Kathleen Beilein- Michigan Wolverines John Beilein’s Wife

Joe Beilein (whose wife is Kathleen Beilein) was pleased for the chat. His wife’s elderly father is sick in a Chicago rest home, and Joe was in the midpoint Monday of spending long hours in a waiting room, where you walk the floor and look out windows and do your best.

On Saturday, Jim Boeheim and his brother will have a match. Joe said his brother speaks with admiration of how Boeheim quietly provided recommendations that helped John break into the upper rank of national coaches.

So far those bonds are unrelated once the ball is on the court, particularly if you know John’s maternal family.

Joe Beilein is a management consultant in St. Louis. Their dad, Art Beilein, was a plant superintendent at a paper mill in Tonawanda and ran a little apple farm in Niagara County, where three Beilein brothers – Joe, John and Tom – shared a room and grew up shooting baskets on a dirt court in the back yard.

Joe said his mother was brutally aggressive. When John was coaching at Canisius, she’d go into the basement, turn the game on the radio and then wander the cement floors, worrying, fuming and venting to the walls.

The Michigan Wolverines established Tommy Niland as a forecaster.

Joe Beilein has no doubt that his brother, in the middle of the festivity, thought about Tommy. They saw him with a sort of intimidated fear as children, when they did what the Beilein and Niland children called the “prisoner exchange” – going to each other’s homes for a week or two every summer. Tommy had a curt and terrifying exterior, and it was only slowly that the nephews and nieces came to be grateful for the source of his touching shield:

Tommy grew up near Buffalo, in Tonawanda. He lived a block away from an aunt and uncle whose children were as close to him as siblings. During World War II, Tommy was part of the D-Day invasion, as were three of those cousins – Fritz, Preston and Bob Niland.

Bob and Preston died in Normandy. Another cousin, Edward, was shot down and imprisoned in the Pacific. The Army, fearing the defeat of a fourth brother, pulled Fritz from the battleground in France and sent him home.

Then he growled to his nephew:

Or maybe you could do what I used to do. Maybe you could run your offense with two guards.

Over the years, John turned the idea into a discipline. It is now a subject of study at national coaching clinics.

MacDonald said to Joe,

You’ve got to understand.He wants to win a national championship. He’s got to go someplace where he’ll have a chance to win the whole thing.

In Atlanta, John will be in two games of that objective. If you’re watching ESPN this week, and you see a smiling and gracious envoy speaking on behalf of Michigan, you’ll be right in identifying that coach as John Beilein.

Still, make no error about who’ll be at courtside Saturday for the Wolverines: For Syracuse to make it to the title game, the Orange will require to find a way to beat a Niland.

How did Kathleen and John meet?

Kat has been his wife for almost 35 years. Together, John and Kathleen have four children: daughter Seana and sons Patrick, Mark and Andrew. Patrick has gone on to serve up as the Director of Basketball Operations at Bradley University. Paradoxically, Bradley came to Ann Arbor to play Michigan where Patrick had formerly served as a graduate assistant on his father’s staff for two years. While some might think that the rooting interest would be a disagreement for Kathleen, rest assured it isn’t: