The Illinois Basketball Coaching Legend Gene Pingatore Divorced Mary Beth Kurtz And Was With Jill Oakley Prior To His Demise At Age 82 In 2019

December 31, 2026

This article was last updated by Pranaya Poudel on December 31, 2026

The winningest coach in Illinois high school basketball history, Gene Pingatore, often kept his wife and personal life out of the public eye. It was only after his demise that fans knew about his divorce from his first wife, Mary Beth Kurtz.

Fondly called Ping by those around him, Gene’s basketball coaching career began and ended with the St. Joseph High School basketball team.

Born and raised in Cicero, Illinois, Gene played four years of college basketball at Loyola Marymount University.

He joined the St. Joseph High School basketball team in 1960 as an assistant coach. He fulfilled the role for eight years before becoming their head coach.

St. Joes' Gene Pingatore (b 1935-d 2019) has the most wins of a varsity H.S. basketball coach in 1,035. His first season he was 3-13, the school was just 10 years old.

Two state 🏆 & 6 total final 4 appearances later he's a legend.

Champions aren't born over night.

— Vincent Johnson (@VincentDJohnson)

In his 50-year-long career, Pingatore won 1035 games and 13 sectional titles. He had six top-four state finishes and two state championships.

Pingatore coached three McDonald’s All-Americans: , Daryl Thomas, and Deryl Cunningham. Gene achieved his 1000th win in 2017 and became the 15th boys coach in the States to have quadruple-digit victories.

The basketball coach died on June 26, 2019, at his home in Westchester, Illinois. St. Joseph High School announced his demise, but no cause was mentioned.

Gene Pingatore And Mary Beth Kurtz Were Divorced For A Long Time

Gene and Mary Beth’s divorce wasn’t known before his demise in 2019.

shared this information in an article covering Gene’s basketball coaching journey.

Despite their divorce, Mary uses her former husband’s last name on social media handles.

On her , Mary has shared that she graduated from Loyola University Chicago and is happily retired.

With both of them hailing from Chicago, there’s a good chance Mary and Gene met after college when Gene began his coaching job.

Gene and Mary have one daughter named Lisa Pingatore Crispo.

Lisa is available on and has mostly shared pictures of her three kids- Erin, Kelli, and Jack. Her profile picture is that of her and her late father.

Despite their divorce, it looks like Mary decided to enjoy her single life and spend time with her siblings’ families.

Gene’s fiance, Jill Oakley, is also on the photo-sharing platform.

She lives in Lombard, Illinois, and is a graduate of Northern Illinois University.

Jill isn’t very active on the platform, and the was a decade ago.

Pingatore Was Left Irritated With How They Portrayed Him In The 1994 Documentary “Hoop Dreams”

The Illinois basketball coach Pingatore achieved national fame with the documentary Hoop Dreams, released in 1994.

The documentary followed two Chicago-born teenagers, Williams Gates and Arthur Agee, for four years.

Pingatore coached Gates at St. Joseph and Agee, who began playing at St. Joseph but transferred to Marshall Metropolitan after his parents failed to pay his tuition fees.

The basketball coach was upset that the documentary made him and the school look like they didn’t help Agee because he was less talented than Gates.

, Pingatore said,

In the beginning it was sort of fun. But then it came pain in the neck. Every time you turned around, they wanted to be on the bus, they wanted to be in the locker room. And the last year, I shut it down and didn’t want to do it.

via:

Before the documentary was released, Pingatore and St. Joseph sued the producers in Cook County Circuit Court.

On the day the lawsuit was filed, Charles Lynch, the school’s president, said the documentary only showed negative images of Pingatore, which felt untrue for the man he is.

The suit was settled months later when the producers established academic scholarships at St. Joseph and Marshall.

In Case You Didn’t Know

After hearing about Pingatore’s death, Isaiah Thomas tweeted, “I always told you, you saved my life.”
In 2018, Pingatore won the Basketball Hall of Fame Morgan Wootten Award for lifetime achievement.

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Sriyukta Pradhananga is a versatile writer with a keen interest in exploring the multifaceted dimensions of sports. Her articles offer readers a dynamic blend of insightful analysis, engaging storytelling, and thought-provoking commentary that sheds light on the diverse experiences within the athletic realm.

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