Not even cancer can stop Bill Koch, Father Judge’s 76-year-old basketball coach

Bill Koch was in a hospital bed for 10 days, imagining this to be how his coaching career would finally end. A doctor sent him immediately to Fox Chase Cancer Center in the fall of 2019 after an annual colonoscopy. Koch had colon cancer. They operated on Koch the next day, stitched his stomach, and left him planning for rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.

Koch (pronounced “Coke”) has been an assistant on Father Judge’s basketball staff since 1979 and has helped the football team even longer. He worked at Judge for more than 30 years as a nonteaching assistant, doing everything from monitoring the lunch periods and substitute teaching to helping kids find a college.

And the 76-year-old is still at the all-boys school in Holmesburg nearly every day, washing the basketball uniforms and making sure everything is just right before another practice begins.

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Koch graduated from Judge in 1967, grew up near Holme Circle, and still lives in the Northeast. He helps the football team in the fall and the basketball squad in the winter. Koch was there Sunday when Judge won a second straight Catholic League boys’ title, sitting on the bench as an assistant coach just like he has for the past 47 years.

But for 10 days, Koch wondered whether his time on the sideline was up. Then the doctor returned to his room and sent him home. No chemo. No radiation. It was rare, the doctor told Koch, but the cancer was gone.

“I almost got stopped,” Koch said.

Judge’s mascot is the Crusader, but it can be argued that the school’s symbol is Mr. Koch.

“He’s a lifer,” said basketball coach Chris Roantree. “People associate Mr. Koch with Father Judge and Father Judge with Mr. Koch. He’s been a part of Father Judge for 50-plus years. He’s the ultimate Judge Guy in my eyes in terms of everything he’s done for kids.”

Koch didn’t play football at Judge, but he did know how to tape ankles, which was enough for football coach John “Whitey” Sullivan to ask Koch in 1974 to coach the freshman team. Five years later, Bill Fox — often Koch’s teammate in two-on-two at Pollock Playground — added him to the basketball staff.

Koch coached JV hoops for 30 seasons, won 606 games, and never thought about going elsewhere. A basketball program usually changes JV coaches every few years, but not Judge.

Fox, who died of ALS in 2021, once told the Daily News that Koch “bleeds Father Judge blue.” Koch worked basketball camps every summer with the top college coaches and had chances to be an assistant somewhere. He was at home on Solly Avenue.

“I was happy,” Koch said.

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Judge had more than 3,000 boys when Koch was a student — “If you turned the wrong way, you got bounced,” he said — so there wasn’t any room on the basketball team for a 5-foot-11 kid.

“What are you going to do? I thought I was going to make it,” Koch said.

He hit a growth spurt in college and played on a team at St. Francis in Loretto, Pa., with future NBA players Kevin Porter and Norm Van Lier. He played in the summer with guys from La Salle and St. Joseph’s and said his 50 points at Pollock are still a playground record. He worked after college as a machinist and a roofer before going to work at Judge. He has never left.

“I gave up all the other jobs and I was making good money back then,” Koch said. “But this is something I love. Some people think I’m crazy, but hey, you can’t look back.”

Judge’s basketball team was in San Diego last season when someone stopped the coaches. The man said he was a graduate and then asked to see Koch.

“We always run into someone who says, ‘Where’s Mr. Koch?’” said Jim Reeves, one of the team’s assistants. “The list is endless of people he knows.”

Reeves played a season of JV ball for Mr. Koch, who called the big man “Crazy George” — a reference to an old basketball trickster — every time Reeves grabbed a rebound and started dribbling. Koch kept things loose, let his players play, and made sure they hustled.

“My big thing is it doesn’t take talent to hustle,” Koch said. “So my kids hustle.”

Koch coached Roantree in the 1990s and helped him land a football scholarship to Lycoming College. So of course, Roantree planned to keep Koch as an assistant in 2021 when he took over the program. But Roantree didn’t really have a choice.

“I just show up,” Koch said.

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Koch keeps stats during games, logs the minutes each player plays, oversees the student managers, and makes sure the practice uniforms are ready. He does the things people often don’t see, Reeves said.

The players — some of whom are more than 60 years younger than Koch — call him “Pop Pop” and develop secret handshakes with him. They put him on TikTok earlier this season and sit with him before practice at the scorer’s table.

“He might not be showing them how to do a drop step, but it’s about the relationships that he forms,” Reeves said. “People couldn’t believe that Chris kept Mr. Koch on. It’s like, ‘Why wouldn’t we leave Mr. Koch on?’ You can see the bond he creates. It gives you a past and present. It bridges the gap from the old Judge to the new Judge.”

Koch said the only time he gets in trouble is if he messes up the clock during practice.

“I think sometimes he dozes off when he’s doing the clock,” Roantree said. “He still does a lot for the program. He’s there every day.”

Judge once relied solely on nearby parishes like St. Matthew’s, St. Timothy’s, and St. Jerome’s for enrollment. The basketball team was a bunch of kids from Northeast neighborhoods. But that’s no longer the case as students can now come to Judge from anywhere. Some basketball players, Roantree said, leave their home at 6:30 a.m. to get to school.

The roster isn’t constructed the same way it was in 1998 when Roantree, Reeves, and current assistant Brian Bond won it all.

But they played Sunday against Neumann Goretti in the Catholic League final like a bunch of hard-nosed kids from Mayfair. They hustled after loose balls, grabbed offensive rebounds, and did the little things to hold on to a lead down the stretch. The Crusaders, who play Saturday against Public League champ Imhotep for the city title, are still a team of Judge Guys. And maybe that’s because they have a coaching staff full of former players and a lifer on the bench.

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“A lot of the kids we have, it’s almost like their parents would fit in in Northeast Philly because that’s what they are,” Reeves said. “They are from out of the neighborhood, but they have that same mentality.”

Koch eventually got out of his hospital bed during his 10-day stay, walked around Fox Chase Cancer Center, bumped into people he knew, and stopped in the chapel.

“There were people a lot worse off than I was,” Koch said. “I was grateful that I didn’t have to go through what other people have to go through. I’m thankful. I guess a lot of people said prayers for me.”

The doctor told him to return every six months for the next five years to make sure he was cancer free. Five years later, Koch was good. Ring the bell, the doc said.

“But they didn’t have a bell where his office was,” Koch said. “So it was make believe.”

He climbed a ladder on Sunday at the Palestra after Judge — the school he has devoted his life to — won it all. It may have felt like make-believe as Judge won one game in the season before Roantree was hired and went 27 years without a title before winning the last two. But this was real.

The Judge Guy cut down a piece of the net as the other Judge Guys cheered. He’s not done yet.

“Hopefully a few more years left,” Koch said.