The former — he just officially left the post a few weeks ago before the current season began to deal with his health issues — St. Louis University basketball, Rick Majerus died. He only 64, but with a body like that “only 64” turns in to “somehow made it to 64” pretty quick.

Majerus amassed a career record of 517-215, taking Ball State, Utah and Saint Louis to the NCAA tournament a total of 11 times and leading the 1998 Utes on an improbable run to the national title game. Along the way, he built a reputation as an Xs-and-Os mastermind, more comfortable turning a group of lightly recruited players into a formidable team than coaching at a “Cindy Crawford program” as he often referred to the North Carolinas and Dukes of the world.

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Deadspin posted a few lovely stories about our big fat basketball coach at St. Louis University, but one just stood out.  Here’s an excerpt (emphasis mine):

“Rick was always a jerk to the managers. Every season he went out of his ways to never learn their names. They were only referred to as ‘manager’. One day, Rick was drawing up a scout in our team room about 2 hours before tipoff. Things were going well, considering he was fully dressed and we hadn’t been referred to as cunts yet. From the white board he started yelling ‘manager, manager, bring a towel over here!’.

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