Memories of a true basketball legend and friend Bob Luksta

The late Bob Luksta (center) at his home in March, 2019, with me (left) and Mary Costello (right)

We lost Bob Luksta today at the tender age of 92. I spoke with Bob about two weeks ago and he said to me that he thought he had only had two weeks to live. Sure enough, almost two weeks to the day, he passed away. But it was without question a life well lived, one that will certainly live on, with all the memories that were created from Bob’s incredible and historic existence on this great planet.

Because the stories that just flowed out of the mouth of Luksta were like you were listening to a living basketball encyclopedia.

One story after another about the old days of basketball just kept you captivated. You heard the names of royalty that Luksta would utter and listen even more intently. Luksta said the names, the litany of greats, and you just wanted to soak it all in, like you were savoring a glass of fine wine or a good port.

You heard stories of Luksta playing with and against George Mikan at DePaul in the 1940s, before Mikan became the first great big man in the NBA.  Luksta was both a teammate and a coach with the Hall of Famer at DePaui.

You listened to the sweet sounds of Luksta playing for the New York Celtics, a team that was the forerunner for the old Washington Generals that locked horns nightly with the Harlem Globetrotters in games all across Europe that Luksta swore were more competitive than the games of entertainment that the ‘Trotters were a part of later on.

Luksta played against legends like Nathaniel “Sweetwater” Clifton and Marques Haynes of the Globetrotters and told tales of traveling all through Europe. Luksta became an assistant coach at DePaul, working with the legendary Hall of Famer Ray Meyer, a man who Luksta considered to be among his best friends.

In 1968, Luksta then became the head coach at Loyola University in New Orleans, staying at Loyola for four years, but Luksta developed a love for the Crescent City that remained with him forever, calling New Orleans his home away from home.

Luksta’s real home was Cicero in the Chicago suburbs, but if you asked for any tidbit of information about New Orleans, Luksta knew it. He knew the best restaurants – and those places still knew him. He knew the best bars to sit and have healthy conversations, far away from the madness that was Bourbon Street. Mardi Gras, with wild drunken behavior, wasn’t Luksta’s bag. He wanted to tell his tales of meeting other sports legends, other basketball aficionados like himself.

But New Orleans was his town. Long after his coaching career ended and he returned permanently back to the home in Cicero, where he was raised as a child, Luksta lived New Orleans and loved the place like he owned it. He spoke with pride about his love of New Orleans and his love of basketball, the game he played and coached.

It’s that love of basketball that made Luksta a fixture at the NCAA Final Four. As an active member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, Luksta made sure that he attended the annual convention at the Final Four, missing the festivities only a handful of times since 1946.

And it was there were I got to see Luksta every year, going back to my first association in 1999 with a group called Maguire University, perhaps the best basketball institution at the Final Four every year.

In fact, with Maguire University, it’s not called the Final Four. It’s the Final Five – the four participating schools and Maguire.

In case you don’t know the tale of Maguire, it’s an incredible story, almost too amazing for words. In fact, it’s only fitting that Luksta will always be associated with Maguire U, because his life is almost as impressive as how Maguire came to be.

In 1963, a group of men were sitting in a bar in Chicago when they decided they wanted to go see Loyola of Chicago play in the NCAA Final Four. Not knowing how to acquire tickets, they called Loyola, but the people at Loyola told the men that they didn’t have tickets, that they had to call the NCAA in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.

The men had no idea what a Shawnee Mission was.

But they called and said they wanted to attend the NCAA Final Four involving Loyola of Chicago. The person in Shawnee Mission then asked in return, “What college are you from?”

Not knowing that they had to be from a school to get tickets, they quickly said, “Yeah, we’re from a college.”

Considering they were all sitting in an establishment called Maguire’s Pub, they quickly responded, “Maguire University.” They gave the address of the bar as the address of the school. One of the interested ticket buyers was Len Tyrell and he was the “school” chancellor.

Sure enough, the group from Maguire University got four tickets to the Final Four. The next year, the application for tickets arrived at the bar, so they asked for eight tickets – and got eight. The next year, it was 16, then 25, and so on.

Luksta was a fixture at Maguire’s Pub – as were most of the postgame crowds after Blue Demon games – so he went along for the ride, even though he was already going to the Final Four every year with the NABC Convention.

In 1971, the NCAA sent an information form to Maguire’s Pub, asking for the names of important members of the “athletic department” in order to include Maguire University in the annual publication called the NCAA Blue Book: The National Directory of College Athletics.” The Blue Book was published with all the vital info like phone numbers and personnel names.

