Coaches sometimes say their teams didn’t lose, they just ran out of time.
That’s what happened to Team Pappas, the group that sprang up almost overnight to help Hall of Fame basketball coach Steve Pappas fight for his life. Pappas and his final team ran out of time Thursday night when he died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital from the effects of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 54.
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Pappas entered the hospital about two weeks ago, and as word spread of his worsening condition, friends and supporters flocked to his bedside. Many were once opposing coaches who had become close friends, drawn not only by Pappas’ warmth but also by his coaching philosophy, which stressed respect for opponents and for basketball.
He was known for losing a big game and showing up afterward in the opponents’ locker room to offer congratulations.
“It has been a parade, and this evening was no different,” said Paul Pryma, a former St. Ignatius and Evanston coach and now an associate principal at Glenbrook North, who got to know Pappas when they were assistant coaches on scouting expeditions. “Steve was an amazing human being, and the outpouring for him has been nothing short of spectacular and reflective of who he is.
“We spent an awful lot of time in the top row of the stands, but I probably didn’t get much scouting done those nights because he was so compelling the way he looked at life and the way he prepared his students and players. He was truly a visionary.”
Pappas was diagnosed about two years ago with an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Chemotherapy and radiation didn’t work, nor did a blood stem-cell transplant utilizing his own stem cells. About three months ago doctors determined he would need a suitable blood stem-cell or bone-marrow donor.
Team Pappas quickly was born to find a donor match. Its goal was to conduct enough fund-raising and blood drives to get up to 25,000 people tested and added to an existing registry. The effort, which also was aimed at promoting transplant awareness, included dozens of people from the Greek and basketball communities, including current and former high school coaches and some of Pappas’ former players.
Pappas grew up on the North Side and graduated in 1969 from Mather, where he played football, basketball and baseball. He attended Mayfair Junior College, which is now Truman College, and played on an NAIA championship basketball team at Grand Canyon (Ariz.) University in 1975.
He was 313-154 games in 17 seasons as a head coach at Gordon Tech and Deerfield and finished second with Gordon Tech in the 1990 Class AA state tournament. He left coaching in 2002 but remained at Deerfield as an English teacher, the same position his wife, Cathie, has there.
Pappas entered the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on April 29, but his condition began to deteriorate about three weeks later.
John Venetos, Pappas’ personal physician and co-chairman with Pryma of Team Pappas, said the team’s work would go on through blood drives already scheduled for this spring and summer and listed at www.stevepappasbasketball.com.
“Here’s a guy who even on his deathbed was still teaching us things about the importance of humanity and giving and being unselfish,” said Venetos, who as a youth played for basketball teams Pappas coached at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church on the North Side. “He knew that getting a match was a long shot but knew it was for a good cause and to help other people too.
“The goal is still to increase the registry to try to help other people. There’s a blood drive this weekend, and we’re going to continue to do it. People want to do it . . . it helps you accept his death. Steve always talked about teammates, and the journey will continue. We will continue to celebrate his legacy in this way. It is what he would have wanted.”
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