SAN ANTONIO — Legendary St. Mary's University men's basketball coach Ed Messbarger, one of the formative faces of the storied program, passed away at the age of 81 on Monday in San Angelo, Texas.
A St. Mary's Hall of Famer, Messbarger led the Rattlers to 279 victories over 15 years (1963-1978) as part of an historic 41-year college coaching career that saw him win 630 games and retire No. 3 on the all-time NCAA Division II wins list.
He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Jane, as well as daughters Tisha, Monica and son Eddie along with nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
![St. Mary's coaching legends, from left: Buddy Meyer, Mel Barborak, <dfn><a href=]()
Jim Zeleznak, Ed Messbarger" data-saved-caption="From left: Buddy Meyer, Mel Barborak, Jim Zeleznak, Ed Messbarger" style="" src="/common/controls/image_handler.aspx?thumb_id=15&image_path=/images/2014/6/30/BasketballTraditions.jpg" />From left: Buddy Meyer, Mel Barborak, Jim Zeleznak, Ed Messbarger Rosary will be said at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Johnson's Funeral Home in San Angelo. Funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Holy Angels Catholic Church, also in San Angelo.
Messbarger led St. Mary's to 13 Big State Conference titles, including 12 straight from 1967-1978, and four NAIA District IV championships. His 1964 squad also earned the first NAIA national-tournament appearance in the history of the program, and he bettered that with back-to-back fourth-place finishes at the national tournament in the 1974 and 1975 seasons, the latter of which earned Messbarger NAIA National Coach of the Year honors.
The school totaled four national-tournament appearances under his guidance (1964, 1967, 1974, 1975).
After departing St. Mary's in 1978, Messbarger took over at Angelo State University, racking up 267 more victories en route to becoming the Rams' longest-tenured coach. There, he won two Lone Star Conference titles and earned the league's Coach of the Year honors in 1984 and 1988.
In addition to the St. Mary's Hall of Fame, Messbarger went on to be inducted into numerous other halls of fame, including the Lone Star Conference Hall of Honor, the Angelo State Hall of Honor, the NAIA Hall of Fame and the Northwest Missouri State Hall of Fame.
But according to former star pupil Buddy Meyer, numbers and honors didn't define Messbarger's time in college basketball.
"A lot of people evaluate the X's and O's and the wins and losses," Meyer said, "but you've got to measure the things outside of basketball when you're evaluating the impact of a coach's life. What kind of impact did he have on younger people? He had a great impact on a number of people. He taught a lot of self discipline to a lot of young people."
Most notably on Meyer.
Meyer, the St. Mary's Hall of Famer who replaced Messbarger as St. Mary's head coach in the 1978-1979 season, cut his teeth in the sport under Messbarger. Meyer played his final two years at St. Mary's for Messbarger and later spent 10 years as his mentor's assistant coach.
"I was fortunate enough that Ed gave me an opportunity to come back and be a college coach," Meyer said. "There are a lot of incidental type things you pick up working with somebody for 10 years. I got a lot of my foundation in philosophy and things we were able to carry on through my coaching career.
"He had a big influence on my life."
Messbarger, born July 1, 1932, was raised in St. Joseph, Mo., and graduated from Northwest Missouri State in 1956. After a brief high-school coaching stint, he turned his attention to the college game, taking over the reins at St. Mary's in 1963.
Messbarger led the Rattlers to immediate success, earning the school's first-ever national-tournament bid in his first year at the helm to put the program on the map. One of his most notable coaching efforts came that season, when Messbarger's Rattlers upset No. 3 Grambling — led by future NBA Hall of Famer Willis Reed — in the second round of the 1964 NAIA Tournament.
It paved the way for continued success even after Messbarger departed, as St. Mary's went on to win the 1989 NAIA national championship under Meyer and recently advanced for the first time to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division II tournament under current coach
Jim Zeleznak.
"He was really proud of how the St. Mary's Basketball tradition has been carried out over these last 35 years or so," Zeleznak said.
In addition to coaching Meyer at St. Mary's, Messbarger coached future NBA star Robert Reid and Doug Williams, who still holds the St. Mary's all-time scoring record at 2,246 points some 44 years after his college career ended in 1970.
Messbarger trails only Meyer for all-time wins in St. Mary's history, finishing his Rattler career with a 279-139 (.667) mark. He later posted a 267-286 mark at Angelo State, where he coached from 1978-1998. Prior to coming to St. Mary's, Messbarger held a 60-41 record at Benedictine Heights (1957-1960) and was 24-52 (1960-1963) at the University of Dallas.
Information gathered from AngeloSports.com was used in this release.
