Coach Iubelt

For my Christmas holiday I spent a week in Alabama at my in-laws-- where it was also cold. On the way back, we stopped by my wife's friends who live in Paducah, Kentucky. George Iubelt spent most of his life at Southern Illinois University and was an assistant coach for SIU when my wife's father was head coach in the 1970s. We had a nice visit with George and his wife, B.J. -- I found his stories fascinating.

First, he is a W.W.II vet; he was a radioman for fifty B-24 missions in 1944-45. Many servicemen died flying these missions. Stationed in Italy, he recounted his first mission where his plane was the only one out the squadron that made it back safely (1 out of 7 planes). He said he was fortunate to be able to get on a good crew. As part of my work I think about how important teams are, but in George's case a good crew meant the difference between living and dying.

As a basketball coach, George lived in an era where coach's did not have the profile (or high salaries) they have today. Yet, he had a tremendous impact on the lives of some of those students. When he was coaching, SIU was able to recruit a lot of black athletes from the South who were still not always welcome by the large southern universities. He and my wife's dad recurited many a player from Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi -- some became pros such as Walt Frazier, Mike Glen, and Joe C. Merriwether (all from the South).

At times when players were disciplined, George could hold their meal card from them. He found out years later when one of the players named George's wife as the most important person at the University, B.J. was undermining her own husband's discipline by providing these same players a meal. In fact, George worried that some of the kindness shown these players might show up as an NCAA violation. Coaches like George changed people's lives.

George was a little down in the back when we visited and both of them are feeling the effects of age. But they were delightful hosts and it might have been the best hour I spent all vacation.