepped in when needed.
I was able to see the program up close for years because Joey trusted me and convinced Ray to trust me. My first up-close exposure to a college basketball program – practices, pregame meals, locker rooms – was at DePaul.
Joey constantly struggled with his body in recent years. Discreet as always, he never complained. “You face the hand that was handed to you,” he said of his numerous surgical interventions.
Joey will never be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, but anyone who loved Ray Meyer will tell you that Joey is the reason Ray got there.
This is exactly what Joey would have wanted.
