Coach "Lenny" Sachs
Leonard Sachs in Chicago Cardinals Uniform
Credit: Loyola University Chicago Archives & Special Collections
Leonard "Lenny" Sachs was a legend in Chicago sports during the 1920s and 1930s. While primarily known as the head coach of Loyola University's basketball team during this period, Sachs also coached Loyola Academy's football, basketball, and track and field teams. Under his leadership, Academy teams won nine championships between 1924-1929. Most notably, he coached the Academy's 1933 football team to a championship win with an 8-0-2 season record.
Born in 1897, Lenny Sachs attended Carl Schurz High School in Chicago, where he earned eleven letters. He graduated in 1914 after serving as class president, and he enlisted in the US Navy Reserves during World War I. After the war, he played in the American Professional Football League (renamed National Football League in 1922) for the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) from 1920-1922. From 1919-1921, he coached basketball and football teams at Wendell Phillips High School, a predominantly African-American school on Chicago's south side.
Chicago Cardinals 1920
Lenny Sachs is seated in the bottom right-hand corner of the photograph. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
In 1921, Sachs started coaching Marshall High School while attending the American College of Physical Education. In 1923, Loyola University hired him to coach their basketball team. He also coached Loyola Academy's basketball, football, and track and field teams, winning many championships during his time as coach. In 1923, he played a role in developing the National Catholic Interscholastic Tournament (NCIT), which brought Catholic high school basketball teams from all over America to Chicago to play. Loyola Academy started the NCIT because, at the time, Catholic high schools could not compete in athletic tournaments and association with public schools.
Under coach Sachs, Loyola University's basketball team won 31 games in a row between 1928 and 1930. His 1939 team won 19 games before coming one game short of the national championship. Sachs became known for his zone defense which was incredibly effective because it allowed the larger players to goaltend. This strategy was banned in 1937.
Sadly, coach Sachs died of a massive heart attack on October 27, 1942 at the age of 45. He had returned to the site of his first coaching job, Wendall Phillips High School, to help their football team prepare for an upcoming game when he collapsed on the field. The next day, Jack Brickhouse eulogized Sachs along with former Loyola University All-American athlete Charlie Murphy on WGN radio in Chicago. Brickhouse was most famous for being an announcer for Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox television broadcasts, as well as other Chicago sports games for forty years. Brickhouse and Murphy's broadcast shows how much the Chicago sports world respected and appreciated Lenny Sachs.
Remembering Coach Sachs' impact on Loyola's basketball teams, Charlie Murphy commented, "he not only developed a superb team each year but instilled courage, fighting spirit, and a genuine love for the game into his players."
Sachs was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1961. Loyola Academy later named their Athletic stadium in Wilmette, Illinois, after Coach Sachs.
Austin Sundstrom contributed to the research and narrative of Lenny Sach's life.