We were blessed to hear him share his basketball knowledge on WGN broadcasts with Dave Eanet. And of course, he was on the opposing bench in the 1994 NIT first-round win.
RIP Joey Meyer
- Thread starter MotownMedilldo
- Start date
really puts a period on the end of what at one time...other than New York City the best college basketball town in America. Double Headers at the ol Chicago Stadium with Bill Walton and John Wooden coming to town, with appearances from Notre Dame and Illinois and Bradley. Marquette and Al McGuire coming in to play at the Amphitheatre and the place smelled like a Ring Lardner novel and the cracker box gyms at Depaul and Loyola and full houses at McGaw packed to the top to see the Cats play Bobby Knight and Gene Keady..all connected by the elevated....and of course tv changed everything....and Joey Meyer got the shaft at Depaul...Joey Meyer almost always seemed to just be too nice a guy for what was turning into the new $$$ game of college sports. Front pages of both sports pages was always college basketball...great writers like Bill Jauss and no wire reports...they sent writers to all the games. .....To a very good basketball coach.
I grew up watching DePaul basketball on WGN, and loved rooting for Joey's teams with Rod Strickland and Dallas Comegys. It was a treat to have him on color commentary for the 'Cats in the latter part of his career. Agreed with you, Sec - hard to imagine DePaul is now on the fringes of college basketball right now given that golden era of the 70s/80s.
I happened to be driving yesterday during the game... had it on the radio.
Dave Eanet came back from timeout and said "And we've just received some sad news" he then paused and announced that former colleague Joey Meyer had passed away. Then back to the action briefly and then it seemed like Billy McKinney did play by play for a couple moments and then Eanet was back on the call.
Dave said to McKinney (as opposed to the audience) "You know, when we were in Arizona for the game, I realized I hadn't talked to Joe in awhile... I was going to call him tomorrow and wish him a happy New Year."
He then went on to say that Joey Meyer was more into basketball than anyone he had ever met.
Dave Eanet came back from timeout and said "And we've just received some sad news" he then paused and announced that former colleague Joey Meyer had passed away. Then back to the action briefly and then it seemed like Billy McKinney did play by play for a couple moments and then Eanet was back on the call.
Dave said to McKinney (as opposed to the audience) "You know, when we were in Arizona for the game, I realized I hadn't talked to Joe in awhile... I was going to call him tomorrow and wish him a happy New Year."
He then went on to say that Joey Meyer was more into basketball than anyone he had ever met.
He had some good teams. I thought he was younger than 74, but time flies for all of us.
From AP: "Joey Meyer got the Blue Demons into the NCAA tourney in each of his first five seasons. They reached the Sweet 16 in 1986 and 1987. Meyer went 231-158 in his 13 seasons as DePaul’s head coach."
From AP: "Joey Meyer got the Blue Demons into the NCAA tourney in each of his first five seasons. They reached the Sweet 16 in 1986 and 1987. Meyer went 231-158 in his 13 seasons as DePaul’s head coach."
I saw a lot of baaaad hoops from Joey Meyer’s latter day teams, mostly in an empty Horizon but a few at Chicago Stadium and the UC. Notre Dame-DePaul games were particularly ugly in that era.
Just a hard place to win. Thanks for your reminiscences, @loyolacat.
I remember Steve Dahl had a bit poking fun at him in his first year.
Joey: "c'mon guys, we gotta practice "
Player:"hey shut up man!"
Joey:"Dad's gonna be mad at me!"
Joey: "c'mon guys, we gotta practice "
Player:"hey shut up man!"
Joey:"Dad's gonna be mad at me!"
