O’Donnell: DePaul’s Corzine tribute fills road from Hersey to Bulls
THERE IS NO STATISTIC in basketball to measure the goodness of a competitor's heart.
If there were, Dave Corzine would touch the highest points in that celestial galaxy.
Instead, Saturday night at Wintrust Arena, the Arlington Heights native will be acknowledged as one of the greatest ever in all of the triumph and glory that once was men's basketball at DePaul University.
At halftime of a Big East game vs. visiting Butler, Corzine's No. 40 will become only the fourth jersey in the 117-year history of the program to receive special status.
Two — George Mikan's 99 and Mark Aguirre's 24 — have been retired. Both were selected as national Player of the Year during their time as Blue Demons, the essential university criterion for summa cum laude digit pensioning. No DePaul basketballer will ever wear either of those numbers again.
Corzine will join the great Terry Cummings (No. 32) in the more recent category of “honored.” That means both jerseys will hang from the rafters at Wintrust. But their numbers can be worn again.
THE GOLDEN ECHOING DEVICE was generated by the administration of DeWayne Peevy, now in his fifth year as vice president/director of athletics at the king-sized Roman Catholic university.
So typically Corzine, the 7-foot big man deflects any solo credit for the honor:
“This isn't just about me. This is about all of the people around the university and the DePaul men's program back then (1974-78) who took a relatively small school underneath the Chicago's 'L' and turned it into a national brand. This is a tribute to all of them.
“So many people factored into that. From Coach Ray and Joey Meyer to players — hard, gutty, talented players — like Joe Ponsetto and Randy Ramsey and Curtis Watkins and Ron Norwood and Gary Garland and William Dise and others.
“And of course Andy Pancratz. For me, he started it all.”
PANCRATZ WAS TWO YEARS older. By his eighth-grade season at St. James in Arlington Heights, the 6-foot-3 phenom was already nudging some serious regional basketball radars.
His Bulldogs finished 37-4 with a sharp point guard named Steve Balinski, later the police chief in Buffalo Grove and currently holding the same chair in Kildeer.
While his parents — John and Louise — were devout Catholics, Pancratz opted to pass on St. Viator and instead became an instant impact player at the brand spanking new Hersey High School.
Corzine was watching.
“In eighth grade, my friends and I would go to Hersey games,” he said. “We thought Andy was amazing. One night at Hersey, he battled Roger Wood, a 7-footer from Wheeling, like it was Game 7 of the NBA Finals. I thought with a little bit of luck, I might wind up playing varsity with him.”
HE DID, FOR THE LAST PART of his freshman year in 1970-71. The following season, Pancratz's senior year, the twin towers crunched a very good Prospect team featuring Andy Bitta, John von Berg and Michigan-bound Tom Bergen for the second-ever Mid-Suburban League crossover championship.
When Pancratz announced he was going to DePaul, the 15-year-old Corzine was confused.
“I had never heard of it and didn't know where it was. Andy said he wanted to play near home for a number of reasons. I had no idea what was going on. People told me DePauw was in Indiana.”
What was going on is that all of the rosaries Ray and Marge Meyer had ever been saying for basketball redemption were finally being answered.
PANCRATZ ARRIVED TO TEAM with Bill Robinzine and plant the seeds of a renaissance at Alumni Hall. In 1974, Corzine followed with Ponsetto — the star of Proviso East's 1974 state championship team — and Ramsey in tow. Dise was a bonus add-on.
The net gods were indeed blessing the small school underneath the Chicago “L.”
Said Ponsetto: “The documentary about all that then happened at DePaul could be titled 'Revenge of the Nerds,’ if that already wasn't taken. All began to flow. We found out that up close, David really wasn't that weird and we rode on that rising tide to a wonderful four years of ball.”
The first peak tide hit in March 1976 when Meyer's Demons made the NCAA Sweet 16. “Coach” had not advanced as far since 1965.
TWO YEARS LATER, MEYER HAD a senior-steeped foundation of Corzine, Ponsetto, Dise, Ramsey and backup center Gary Wydra, the team comic from a family of 13 in Des Plaines. That nucleus was augmented by Garland, Watkins and rising star Clyde Bradshaw.
The juggernaut was on. A mid-February win at Notre Dame, in overtime, prompted the downtown headline, “A nation discovers DePaul.” (“Coach Ray had that story mounted on his office wall for the rest of his time at DePaul,” Corzine said.)
Athletic director Gene Sullivan had taken out a second mortgage on his house to get Blue Demons games on Chicago's old WSNS-Channel 44. Red Rush manned play-by-play.
FOUR WEEKS AFTER THE VICTORY in South Bend, Corzine played the game of his life in a 90-89 double OT Sweet Sixteen win over Louisville. He scored 46 points and played every second of the 50 minutes. He also had a personal score to settle with Denny Crum, the well-resourced head coach of the Cardinals.
“The previous summer, I was picked to the U.S. World University Games team to play in Bulgaria,” Corzine said. “Larry Bird was on the roster and so was Sidney Moncrief. Crum had three centers — me, James Bailey of Rutgers and his own Ricky Gallon.
“We won all eight games and the gold medal in Sofia. But I played very little. Bailey had talent, but not much more than me. And I grew to resent the minutes given to Gallon. I was a better fit with the talent on that team.
“So, seven months later, when we beat Louisville on St. Patrick's Day, when Crum came near me after the game, I pointed my finger at him and said, 'You should have played me more in Bulgaria, you (blank-blank).' I don't remember shaking hands.”
ALL CAME CRASHING DOWN less than 48 hours later at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kans. That's when Digger Phelps' loaded Fighting Irish — Kelly Tripucka, Duck Williams, subs including Bill Hanzlik, Bill Laimbeer and rookie Orlando Woolridge — blew open a close game in the second half and cruised to the Final Four 84-64.
A year later, Corzine was a rookie with Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes and the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets, the start of his 13-year NBA career. Meyer capitalized on his four-year resurrection to move his team to the newly expanded “superstation” WGN-Channel 9 and critical coast-to-coast recruiting exposure.
Aguirre, a freshman, joined with Watkins, Garland and Bradshaw in pushing the Blue Demons to perhaps the most fabled Final Four in NCAA men's history. Bird scored 35 points in a 76-74 semifinal win by his Indiana State team. Magic Johnson and Michigan State were next and DePaul was indeed a refreshened national brand.
SATURDAY NIGHT AT WINTRUST, much of it all will be recalled as Ponsetto, Ramsey and Aguirre lead a vanguard of the DePaul echoes saluting Corzine. Don Rowley — once a freshman “B” coach — will be among past associates from Hersey.
For the big man, the most important people in attendance will be son Sam Corzine, 28, and daughter Alex Radogna. Both are ringed to be married later this year.
Corzine — himself now an unfathomable age 68 — is casually reflective and overwhelmingly grateful.
“For four years, we made it cool to be Blue Demons and DePaul fans again. That legacy carried on for close to 20 more years. And in my opinion, DePaul basketball will rise again.”
TOO MANY YEARS AGO, when their only child was in the midst of his seven seasons (1982-89) as a Chicago Bull, Al and Gwen Corzine were the subjects of a feature story in the sports pages of the Daily Herald.
Mr. Corzine, 6-foot-8, was a quality control inspector for a manufacturing firm in far Northwest exurban Spring Grove. Mrs. Corzine, 6-foot, worked for Illinois Bell.
“Really, all we ever wanted was a good kid,” Al Corzine said. “Just a good, reasonable son who would be happy, with a good work ethic and his priorities straight.”
Both they — and DePaul University — got one.
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.