MARGE MEYER, 72, FIRST LADY OF DE PAUL`S BLUE DEMONS

By Bill Jauss

Chicago Tribune

Aug 09, 1985 at 12:00 am

Marge Meyer was everything that`s good about women`s lib. Or anybody`s lib.

Margaret Delaney Meyer, the first lady of De Paul, did not work on an assembly line or in an office. She stayed home--except on the nights when her husband Ray`s De Paul University basketball team was playing . . . or when any of their six children was playing or coaching.

That means that Marge was out there on a lot of nights, speaking her mind, standing up for ''Coach'' (the name she always used for her husband of 46 years) and their kids, and being a vibrant, vocal, visible woman who dared you to disagree with her.

Mrs. Meyer died Thursday in Loyola Medical Center at the age of 72, after having suffered a heart attack June 11. She suffered complications after undergoing open-heart surgery June 21.

Mrs. Meyer`s family extended beyond Ray, their kids, their grandkids, and even De Paul. For almost 40 summers, it included some of the children who attended Ray Meyer`s Boys` Camp in northern Wisconsin.

Marge especially loved the little kids, the ones spending their first time away from home.

One of those kids penciled a post card back to his folks: ''Dear Mom and Dad: Marge had cookies for us in her and Coach`s cabin.''

Six years later, that same camper sank some key free throws in an overtime victory for New Trier over an Oak Park High School team coached by Tom Meyer, the oldest of Ray and Marge`s three sons.

The next night in Milwaukee, before a De Paul-Marquette University game, Mrs. Meyer behaved coolly toward the parents of the former camper. Not even a beer and a bratwurst warmed her up. And finally Mrs. Meyer blurted out why:

''Well, your kid beat my kid!''

That is loyalty. That is family.

It was easy to spot Marge Meyer in the old days before network television ''discovered'' the little school beneath the `L` tracks. Her prematurely gray hair stood out conspicuously among the black robes in the priests` section halfway up the east stands in Alumni Hall.

If Mrs. Meyer had any vanity at all she could have dyed her hair and become invisible. But Marge Meyer never craved invisibility. When the TV camera folks panned over her in the stands, or asked her to snuggle up to Ray at midcourt, she willingly obliged. She liked Ray. She liked snuggling. She liked midcourt.

And if they ever had bothered to ask her about college hoops, she would have given them an earful too. If he was Coach, then she was Mrs. Coach. ''He can come home and talk to me and I understand the game,'' she once said. ''I can ask intelligent questions, and he can get things off his chest.''

He did so through 46 years of marriage, 724 victories and 354 defeats. But she was more than a sounding board. Mrs. Meyer also picked out Meyer`s wardrobe, paid the bills and ran their Arlington Heights home.

''On a Saturday,'' she said last year, ''I`d sometimes see five games starting at 8 in the morning. It was hectic, but I was happy.

''Overall, I`ve loved the life, and I enjoy all the fanfare. Once, at Marquette, I lost it. Ray was wearing a raspberry shirt. Some fan was teasing him, asking where he got it. I stood up and told the guy I gave it to him. I used a few adjectives I shouldn`t have used.''

She was born May 28, 1913, and grew up on the West Side, where she played softball and basketball, winning a citywide free-throw-shooting contest while attending Siena High School. When her daughters were in school, she coached them at St. Catherine`s.

Not surprisingly, she met Meyer on a basketball court when he coached her Resurrection Parish CYO team on Sunday mornings. ''When I first met him, I said, `This is the guy for me. I see it as clear as day,` '' Mrs. Meyer said. After they were married, Mrs. Meyer followed her husband to the University of Notre Dame, where he was an assistant coach for two years, and then in 1942 to the coaching job at De Paul, where he stayed until retiring in March, 1984, and turning over the job to their son Joey. When he stepped down, he had more victories than any other active coach.

Quite possibly, the best advice Ray Meyer ever received came from his wife in the mid-`70s, when a free-spirited rookie center named Dave Corzine boarded a team bus without his shoes. Normally, the coach--whose temper was legendary--would have let the kid know about his gaffe in no uncertain terms. ''Coach,'' Mrs. Meyer told her old man, ''this is the best big man you`ve had since George Mikan (who led the team to national prominence in Meyer`s first years). Put away that sledgehammer. Try a kid-gloves approach. Don`t lose this guy.''

Ray Meyer listened. He didn`t lose Corzine, and with the success the center brought to De Paul, other superstars including Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings followed. The renaissance of De Paul basketball, which had fallen on hard times before Corzine, was total. Marge Meyer`s husband because the nation`s grandfather.

''She helped me change,'' Meyer said after Corzine broke Mikan`s scoring records. ''Marge has always understood.''

In addition to her husband, survivors include 3 sons, Tom, De Paul basketball coach Joey, and Robert; 3 daughters, Barbara Starzyk, Patricia Butterfield and Marianne McGowan; and 16 grandchildren.

A wake will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Friday in St. Vincent DePaul Catholic Church, 1010 W. Webster Ave. Mass will be said at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the church, with burial at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines.