Last week I finished processing my first interview, which was exciting and exhausting all at once. In 2005 Professor Gilfoyle sat down with Ray Meyer, the former coach of the DePaul Men’s Basketball team. Meyer played and coached for over 50 years, and he oversaw nearly every evolution in the sport of basketball: two handed shots, the rise of “big men,” the three point line, and numerous other changes in the game.
He was directly responsible for one major change, the evolution of “big men,” when he took DePaul freshman George Mikan and turned him into a bona fide star. Standing at 6’10”, the gangly, awkward young player was trained by Meyer, who even hired dance instructors to help Mikan with his footwork. At the time, nobody believed that a player as tall as Mikan could play with skill or finesse. George Mikan lead the nation in scoring at DePaul, and eventually organized basketball began to institute rule changes to accommodate larger center and frontcourt players. One of the drills that Meyer created for Mikan is still in use today: the Mikan Drill.
As an avid sports fan and fan of basketball in particular, I found the interview engaging. Hearing stories about the early days of basketball, before the one-handed shot and the jump shot, was a lot of fun. As a Golden State Warriors fan, the idea of a 22-20 final score in a game was bizarre. Meyer was full of stories about the Globetrotters, other legendary college coaches, and details about collegiate sports before it became the money-making behemot it is today.
Making Corrections to History 