Palatine's Molitor closes in on retirement

Plans of becoming a doctor were put aside one Saturday afternoon for Ed Molitor.

He was at home on the South Side of Chicago during spring break of his sophomore year at St. Procopius College, which is now Benedictine University in Lisle.

Molitor wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon. His plan was to be a team physician for a professional or college team.

But there was one problem he couldn't cure.

"I couldn't get basketball out of my system," he said.

Naturally that day, the Chicago city championship between Mount Carmel and Marshall was on TV. So was the game before, where legendary coaches Jim Brown of DuSable and Bill Gleason of DePaul Academy were being interviewed.

Molitor was amazed by Gleason and how hard and fundamentally sound his team played. And a change was in order.

"I looked at my father," Molitor said of his dad Ed, who was a firefighter, "and said, 'Would you mind if I changed my major in college? I'd like to coach basketball and teach biology and work for that guy right there.'"

The father gave his son his blessing. And a 42-year career that is winding toward an end will be celebrated at approximately 7 p.m. today before Palatine's last Friday night regular-season home game with Barrington.

A career where the last 32 of his 39 years as a head coach with 502 wins has been spent on the Pirates' sideline.

"That longevity is definitely a testament to his passion for basketball," said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, who played for Molitor and graduated from Palatine in 1986.

"I respect the heck out of coach Molitor," said first-year Indiana State coach Kevin McKenna, who played on Molitor's first Palatine team before starring at Creighton and playing six years in the NBA. "I think coach Molitor is a coach in the true sense of the word."

Hoops roots

Molitor grew up in a working class home near 79th and Wood in Chicago. His dad, who passed away in 1997, was a good baseball player but the son thought his future was in football.

Again, indirectly this time, the father fueled the son's passion for basketball. A brand new Catholic high school, Little Flower, opened up in their neighborhood.

It's where the son would go even though it didn't have football at the time. But Molitor would have a new basketball coach named John Niemiera, who played at Notre Dame and in the NBA.

"It was the best thing that happened to me," Molitor said. "He's the guy who really turned me on to the game."

After his career-changing decision, Molitor transferred from St. Procopius to Roosevelt University and applied to the Catholic school board.

His options -- Leo, Mendel and DePaul Academy.

"I couldn't believe it," Molitor said of the chance to work for the guy he wanted to just a few years before.

He was offered a job teaching biology and as an assistant basketball coach to Gleason. He would get to learn from a coach who also was a Division I college assistant and led the old women's professional Chicago Hustle.

Molitor was having lunch two to three times a week with DePaul University legend Ray Meyer. He was meeting coaching greats such as Marquette's Al McGuire and Dayton's Don Donoher.

"Bill Gleason was one of the finest coaches at any level in the country," Molitor said of his friend until his death a couple of years ago. "He introduced me to so many people who helped me. It was the best thing that ever could have happened to me as far as coaching goes."

But after two years DePaul Academy would be closed. Molitor returned to the South Side at Marist and was the head coach after a year with the sophomores.

His first team won a school-record 4 games. His second won a regional and met one of the state's greatest teams -- Quinn Buckner-led Thornridge.

Marist led by 2 points at halftime and trailed by 2 points with two minutes left in the third quarter. The deficit was 17 points by the end of three as Thornridge went on to the first of consecutive state titles.

Molitor went on to more success at Marist and a 27-3 season in 1975-76 was punctuated by a televised upset of a St. Laurence team with future Big Ten players Jim Stack, Kevin Boyle and Steve Krafcisin.

But he was ready to move to a public school. Little did he know how much that game would help lead to the longest tenure of a boys basketball coach in Mid-Suburban League history.

Heading north

The Northwest suburbs weren't totally unfamiliar to Ed Molitor since Marist came up to play St. Viator. He was offered the job at Glenbrook South but didn't think it was the right situation.

Then former DePaul Academy teachers Denny Freund and John Carlson, who were in District 211, mentioned the job was open at Palatine. Molitor's interview included athletic director Chic Anderson and administrator Dick Kolze, the last coach to have a winning season at the school 13 years earlier.

"What I wanted to do is establish a program similar to what we had done at Marist and DePaul Academy," Molitor said.

