With St. John’s coach gravely ill, his son steps up
Duane Mlachnik has problems. The St. John’s Northwestern coach has been hospitalized with very little in-person contact with his family for almost three months. Physically he is such a shell of himself that his primary assignment in physical therapy has been to learn to walk again. If the timetable for his release remains true, he won’t be home for Christmas.
Yet he feels blessed.
“A lot of the doctors and nurses are quite honestly amazed at where I’m at right now,” he said. “It wasn’t very good. The doctors at Summit (Hospital in Oconomowoc) told (my wife) Kathy I wasn’t going to make it through the night one night and when I got (to St. Luke’s Hospital) the first doctor that saw Kathy told her that they didn’t know how this was going to turn out.”
All things considered, Mlachnik couldn’t ask for more. The 58-year-old is on the (long) road to recovery from a rare form of pneumonia, has felt the
love of his family, friends and players and is experiencing the joy of watching one of his children fill his shoes.
While Duane has been fighting to regain his health, his son, DJ, has taken the reigns of the St. John’s Northwestern boys basketball team.
“I talked to him and told him as much as I want to be there to look at this as a blessing,” Duane said. “You’ve been ready to do this for a couple of years.”
Name the sport and someone from the large Mlachnik clan has excelled at it. A handful of members of the family have been basketball standouts in the area over the years. Dave, Duane’s brother, is the head coach at West Allis Central.
St John’s has long been a special place for Duane, a 1980 grad, and DJ, who finished in 2011 before playing college ball at Division I UMass Lowell. Both were named the school’s most outstanding athlete their senior year and DJ has been an assistant to his father since Duane took over before the 2016-17 season.
Over the years DJ’s role has increased. For the past couple of seasons, he carried the title of associate head coach and was in charge of the team’s offense.
“This would be a lot more difficult if my dad wasn’t pushing me a lot the last couple of years and making me a better coach,” DJ said.
Duane has definitely been grooming his son to become a head coach, but it happened sooner than anyone expected.
Duane’s problems started in September with intense pain in his right leg.
Then there was a cough. He felt so bad he went to the hospital in early October. The initial thinking was that the symptoms were after effects of a bout with COVID-19 Duane experienced in August. Upon a closer look, Duane was diagnosed with Blastomycosis, a rare fungal pneumonia.
Three days after entering the hospital he was induced into a coma and placed on a ventilator. When he came out of the coma not only was it a different month, but he was in a different hospital. Flight for Life took him from Summit to St. Luke’s, which was better equipped to help him.
“If he wasn’t as healthy of a person as he is, his chances of making it probably wouldn’t have been that great,” DJ said.
“But because of how healthy he was going into it, his body holding up and fighting through it has been pretty amazing.”
Duane came out of the coma about a week before the start of practice. By the first day of workouts he was communicating clearly again.
“The first real conversation I had with him he called me on the way to the first day of practice,” DJ said. “To see my phone ring at that time was pretty crazy.”
The two have led a resurgence of Lancer basketball. Taking over a program that had five straight losing seasons, Duane has a 65-31 record in four seasons and led the team to the last two Midwest Classic titles.
Expectations are high again this season. The Lancers return one of the state’s top seniors, 6-foot-6 guard Brandin Podziemski, and one of the state’s top rebounders, senior wing Brennan Timm.
The team is ranked No. 12 in the Journal Sentinel area rankings and No. 2 in the wissports.net Division 3 state coaches poll.
The Lancers were 5-0 this season, 3-0 in the Midwest Classic, entering their showdown with undefeated Lake Country Lutheran on Tuesday night.
“I’m really impressed and am really proud of him,” Duane said. “I kind of got a laugh out of it because my oldest daughter, Erica, called him a mini-me, She said he’s just a younger version of you. His mannerisms are pretty much the same.”
There is no denying Duane’s impact, even now.
From his hospital bed, he watches all the games and practices. Sometimes DJ will Facetime with Duane so he can give the team a few words of encouragement before the game. The two talk before and after games.
There is a chance they’ll get a chance to do that in person at some point this season. While Duane won’t coach this season, there is a chance he could attend some games after he is released from the hospital.
But when it isn’t possible to speak to his father, DJ has a lifetime of experiences with his father to draw from. What would Dad do? DJ has a pretty good idea.
“He’s coached for over 30 years, so he’s gone through so many different things with high school kids that when they’re struggling with something he has the greatest advice,” he said. “Sometimes when I‘m put in those situations I think, what would my dad say right now?”