When The Coach Holds Court, Campers Come To Play

August 02, 1987|By Bob Logan, Chicago Tribune.

Go straight north almost 400 miles, follow Oneida County Road X a bit longer, turn right at the hand-painted sign, and you`ll hear the sound of 50 basketballs bouncing off six concrete courts.

It`s not your imagination playing tricks on you in the deep woods. This scenic, tree-lined drive is the approach to Ray Meyer`s basketball camp.

Although he has officially been retired as De Paul`s head coach for three years, Meyer still is the godfather of Chicago basketball.

And here at his summer camp in the North Country of Wisconsin, Meyer is the grandfather of basketball. The Coach keeps right on teaching his game to kids with such vitality that it`s hard to realize he`s 73 years old.

``One reason I stayed in coaching so long was the fun I have in the summer,`` Meyer says. ``The pressure to win gets you down sometimes during the season, but opening the camp every year was like recharging my batteries.

``I`m not in this for the money. Seeing a new bunch of kids come in and improve makes it worthwhile.``

About 150 campers already are at work, going through their paces in the midmorning sunshine. This is the third of four summer sessions, each lasting two weeks.

They are divided into three working units: high school, college and pro, ranging in age from 10 to 18. Depending on individual skill, campers are placed in ``A`` or ``B`` brackets within their classification. That keeps competition even in the H-O-R-S-E, free throw, 1-on-1 and 3-on-3 competition that enlivens instruction throughout their two-week stay.

Most of this group comes from the Chicago area, but one is living proof that Meyer`s fame has spread far wider. Parisian Julian Elis, 12, wants to play better basketball for the Racing Club of France.

``My uncle lives in Chicago, and I came over last year to visit him,``

says Elis, the bilingual son of a French father and an American mother. ``Ray Meyer is not known in Europe, so I asked an American friend to send some basketball camp brochures.

``Then I talked to James Hardy, the former Utah Jazz player. He`s on the top team that represents my club in Paris.

``He told me Ray Meyer was the best coach. I`ve learned a lot about shooting, setting picks and running the fast break.``

When visitors pull up a steep incline and park next to the mess hall, a familiar slice of Chicago tradition greets them.

``What are you doing that for?`` Ray Meyer`s voice floats across the campground, clearly audible from 50 yards away. ``Holding! You gotta learn how to do it right.``

The pitch of Meyer`s voice is a peculiar blend of pleading and patience, the teaching tone coaches slip into. But this coach has been using it for almost a half-century, ever since he was George Keogan`s assistant at Notre Dame in 1940.

The Coach is still coaching. At 73, Ray Meyer knows only one way to go about it: all out.

The rawest teenager at his camp gets the same kind of intensity that the young De Paul coach employed to turn George Mikan from a clumsy oaf into the dominant college and pro center of the 1940s and `50s. Meyer doesn`t bellow at kids the way he used to at Blue Demon stars such as Dave Corzine, Mark Aguirre and Dallas Comegys, but they get all of his attention, teaching skill and encyclopedic knowledge of the game.

``Coach Ray is here every day, working all day long,`` says Dan Lange, an assistant coach at Notre Dame High School in Niles who is in his fourth year of coaching at Meyer`s camp. ``That amazed me when I first came.

``I went to the Illinois basketball camp, and you see the big names on the camp brochure maybe once or twice.``

The Meyer family coaching tradition does not take a summer vacation. Joe Meyer, who took over as head coach when his dad`s 42-year De Paul reign ended in 1984, also is here, working with another group.

Every 20 minutes, a whistle interrupts one class and campers rotate to another court for a new topic. After breakfast at 8:30, cabin policing and warmup exercise, they alternate among six subjects: ballhandling, transition, team defense, full-court offense, Joe Meyer`s team and pivot offense and Ray Meyer`s potpourri.

``Coach teaches whatever he wants,`` explains Joe. ``You can`t structure him.``

Other veteran coaches at this session are Ron Baliga of Glen Ellyn, Bill Wright of Serena, Ill., and Ray Shouvlain of St. Ambrose College in Iowa. The only rookie is Dennis Judy.

``I`m used to working hard, so this is enjoyable,`` says Judy, the girls` basketball coach at South Newton (Ind.) High School. ``Besides coaching the girls, I teach five classes and assist in football and basketball.

``This is a good experience for me. Not just new coaching techniques, but getting to work with a legend like Coach Meyer.``

Ray has been running this camp since 1948. The layout and the capacity have changed over the years, though his no-shortcuts approach to basketball hasn`t.

``Sometimes I wonder why I keep doing it,`` he says. ``At my age, I should do whatever I want.``

But all Meyer wanted to do for most of his life was coach basketball and help his wife, Marge, raise their three sons and three daughters. Ever since Marge died on Aug. 8, 1985, after 46 years of marriage, the road has gotten lonelier and tougher.

Ray`s energy level now seems lower when he`s not out on the court. His famous gap-toothed smile is not as wide as it used to be.

``I`m not over losing Marge, and I guess I never will be,`` he admits.

``We were so close. We made decisions together and we went everywhere together.

``Marge wanted me to write a book about our life together, not just basketball.

``Her nurse, Florence, reminded me that I had promised, so I finally got to work on it.``

Meyer is a man noted for keeping his promises. The book, written with Sun-Times columnist Ray Sons, will be out in October.

``Looking back reminded me how much things have changed,`` Meyer says.

``Up until 15 years ago, we never locked our lockers. Now there`s a lock on everything. Turn your back and it`s gone.

``I can`t explain it. We get a lot of kids from good homes and a lot from broken homes.``

How do kids hear about this camp, tucked away in a remote area?

