Ray Meyer wished DePaul well in taking leave of the university after 55 years as legendary basketball coach, fundraiser and all-purpose missionary for the school and the game he loved.
All of Chicago–indeed, all basketball fans–should wish the same for Ray Meyer, one of the truly luminescent figures in city and U.S. sports history.
He was known simply as “Coach” and for 42 years, until he retired from that role in 1984, his name was synonymous with Chicago, DePaul and college basketball. He became one of America’s most recognized and respected coaches–and one of the most successful.
Only five other major-college coaches guided their teams to more victories than the 724 won by Meyer’s Blue Demons. Along the way, there was a national championship in 1945, when the National Invitational Tournament was college basketball’s premier event, a celebrated berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Final Four in 1979, and five first-team All-Americans, including the storied George Mikan.
And always there was the image most remembered by fans–the animated, passionate bear of a man on and off the bench, exhorting his teams to excellence and celebrating victory–much more often than not–with that beaming, gap-toothed smile.
When he quit coaching, he continued to devote himself to DePaul in a variety of capacities, including television analyst for Blue Demon games, and to the game with his summer basketball camp. And he watched with pride as his son and former player–Joey Meyer–took the coaching reins.
In the end, that led to the end of the Meyers at DePaul–and controversy over whether DePaul was graceless in dismissing Joey in April after a disastrous season and whether Ray left with bitterness.
Bitter or not, he exited with philosophical dignity: There is a time to come and a time to go. It was, for Ray Meyer, time–and nothing should now overshadow the aura of his years at DePaul, what he achieved there and what he left behind.
