CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The son of former Illinois assistant basketball coach Wayne McClain says his father suffered from lung cancer. It was an illness the family knew nothing of until the coach was hospitalized.
Sergio McClain told the News-Gazette in Champaign his father, who died Wednesday at 59, authored a daily blog on his cellphone. It was from the device the family learned of the lung cancer.
McClain was an assistant coach at Illinois from 2002 through 2012.
McClain made his reputation as a coach at Peoria Manual High School. He won state titles there in his first three seasons in the mid-1990s.
McClain returned to Champaign-Urbana in the spring of 2013 after one season on Bruce Weber's staff at Kansas State. He took take the head coaching position at Champaign Central.