The information sheet was sent back to Shawnee Mission with the fictional names attached to the address of the bar and the bar’s phone number.

Sure enough, Maguire received phone calls from schools wanting to schedule Maguire for games. The United States Air Force Academy – whose athletic director was St. Peter’s Prep legendary athlete Col. John Clune – wrote to Maguire, wishing to schedule a men’s volleyball match.

The ticket hoax remained intact until Bill Jauss of the Chicago Tribune (a writer who became famous nationally for his weekly appearances on the syndicated TV show called “The Sports Writers”) wrote a column about Maguire, calling it “The Best School That Never Existed.”

The NCAA got wind of Jauss’ column and obviously, the people were not too pleased, considering that at the time in 1973, Maguire received more than 50 tickets for the Final Four games.

So Maguire was permanently banned from the NCAA, never to be accepted again at NCAA sponsored events.

But that didn’t stop Maguire University from existing. People still signed up to go to the Final Four with Maguire, even if they didn’t have tickets to the games. It became a weekend of festivities, complete with a hospitality suite that would remain open until all hours of the night. Alcohol imbibing became one of Maguire’s courses of study. So did intoxication and the effects of alcohol on the brain. Some of the graduate studies included those topics.

Just like other colleges, there were Maguire accessories – T-shirts, hats, buttons, stickers, you name it. You didn’t have to travel far at the Final Four without some sort of Maguire memorabilia as a reminder. Some Maguire reminders ended up in the urinals of the sites of the Final Four.

Needless to say, Maguire University, albeit fictional, became a fun fixture at the Final Four, with Luksta always omnipresent at the Maguire hospitality suite.

In 1999 in Tampa, I was introduced to several members from Maguire University at an outdoor bar. Mary Costello and I stayed with the Maguire group for hours on end that day. They were indeed fun to be around.

We ran into the Maguire group again in 2006 in Indianapolis and had more laughs and fun. That was the encouragement needed to enroll as full-time students at Maguire.  And every year, there was Luksta, offering yet another story, giving us all another history lesson. If Basketball History 101 was a class at Maguire, then Bob Luksta was our professor.

The late Bob Luksta (left) with me and Maguire University chancellor Art Duffy (right)

Mary and I are now graduates of Maguire, I received my degree in toxicology and inebriation. We are both proud members of the Maguire Hall of Fame. We also encouraged other New Jersey residents to enroll at Maguire and they now have a great time with the rest of Maguire’s illustrious students and graduates.

Because of Maguire, we both became close friends with Bob Luksta. I attached myself to Bob because of his love of basketball and his countless stories of the game. Mary became very close to Bob because of his love and knowledge of New Orleans. In fact, on one occasion, Mary spent time with Bob in New Orleans, scouting out possible hotel locations for Maguire’s upcoming stays in New Orleans.

Luksta’s health didn’t allow him to attend the last few Final Fours. Last year, when we were en route by car to the Final Four in Minneapolis, we stopped in Cicero to spend the afternoon with the man we affectionately referred to as “Coach.” We stayed with Coach for about three hours and sure enough, he was right away telling tales of his long career, pulling out artifacts from his personal museum, like a banner he received for playing against the Globetrotters in the Far East and a portrait of himself that was drawn when he was coaching at Loyola University in New Orleans.

At 92, he was still lucid and talkative two weeks ago, talking about some of the great players he watched this season. We spoke about how depressing it was that there was no Final Four this year, that none of us Maguire folks made the trip to Atlanta that we were all looking forward to.

But Luksta said that he was battling sores on his backside and he was convinced the sores were cancerous.

“I’ll be gone within the next two weeks, Jimmy,” he said to me.

“Coach, don’t be silly,” I said. “I’ll talk to you in a couple weeks.”

But that call didn’t happen. The historian was right once again. He knew his time was up. There was no need for another five minutes on the clock and for overtime to be played. Bob Luksta’s game was over. His time on this earth was done. He lived a great life.

Although Bob didn’t have a wife or any children, he did have a nephew who cared for him. He had friends in Cicero, like his good friend Jim O’Connell, who I hope reads this piece. He had his caretakers who lived with him and took very good care of him.

The rest of us weren’t just his friends. We were his students. We were his players. Until the very end, Bob Luksta continued to coach us and teach us. He nurtured us and procured us. And now, it’s up to us to live on, to take what we learned and spread it with others.

I’ll miss the phone calls and the trips down memory lane, the journeys to days of yesteryear and images of smoky dimly lit gymnasiums of the 50s and 60s. I have my friend Bob Luksta to thank for that. Rest in peace, Coach.