of Wbb coaching, Doug Bruno of DePaul. Doug played for legendary coach Ray Meyer at DePaul. He learned the game from his Dad who was the assistant coach at tiny Roberts-Thawville in Iroquois County, Il. His Dad's boss at RTHS was a guy named Jim Matta. Yep, Dad of Thad. So why bore you with Thawville? Well, my wife is from Thawville. So here you have a little town of sbout 300 souls where two guys got their start in life and played basketball Because their Dads were coaching together.
You all know about Thad. Well, Doug is in the DePaul Hall of Fame, the Chicago Sports Hall of Fame and the Illinois Coaches Hall of Fame. I expect his next stop will be the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
Anyway, in 1978 I was unemployed. Yep, everyone ought to experience it at least once. About that time they started the first women's basketball league and after being out of work for a while I was offered the job as General Manager of the Chicago Hustle of the WBL. A salary of $25,000 and a car sounded mighty tempting, but I had a hunch something better was in the offing so I turned it down. I was right. Within a month I had offers from the Miami Dolphins and Houston Oilers and good things indeed did happen.
Doug Bruno took the women's coaching job with the Hustle and was HC two of the league's three years. He spent eight years as Associate Head Coach of the men's team at Loyola of Chicago and the last 28 years coaching the DePaul women winning almost 500 games and leading them into the Sweet Sixteen of this year's tourney beating Louisville.
A great guy who has coached thousands of young women at both his job with DePaul and at his highly successful summer camps for girls for more than thirty years. Congrats old friend.
You all know about Thad. Well, Doug is in the DePaul Hall of Fame, the Chicago Sports Hall of Fame and the Illinois Coaches Hall of Fame. I expect his next stop will be the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
Anyway, in 1978 I was unemployed. Yep, everyone ought to experience it at least once. About that time they started the first women's basketball league and after being out of work for a while I was offered the job as General Manager of the Chicago Hustle of the WBL. A salary of $25,000 and a car sounded mighty tempting, but I had a hunch something better was in the offing so I turned it down. I was right. Within a month I had offers from the Miami Dolphins and Houston Oilers and good things indeed did happen.
Doug Bruno took the women's coaching job with the Hustle and was HC two of the league's three years. He spent eight years as Associate Head Coach of the men's team at Loyola of Chicago and the last 28 years coaching the DePaul women winning almost 500 games and leading them into the Sweet Sixteen of this year's tourney beating Louisville.
A great guy who has coached thousands of young women at both his job with DePaul and at his highly successful summer camps for girls for more than thirty years. Congrats old friend.
