Blog: The Life and Death of Rick Majerus

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The first time I saw Rick Majerus in person, he was sitting in seldom-used end-court bleachers that had been wheeled into position for a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Class C basketball sectional at my high school alma mater's field house. I was there to cover a game for my hometown newspaper, The West Bend News. Majerus, an assistant coach at Marquette at the time (this was the mid-'80s), was there to scout Kohler, Wis., phenom Joe Wolf, who would eventually attend North Carolina.

The next time I saw Majerus in person, he was sitting to my immediate left at the Facilities of Merit reception as part of ABC 2006 in Las Vegas. AB's Mike Popke and I had escorted Majerus and his traveling companion through Mandalay Bay to the site of his keynote address. I remember talking to him along the way about having covered one of his early recruits at Utah, Terry Preston, while I was the sports editor for a paper that included Homestead High School in Mequon, Wis., among its beats. As Majerus huffed and puffed his way down the hallways, he told me that he remembered Preston fondly, but seemed more concerned about how many people would be hearing him speak. As the FOM winners were profiled via video, Majerus leaned over to me and expressed his genuine admiration for the work the architects had done. He was truly impressed. He scribbled a few words onto an empty file folder and carried it up to the podium. That was the extent of his prepared notes.

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