Tributes pour in for coach McDougal

One of the great things about the sport of basketball is the nicknames.

There are few communities in the state who can match the downstate legacy of the two original Aurora high schools.

To any and all associated with boys basketball in the greater Aurora area, he was simply known as "Johnny Mac."

Tributes are pouring in throughout the greater basketball area over the passing of legendary coach John McDougal, who passed away at the age of 92 early Friday morning in Aurora.

"The basketball is obviously what he is remembered for," said Mike Korcek, the former Sports Information Director at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. "(McDougal) is in seven or eight hall of fames."

But his former players and the up-and-coming coaches he mentored remember a different coach McDougal.

"He was like a second father to me," said Chicago sports personality Dave Kaplan, who served as an assistant coach to McDougal for four years at NIU in the mid-1980s. "Without John McDougal taking a chance on a 21-year-old kid with no experience, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today."

"I spent more time with him during my four years in high school than I did with my father," said John Bryant, a standout for the 1973 West Aurora team McDougal guided to third place at the Class AA state tournament.

Jay Bryant followed his big brother three years later to a Final Four appearance in Champaign for the Blackhawks.

The two former players visited him Monday night at Copley Hospital in Aurora.

"He was very lucid," John Bryant said.

"(McDougal) was a die-hard Cardinals fan," Jay Bryant said. "I said to him, 'How 'bout those Cubbies?' He said, 'It's time to go if the Cubs are in the World Series.'"

"I always said he was a second dad to our boys," the Bryants' mother, Maureen, said. "I don't know what else to say. He was a wonderful and humble man."

McDougal registered 209 of his 556 high school wins at West Aurora between 1965 and 1976.

In his final game as head coach at West Aurora, in one of the most famous moments in state prep athletic history, Morgan Park guard Laird Smith hit a long jump shot as time expired to deny McDougal and West Aurora a Class AA state championship.

"The shot heard around the state of Illinois," said former Batavia player and coach Jimmy Roberts.

"We talked about (the state-championship game) a lot of times," said Nancy Prentiss, the youngest of the three McDougal daughters. "It was like watching in slow motion. The rest is history. Unfortunately, he never won a state championship but came mightily close."

Longtime area journalist Carter Crane covered the game for the Aurora Beacon-News.

"I can still see that shot going in," Crane said. "I had a perfect angle. Every basketball season I think about that shot seven or eight times a year."

"I don't even know if (McDougal) knew the presence he had when he walked into a room," said Jason Buckley, a head basketball coach at Oswego East before assuming his current position as West Aurora athletic director. "A legend in the Aurora community and the basketball community, for sure."

As a social studies instructor, Paul Clennon was a West Aurora colleague to McDougal in his early years at the school.

"Everybody remembers him from the basketball court," Clennon said. "I just remember having lunch with him, probably four days a week. He was just a great guy, a wonderful storyteller. He was just a super, classy individual."

"He had a great sense of humor," former West Aurora teacher John Bell said of McDougal.

Gordie Kerkman succeeded McDougal in the spring of 1976 after McDougal accepted the head job at NIU.

Kerkman ended his career in 2015 with over 800 wins.

"We both believed in being tough defensively and winning the battle of the boards," Kerkman said of McDougal. "He just made so much sense and was so sincere how he related to the kids. I think the reputation he had at West High attracted a lot of (local) guys to go to Northern Illinois."

West Aurora played at the 1976 NIU supersectional.

The Blackhawks' teams of the era were renowned for their defensive intensity.

"We held people to like 28 points," Jay Bryant said. "It was old-school, but it worked."

"If you didn't play defense, you couldn't play for coach McDougal," said Matt Hicks, a legendary player at West Aurora and Mid-American Conference player of the year at Northern in 1977.

"I had no idea we were looking at him as a (potential) coach," Korcek said of the 1976 supersectional. "It was principal before basketball. That's the type of person McDougal was. The 10 years he was at Northern, men's basketball was relevant."

McDougal guided the Huskies to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1982.

Not much longer, Kaplan was fresh out of college, contemplating attending law school.

"Coach told me, 'You don't have the level of experience we're looking for,'" Kaplan recalled after a year of coaching prep basketball in Minnesota. "I said, 'Coach, count me in.'"

McDougal forewarned Kaplan of the vagaries of the job.

"He told me, 'It's crazy hours,'" Kaplan said.

The pay bordered on minimum wage.

"It was the greatest thing I ever did," Kaplan said. "He was a genius. He was a brilliant strategist."

McDougal was to Jimmy Roberts what Muddy Waters was to the Rolling Stones.

"I never did anything without consulting coach McDougal," the former Batavia coach said. "As great as a basketball coach as he was, he was an even greater person."

Jay Bryant is on the cusp of retirement after a long high school and college coaching career.

"I wanted to be Johnny Mac," Jay Bryant said.

John Bryant has the final word.

"Services are next weekend," John Bryant said. "I guarantee you there will be a lot of guys there over six feet tall."