Reunion honors Margenthaler, greatest L-P teams

LA SALLE – One can be sure that the more-than-strenuous workouts Jack Margenthaler put his La Salle-Peru High School boys basketball players through back in the day caused more than a couple of tears.

On Saturday, the Cavs got even, but in a very different way.

Almost 100 former players, cheerleaders and fans of the Margenthaler era traveled from all over the country to assemble at Senica’s Oak Ridge Golf Club to pay tribute to Margenthaler, the man who from 1968-74 led the program to its greatest successes, all the while serving as mentor, motivator and father figure to everyone.

Margenthaler, now 79 and living in Naples, Florida, was choked up several times while addressing the crowd and again as he finished his remarks before walking off to a standing ovation.

“This is phenomenal, truly one of the greatest things I’ve ever been associated with,” Margenthaler said. “I’m in the Hall of Fame at every school I’ve been to, but this tops them all. The turnout is incredible. Things like this don’t happen anywhere. Amazing.

“Looking around, this is one of the reasons those teams were so good. They all hung out with each other, they all knew their role and they all accepted that role. Nowadays, kids wouldn’t accept their role, and that’s what got me out of coaching. It made it too tough to coach them, but this [camaraderie] is what it was all about. This is better than any win we ever had.”

And there were quite a few of those during his tenure. Margenthaler, a Pinckneyville native who starred for the Guy Lewis-coached University of Houston teams and was a a 14th-round draft pick (98th overall) by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1965, served one year as an assistant to Don Stanton before being offered the job for the 1968-69 season.

That season, L-P posted an 18-7 mark and went on to records of 29-3 in 1969-70, 22-6 in 1970-71, 27-2 in 1971-72, 20-5 in 1972-73 and 22-5 in 1973-74, in the latter four of those seasons winning regionals.

The highlight came in 1969-70 when the Cavs earned the No. 2 ranking in the Associated Press single-class polls and their first trip to the IHSA state finals, led by the play of Gary Novak, Doug Pomatto, Al Jozwiak, Paul Kramarsic and then 6-foot-10 sophomore Paul Mellen.

Margenthaler, who left L-P with a 138-28 record, was briefly an assistant at Drake University before taking over as head coach at Western Illinois University. Over his 15 seasons there, his teams amassed 221 wins and once won three consecutive Mid-Continent Conference titles.

Margenthaler now occasionally helps his sons with their coaching careers. His son Matt is in his 23rd year as the men’s basketball head coach at Mankato State in Minnesota, while his younger son, Ty, a former assistant men’s coach at Wisconsin and Bradley universities, now coaches women’s basketball at Vermilion, South Dakota.

“What I learned from my time at L-P were these things,” he said. “No. 1, if you’re going to be good, you have to be disciplined; and No. 2, you have to practice fundamentals, something that young players don’t do anymore. … Fundamentals are the key, and I was fortunate to have athletes willing to accept that all the way to the end.”

But while his players learned those aspects of the game over the years, they also came to think of him as someone always in their corner, to teach them right from wrong and the value of hard work and teamwork.

“I played not quite 2 1/2 years on the varsity, moving up as a sophomore when Gary Novak got injured,” said Mellen, one of the event’s organizers. “So I really know the guys from all those teams. We have lunch whenever we can and we keep track of one another. And of course, I was very fortunate to have been coached not only by [Margenthaler], but by Jim Wilson, our JV coach, and Bob Alpert when I was at Peru Washington.

“They taught us to work hard, play as a team, to live life to the fullest and to love one another. And 50 years later, that bond is still strong, as we can see by everyone attending tonight.”

Novak, who went on to star for the University of Notre Dame team that broke UCLA’s record 88-game winning streak before a successful career in medicine, echoed those sentiments.

“It’s really tremendous to see everybody again,” Novak said. “We’ve kept in touch, but this is the first time we’ve gathered like this, and it’s been fun. In some ways, some have not changed much. They’re still the same good people who are honest, forthright and great teammates.

“We were fortunate to have such a close-knit team and to have Coach. He’s tremendous, an inspiration and like a father figure to so many of us.”