Joey Meyer, former Depaul player and coach. RIP

[TMA62]

I just heard of his passing. Great coach.

Depaul and Purdue played a 4 or 6 game series in the early to mid - 80's. Typically, the last game just before Christmas. Regardless of who won, they were great games to watch or listen to on the radio.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ot...p&cvid=4819079438f343d08b0d4357f355fc8e&ei=15

 

[northside100]

I just heard of his passing. Great coach.

Depaul and Purdue played a 4 or 6 game series in the early to mid - 80's. Typically, the last game just before Christmas. Regardless of who won, they were great games to watch or listen to on the radio.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ot...p&cvid=4819079438f343d08b0d4357f355fc8e&ei=15

Joey was a good coach, his dad Ray was great.

 

[Schmedly_Whiplash]

His dad was older than that (it seemed) when he had his big national exposure years.

 

[4IUSox2]

Once Joey’s New Jersey pipeline (Clyde Bradshaw, Gary Garland, whom he recruited for his dad; then Kenny Patterson, Dallas Comegys, Rod Strickland et al) dried up in the late 80’s, his teams fell off quite a bit.

That and he had PO’d the Chicago Public League coaches in the early 80’s by not recruiting them hard enough after he and his dad had such success with Aguirre, Cummings, Randolph and Dillard. Also, CPS coaches believed Joey and Ray abandoned Teddy Grubbs when he had numerous issues off the court. When Tony Yates, then Jimmy Collins, showed up with bags of 💰, all the best Public Leaguers started heading down I- 57, the Illini’s way starting with Efrem Winters (he of the straight F average his senior year at King).

David Booth, Stephen Howard, Howard Nathan and Tom Kleinschmidt (a Catholic leaguer), got them to the tourney in ‘92, but I think that was his last time getting into the tournament.

 

[northside100]

Once Joey’s New Jersey pipeline (Clyde Bradshaw, Gary Garland, whom he recruited for his dad; then Kenny Patterson, Dallas Comegys, Rod Strickland et al) dried up in the late 80’s, his teams fell off quite a bit.

That and he had PO’d the Chicago Public League coaches in the early 80’s by not recruiting them hard enough after he and his dad had such success with Aguirre, Cummings, Randolph and Dillard. Also, CPS coaches believed Joey and Ray abandoned Teddy Grubbs when he had numerous issues off the court. When Tony Yates, then Jimmy Collins, showed up with bags of 💰, all the best Public Leaguers started heading down I- 57, the Illini’s way starting with Efrem Winters (he of the straight F average his senior year at King).

David Booth, Stephen Howard, Howard Nathan and Tom Kleinschmidt (a Catholic leaguer), got them to the tourney in ‘92, but I think that was his last time getting into the tournament.

You have way more context than me but at a high level it seems that losing top recruits to Illinois really hurt. I didn’t realize they had a NJ pipeline that dried up.

 

[4IUSox2]

You are correct. Losing the Public League guys to Illinois (albeit, under some shady going’s on) that they dominated for in the late-70’s (like Aguirre, Cummings, Grubbs, Randolph and Dillard) was a blow. But when it first happened, They were still able to offset that with big time recruits from around the country, especially NJ. At the time, DePaul played many of their games on WGN-Channel 9, when it was just starting to be on cable systems around the country. So they used that recruiting tool as “you can still watch your son play on WGN on cable.”

Landon “Sonny” Cox at King HS on the south side was a real piece of work (or, POS more like it) when it came to keeping the CPS coaches United against DePaul and more importantly, milking what he could especially for himself and his King kids from the school’s recruiting them.

 

[Chi-Boiler]

Once Joey’s New Jersey pipeline (Clyde Bradshaw, Gary Garland, whom he recruited for his dad; then Kenny Patterson, Dallas Comegys, Rod Strickland et al) dried up in the late 80’s, his teams fell off quite a bit.

That and he had PO’d the Chicago Public League coaches in the early 80’s by not recruiting them hard enough after he and his dad had such success with Aguirre, Cummings, Randolph and Dillard. Also, CPS coaches believed Joey and Ray abandoned Teddy Grubbs when he had numerous issues off the court. When Tony Yates, then Jimmy Collins, showed up with bags of 💰, all the best Public Leaguers started heading down I- 57, the Illini’s way starting with Efrem Winters (he of the straight F average his senior year at King).

David Booth, Stephen Howard, Howard Nathan and Tom Kleinschmidt (a Catholic leaguer), got them to the tourney in ‘92, but I think that was his last time getting into the tournament.

Good synopsis. Ray was an all-time great coach, but Joey couldn't hold it together for very long unfortunately.

 

[purduedavie]

Joey recruited nationally, the rake the public league coaches were getting got better from Illinois.

 

[KenTre1983]

Good synopsis. Ray was an all-time great coach, but Joey couldn't hold it together for very long unfortunately.

Listening to the eulogies on 670 the SCORE, all the hosts have said Joey was underappreciated for his role in DePaul's rise on the national scene. They also universally praised him as a good man. RIP.

 

[4IUSox2]

As assistant coach and recruiter, Joey was very much responsible for his dad’s rise in success nationally, his last 10 years or so, starting in the early 70’s. Got local stars like Bill Robinzine from Phillips, Joe Ponsetto from Proviso West, Curtis Watkins from Thornton and Dave Corzine from Hersey. When Joey pulled in Gary Garland and Clyde Bradshaw from NJ, they really took off. Then the crown jewel, from Westinghouse, Mark Aguirre in ‘78.

Impressive NCAA runs in ‘76 (Sweet 16), ‘78 (Elite 8) and ‘79 (Final 4.) The next 3 years (‘80-‘82) would see highly ranked Demon teams fall in the first round to UCLA, St Joe’s and BC, respectively.

The ‘78 team had won at ND during regular season. Corzine scored 40 in a Friday night Sweet 16 game vs Louisville, but got hurt late in the game. With Corzine hobbled badly on Sunday with the final 4 in site, DePaul kept it close for 32 minutes, down just 2 before ND would close strong to win by 20.