Ray Meyer, the legend, did not attend the lynching. While son Joey was being pushed into stepping down Monday as coach of DePaul’s Blue Demons, his dad had the door closed to his cubicle on the southeast corner of Alumni Hall.
It’s Office No. 8, with a designation “Special Adviser to the President,” but the legend had all the inside knowledge of those pedestrians walking by the window.
“I’m shocked,” Coach Ray said. “Joey called me about 9 this morning and told me he’d been to a meeting, that they were letting him go because they didn’t like the direction of the program. But the timing . . .”
It had been 55 days since DePaul’s abysmal season ended, and now 55 years of the Meyer era was over, and it just didn’t make sense to this legend who wore a crisp white shirt, a loud spring tie he must have picked out before Joey called and a depressed, hound-dog look.
“Don’t know who they’re going to get here to replace him,” Coach Ray said, “and at this late date, where’s Joey going to find a good job? Why didn’t they fire him right away?”
But downstairs, Jim Doyle, the vice president of student affairs, the department that oversees basketball, explained it was the Meyer legacy that made this “mutual decision” so difficult. And in the end, “what’s best for Joey” is what really mattered.
“This is what’s best for Joey?” Coach Ray asked. “He could have had the Oregon job two years ago. He could have had others. But he stayed. Loyalty. You gotta have support, though, and Joey didn’t. He was beating his head against the wall here. In that respect, yeah, maybe it’s best.”
In April of 1942, Ray Meyer became coach at DePaul. His first victory was over Navy Pier “by 51 to 28” and he won 723 others. But now, son Joey was being paid $60,000 extra to say he had resigned instead of gotten fired from the post he took over in 1984, after 11 winters as Dad’s varsity assistant.
“He’s a coach, a good coach,” said Ray. “Rick Majerus, the coach at Utah, was asked whether he’d be interested in DePaul. He said, `Why? They already have a great coach.’ Same everywhere. I listen. A father listens. Joey has more respect in the profession than he got here.”
Downstairs, there was a fair amount of handing off that transpired. If the Blue Demons had passed the ball this well, maybe they wouldn’t have finished 3-23 and Joey too. Bill Bradshaw, the athletic director, didn’t seem particularly comfortable, however. He might be day-to-day too, with Jean Ponsetto in the wings.
The telephone rang in Office No. 8.
“I guess they won,” Ray said to the well-wisher. “They won and we lost. Call you later.”
The legend leaned back in his chair.
“I used to have a lot of friends around here,” Ray said. “But I’ve outlived most of them. I don’t know anybody anymore. Things change. Joey had a bunch of freshmen and walk-ons this year. Next season, whoever comes in will have Jermaine Watts, a pretty good club.
“It’s tough. We used to draw 16,000 and the Bulls 6,000. St. John’s is going through the same thing, competing with the pros in a metropolitan area. We used to be on Channel 9 all the time. Now, it’s Michael Jordan.
“It’s a business, and recruiting, which I hated, Joey loves. But getting the best players from the inner city, most of their parents want them to get out. Plus, the school is concentrating on academics, which is fine. But I’d have been 3-23 with this team too. Joey had them ready every night, but they were young.”
Coach Ray promised that he would return to Office No. 8 Tuesday morning, to organize his summer camp in Wisconsin, to continue being a legend in retirement, to carry on as though nothing had happened to the family.
“It will be difficult though,” he said. “I guess I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face. Joey will be fine, but I’m a has-been. I’m over the hill. And like I told you, I don’t know these people anymore.”
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Who did it? Was it Doyle? Bradshaw? Both?
“I’m not mentioning any names,” said the legend who knows nobody, yet knows enough. “But tell me, when a program is down like we are, is it just the coach? Is he out there by himself, suffering? Or does it go higher?”
Ray Meyer, special adviser to the president, then asked to be alone. They win.