It was easy to take Bo Ryan out of Chester; it was a lot harder to take Chester out of the legendary hoops coach.
Ryan, who starred at Chester High back in the '60s, stunned the basketball world last night by announcing his retirement - effective immediately.
Ryan's Wisconsin Badgers team had just posted a 64-49 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Ryan, who announced last summer that this would be his final year at the helm of the Badgers, decided to speed up the process with his perennial powerful team off to a slow start. The Badgers have compiled a 7-5 mark. Big 10 play starts in two weeks.
Ryan always maintained close ties to Delaware County, and in particular his roots in Chester. He was a fixture at many events, and always offered encouragement to those looking to get ahead.
He served as the pinnacle of what can come out of the city.
Last year Ryan led the Badgers to a school-record 36 wins and a huge run in the NCAA Tournament, falling to Duke in the national championship game.
Ryan was the boss of Wisconsin hoops for 15 years, finishing with 364 wins and seven Big Ten basketball titles.
Before that came equally successful stints at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Division III Wisconsin-Platteville, where his teams captured four national titles.
Ryan's glittering career is capped by this staggering stat: His career coaching record stands at 747-233.
He told his players after the game and turned the reins over to assistant Greg Gard.
Ryan had become a very familiar craggy face on the national college hoops scene. He was always a great quote, a great interview, someone who told you exactly what he felt.
Not it's time for us to tell him.
To us you'll always be part of Delco, coach. He was Delco proud. And in particular Chester proud.
They always used to say, "What Chester Makes, Makes Chester."
Bo Ryan was a big part of what made Chester. In particular the legend of Chester basketball.
Bravo, coach!
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