He could attend a banquet a night, literally. A lifetime-achievement award, followed by any one of a thousand Hall of Fame inductions, then distinguished service to some school, club, or charity the night after that.
It’s hard to turn them down, particularly when he knows his presence is helping to raise money. But a man has only so much space for the plaques and only so much energy and, well, while the rubber-chicken circuit fills his stomach, it can’t fill Ray Meyer’s heart.
At 84, he neither sounds nor acts weary. But the Coach exudes an unmistakable sadness these days, and it’s only partly the result of this being the first year in the last 65 that he has not had some involvement with college basketball. He severed ties with DePaul last year, not long after the firing of son Joey as coach.
“I miss the relationship with the players,” he says. “With DePaul, I traveled with the team and interacted with the players. Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to go to any games any more because it brings back too many memories.”
Everything does, it seems. He goes to the banquets, tells stories of days gone by and invariably the image of Marge is there. His wife of 46 years died in 1985 after heart surgery, and if that wasn’t enough to bear, his daughter Merianne passed away in July 1996 at 48, leaving six children and her husband, James.
“She taught school, and when it ended for the summer, she went to the doctor,” Ray recalled of the daughter the family called Dee Dee. “She knew right away what it was. She was diagnosed with colon cancer. I saw her a day or so later and she said, `I know I’m dying. Just like Mother.’ Three weeks later to the day, she died.”
Ray says her death woke up the family.
“Just like all the Meyers, she hated to go to the doctor,” he says. “But I had three brothers die of colon cancer and the doctors made the whole family go in to be checked.”
Early detection may have saved another Meyer daughter. A stomach ailment was detected in Joey.
But it wears on their father. A parent just isn’t supposed to outlive a child. Ray was never supposed to leave DePaul, and his smile belies an emptiness that wasn’t there before.
As always, his children are there for him, his daughters and daughters-in-law fussing over him, his granddaughters attending the banquets. He introduces them and they stand. He looks to them and they smile as he chokes up.
He says he’s OK, jokes about all the honors, saying, “They must all think I’m dying, and they want to get me while I’m still alive.”
He spends more time than ever watching the Bulls now, particularly enjoying the grace and artistry of Scottie Pippen. “You’re seeing some of the greatest athletes in the world,” he marvels. “I’d love to coach some of those guys. They’d make me a great coach.”
He still corresponds with some of his former players. “When I quit coaching in ’84, people started writing me and I’m still writing to them,” he says. “I average five to six letters a day.”
One letter that came to him three weeks ago was an apology from a former camper Ray had once disciplined. In 1952. Retired colonel now. A secretary used to help with his responses, but now he does them himself, in longhand, and they take up much of his day.
And then there’s his summer basketball camp in Three Lakes, Wis., the one the Meyers have been running for 51 years. “That’s my love now,” he says. “I look forward to it.”
Joey can join him now that he has no recruiting restrictions, but he might be busy looking for a job this summer. His father would love to see him go back to work, though he isn’t as worried about him as he once was.
“He keeps everything inside, never says anything,” Ray says. “A lot of things that happened (at DePaul before the firing) I didn’t even know about. But I’m very proud of the way he handled it, and he’s a better man for it. He grew out of adversity and I’ve never seen him better. He jokes more. He has that dry humor.”
Ray remembers a time not so long ago when it was easy to laugh, when Marge was by his side and their kids safe, when it was still fun. He can still conjure it up if he tries, still spin some of the greatest after-dinner stories around. You want to tell him not to stop. Never stop. That everyone still wants to listen.
That there’s another banquet coming up this week.