``It`s word of mouth,`` Ray replies. ``We don`t advertise, but all four sessions are close to capacity of 180 except the (second) one over the July 4th holiday. I`m surprised it keeps going so well with all the distractions kids have now.``

He doesn`t mention that about 10 needy kids attend free at each session. Those who can afford it pay $400 for two weeks of room, board (three meals and two snacks per day) and all the basketball they can handle.

Meyer`s camp is much bigger than just the six courts, 19 hoops and cluster of cabins surrounding the main area. The original buildings were wooden, but they were replaced with red metallic structures after a fire swept through the camp in the mid-1970s.

The property covers 66 acres, with 3,000 feet of frontage on Little Fork Lake. It`s a peaceful, heavily wooded tract in the heart of this Wisconsin fishing, hunting and resort area.

``I didn`t have a dime in 1946, when I heard this place was for sale,``

Meyer recalls. ``Somehow, I scraped up $500 for the down payment.``

It was a good investment. Meyer was told some years ago that his property was worth $300,000, but the sparkling setting on a private lake probably is worth millions now. That may have a bearing on whether the basketball camp continues after he is no longer here to run it.

``I was shocked when I first saw the place,`` Meyer says. ``All trees, with one cabin in a little clearing. It took me two years to get the camp ready, and I had to do most of the work myself.``

The camp routine now is so well-established that the two-week sessions run smoothly. Besides manning his assigned teaching station, each coach organizes a tournament and referees the games.

``We change coaches every session or they`d lose their patience,`` Meyer says. ``If you discipline a boy now, he`s liable to call his parents and demand to go home.``

None of this could work without people to solve problems, settle arguments and set the tone. The noncoms who provide day-to-day discipline are counselors, some coming back yearly for their food and lodging, a modest salary and a chance to sharpen their basketball skills.

Scattered among the eight campers` cabins, the counselors keep order with experience and peer pressure. The cabins have team names above the entrance:

Bulls, Celtics, Lakers, Globetrotters, Magicians, Knicks (though that wood placard reads ``icks``), Bullets and Bucks. Everybody wants the Bulls cabin, the only that doesn`t require a walk to the washroom, but it`s assigned at random to avoid charges of favoritism.

``We have sons and brothers of counselors coming back as counselors,``

Meyer says. ``Good kids like Chris Pawlowski, Matt Finn, Mike Owen and Tim Creed. They keep the younger kids busy and cheer up the ones who get homesick.``

Sometimes all it takes is a few days of survival therapy to reassure campers used to valet service from their mothers.

``I didn`t like it at first,`` confesses Alex Oliva, who wanted to go home a few hours after his bus arrived. ``Homesick and all that. I didn`t think I could make it for two weeks.

``Then I started learning more basketball and it got to be fun. Jeff, Brad, Greg, Jim and the other guys in my (Globetrotters) cabin are my friends now.

``Ray Meyer plays around with us until we get it right. I can pass more and still take the jumper when I`m open.``

The shot won`t always go in, but point guard Oliva will return with a new feeling of confidence to his 7th-grade team at St. Stanislaus in Posen, Ill.

Meyer could write another book, if he chose, about homesick, mischievous or just plain sick kids. He has learned how to handle all these mini-crises with a gruff, grandfatherly approach that gets through to his young charges.

``The worst days are when it rains,`` Meyer points out. ``You can`t let kids be idle or they get homesick and lonely.``

That`s why fun shares equal billing with basketball on the camp agenda. A rec room stocked with two pool tables and soccer, air hockey and video games helps, along with the nightly movie, but Meyer employs the hands-on approach in this area, as well. After the grind of morning classes, the day is structured to offer enjoyable head-to-head competition or an even more enjoyable dunk in the lake.

``I bet I make 50 trips every afternoon,`` the deeply tanned Meyer says, wearing a broad grin while steering a speedboat in easy circles around Little Fork Lake. Trailing on a tow rope is a huge inflated donut, with a delighted kid gripping the handles. On a pier jutting out into the lake, a row of life- jacketed campers await their turns.

``I want these kids to have fun,`` Meyer says. ``They all wear life jackets and we watch them close, but I still have to carry $5 million worth of insurance.

``The premium is up to $7,000 this year. It takes a big crew to get the place ready, and we have a caretaker year round. Their wages and the taxes keep going up.``

When the day is over, Meyer returns to the comfortable house he built for Marge on the lakeshore. Son Joe and grandson Brian, already a budding coach at 5, are there to keep him company, along with daughter Patricia, wife of a Chicago policeman.

``Marge picked out the new furniture, and she never got to see it in the house,`` Meyer says. ``Maybe I should take it easier, but running this camp and giving advice when a coach calls and asks me to take a look at his team keeps me busy.

``I just keep trying to do what I`ve been doing all these years. Basketball is like life. It`s a game of habit.``

Nobody wants to talk about it, but the time will come when the Ray Meyer basketball camp must decide whether to continue after he`s gone. Even though tradition is a cornerstone of the close-knit Meyer family, they are aware that this 66 acres of prime resport property could be sold for a staggering sum.

``We`ll have to sit down with the Coach and decide what he wants to do,`` concedes Joe Meyer. ``He`s changed a lot since Mom died, but the camp`s future is something that has to be confronted by all of us.

``It`s tough for me to recruit in the summer and divide my time between here and Chicago.``

Ray Meyer plans to be back in 1988 for his camp`s 40th anniversary.

``Yeah, I`d like to see it go on and keep the Meyer name,`` he says.

``This is sort of a family tree.

``I know this camp is rugged. It`s not for all kids, just those who want to play. I can see it getting a little better each year.``

As long as the Coach is able, the Ray Meyer basketball camp will stay that way.