He inherited a talented Division I prospect in McKenna, who led the MSL in scoring as a junior at 25.6 points a game.

Would the mix be volatile with a player known mainly as a shooter and scorer and a coach who demanded he utilize his passing skills and become a better defender?

McKenna and a young group started Molitor's first season at Palatine 3-11. It ended with a regional title.

"Kevin bought into what I was trying to establish," Molitor said. "He became an outstanding leader for us as well as an outstanding player."

That one year led to a lifelong relationship that benefited McKenna. He ended up at Creighton, where assistant coach Tom Brosnihan was a friend of Molitor's.

McKenna ended up with the 1982 NBA champion Lakers as a rookie. After his NBA career was over, he started coaching in the Continental Basketball Association.

"As I got to college I realized the things he taught me definitely helped allow me to start four years at Creighton and not have to wait to play," McKenna said. "I wasn't really known as a great defender at the pro level. But those things he taught me allowed me to attempt to do those things."

Which would be passed on. Playing tough, intense, man-to-man defense. Playing fundamentally sound.

"He was extremely competitive," said Widlowski, who played with current Palatine sophomore coach Matt May. "He sets a good example for working hard and putting in a good day every day."

It was perfect for a young North Dakota kid out of college looking to learn more about basketball.

"The most incredible thing about Ed," said Schaumburg coach Bob Williams, who assisted Molitor for 11 years, "is he's got the ability to inspire people to do more than what they're capable of."

Some super times

They weren't the most talented teams and didn't have any Kevin McKennas.

But the 1981 and '82 teams were heartbreaking heartbeats from going to the state tournament in Champaign.

"Tom Carlucci (who played on both teams) told Eddie (Molitor's son), 'Back then we believed in what your dad was teaching,''' Molitor said, "'and believed that was going to make us successful.'"

Ed Cheatham definitely believed in Molitor even though his best sport was football, which he would play at Drake.

"As a young athlete and young person I was kind of lost," Cheatham said of a winless junior football season. "It was really rigorous and he expected a lot from an athlete involved in the basketball program."

Cheatham started on the second supersectional team as a junior. St. Joseph, with Division I studs Daryl Thomas and Tony Reeder, tied it at the regulation buzzer and won in overtime.

Those memories flooded back a few years ago when Cheatham returned to East Aurora for the first time since then to watch his daughter Courtney and oldest of his five children play for Naperville North.

"We get in the locker room and we're beside ourselves," Cheatham said. "He looked at all of us and said, 'If this is the worst thing that ever happens to you guys, you're in for a pretty good life.' "

But Cheatham knew the demands weren't right for everyone. The next year he was one of only two seniors on the team with more talented and taller players walking the halls.

"He always said there isn't a sense of entitlement to belong to the basketball program, it's a privilege," said Cheatham, a broker the last 20 years with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade. "I don't think anybody was more mentally demanding than him, by far, of any coach I had.

"The majority of people involved in that program, at least the people I've known, basically bought into the system and at the end of your senior year if you were still around that said a lot."

But Molitor demanded no less than he gave. And two of his proteges believe he gave a new look to MSL basketball.

"He set the bar and raised the bar for basketball in this area," Widlowski said.

"When we won state (in 2001) the first person I called was Ed Molitor," Williams said of a season where Molitor missed the end because of prostate cancer surgery. "A great deal of what goes on in the MSL is what he's done.

"The way he changed the conference from a suburban zone conference to a well-coached, tremendous defensive conference respected around the state."

One that will definitely have a different look next year. Molitor plans to spend some time at his second home in Indiana near Lake Michigan, ski and travel with his wife Mary Fran.

He figures to stay involved in basketball in some way and said he might drive to Indiana State to watch McKenna coach. But there is still work to be done.

Maybe last Saturday's overtime upset of Stevenson is sign of a late-season run similar to his start at Palatine.

"I love these guys, but they all feel they've got to say something and give me something, and you know me, that's not necessary," Molitor said of his coaching colleagues. "I enjoy the competition and gyms in the MSL … and I'm just trying to get us better as a team."

As he's done for 42 years.