Sports Poets Society

https://vault.si.com/vault/1979/03/26/out-west-depaul-had-a-ball JOE JARES Sports Illustrated -  MARCH 26, 1979 TABLE OF CONTENTS ORIGINAL LAYOUT For the first time since World War II, DePaul is in the final four of the NCAA tournament, and as if a wait of 36 years wasn't enough, the Blue Demons found their road to Salt Lake City to be the most rugged traveled by any of the four teams that will compete there. Because of the vagaries of the tournament selection process, they had to travel far from their Chicago home to play in Provo, Utah . They had to get by UCLA, not only the best shooting team (.555) in college basketball history , but also a team that had beaten them by 23 points in November. And, in an era when most good college teams use platoons of substitutes, they had to rely on only five men. DePaul's bench, you see, consists of seven fellows whose toughest chore seems to be standing up during time-outs so that the members of the Fatigued Five can take a seat . The su...

https://depaulbluedemons.com/news/2013/9/30/DePaul_Legend_Aguirre_Inducted_into_Chicagoland_Sports_Hall_of_Fame Sept. 30, 2013 CICERO, Ill. - Mark Aguirre's storybook life took an unusual twist the summer before his senior year at Westinghouse High School. One of the most sought-after basketball players in the country made his way from the West Side to a tiny town called Three Lakes in Wisconsin for a summer basketball camp run by legendary DePaul coach Ray Meyer. "One day, I heard about a bunch of kids tearing up a cabin," said Aguirre, the greatest player in DePaul history who was recently inducted into the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame. "This elderly gentleman came into my cabin and said he was looking for Mark Aguirre. He said: 'I heard you were part of the group that tore up the cabin.' "He pulled me out of my cabin and said I was on garbage detail for the rest of the camp session . I was one of the top high school basketball players in the countr...

Mark Aguirre and coach Ray Meyer teamed to pro­duce some  of the great­est sea­sons in DePaul Blue Demons his­tory. | SUN-TIMES STEVE GREEN­BERG @ SLGreen­berg CHICAGO SUN-TIMES - 16 dic 2016 Mark Aguirre doesn’t of­ten find him­self lost in thought about the buck­ets he got in bunches with the Dal­las Mav­er­icks or the cham­pi­onships he won late in his ca­reer with the Detroit Pis­tons. NBA life was good — damn good — to Aguirre for about a decade and a half in the 1980s and early ’ 90s. Yet, in some ways, it never could top the ex­pe­ri­ences he’d had as a light­ning rod of Chicago basket­ball. At West­ing­house, Aguirre was a Pub­lic League cham­pion and a McDon­ald’s All- Amer­i­can. At DePaul, he led a charge to the 1979 Fi­nal Four and be­came the na­tional player of the year and, even­tu­ally, a No. 1 over­all draft pick. It’s not un­usual for Aguirre, now 57, to close his eyes and be­come trans­ported nearly 40 years back in time. “That’s when bas­ket­ball was, for me, a...

https://depauliaonline.com/6892/sports/depaul-legend-mark-aguirre-among-the-greats/ Matthew Paras , Editor in Chief  The Depaulia | September 21, 2013 DePaul legend Mark Aguirre experienced a lot throughout his basketball career. During his three seasons at DePaul, the Blue Demons were the best they have ever been . Aguirre led the team to its only Final Four appearance in 1979 and won the James Naismith Award in 1980 as the nation’s best player. Aguirre was a star, averaging 24.5 points per game. His college success eventually followed him to the NBA. In 1981, the Dallas Mavericks selected Aguirre as the first pick in the draft and he played for them for eight seasons. When he was traded to the Pistons in 1988, Aguirre played a key role with the Detroit team. His spark off the bench helped the Pistons to two championships. Now, Aguirre has earned yet another accomplishment in his illustrious basketball journey. Aguirre was inducted to the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame Wednesday...