A wise man, lamenting what passes for progress now, once said of an institution, “they ran out all the poets and brought in all the salesmen.”

Ah, but William Albert Reagan remained a poet till the day he left us last month at 84.

In Bill Reagan’s universe, the best ideas were found scribbled on cocktail napkins, not spreadsheets; in bars, not seminars; with chalk and not a Sharpie.

“In Ireland,” Reagan’s longtime friend Rich Conover was saying the other day, “Bill is a basketball legend. If they had a Hall of Fame they’d have a room with all the napkins and matchbook covers with all his diagrams.”

Or this from Bill Cardarelli, who succeeded him at St. Thomas Aquinas, the estimable old Catholic high school in New Britain: “I was working a camp in Ireland when Bill was there. One day, I asked him, ‘Hey Bill, I got this really good kid, what should we run?’ Bill came out with his napkins. A master. Could do it on the fly. He changed Irish basketball.”

Reagan, who died Aug. 24, owned a basketball resume longer than Manute Bol. What began as a player at New London High (class of ’56 with Conover) ended at Coast Guard Academy as an assistant to women’s basketball coach Alex Ivansheck, a disciple of Reagan’s from her AAU days.

And from ’56 to ’22? A long journey with no particular destination, except living life in the moment on a voyage of self-discovery.

The two-minute drill version: Bill Reagan coached three times at East Lyme High, the boys twice (1970-72, 86-89) and the girls (2009-13). He won three state titles at Aquinas, coaching “Rocket” Rod Foster, the future UCLA Bruin and NBA player. He coached the boys’ and girls’ teams in the same season (1981) at Old Saybrook. He coached girls’ basketball at Montville, Wheeler and Morgan. A men’s basketball assistant at Conn College.

Bill Reagan spent nine years with the national women’s basketball teams of Finland and Ireland as their National Coaching Officer, Director of the National Coaching Camp, the National Coach of the Ireland Women’s Team (1993-96), the St. Paul’s Revelles men’s team in Killarney and the head women’s coach at Puhuttaret Vantaa of Helsinki.

He won more than 450 games as a state high school coach and was enshrined into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.

And yet he remained singularly unimpressed with himself, what with a penchant for a matchbook cover and a pencil and his modest cottage in Ireland with its thatched roof.

“With Bill,” Conover said, “there were three important things in life: basketball, fast food and the dollar store.”

Basketball, notably, was listed first.

“I’ve known him since I was 13,” Ivansheck said, alluding to her AAU days. “One of the really special things about him was the connection he made with players. He didn’t forget names. Even when he went to Ireland, he would send me postcards when I was in college. I lost my dad when I was 16. When I was in college playing, knowing someone was following me was really important.”

Ivansheck learned well from her mentor. She never forgot him, either.

“His last few days in the hospital were pretty rough,” she said. “He wouldn’t remember certain things, but — and this was amazing — he’d bring up players that graduated years ago. It made me feel good that even in his last few days, he still had some good memories of Coast Guard.”

Reagan was usually awash in Irish music, changing defenses and subtle offensive wrinkles, not necessarily in that order.

“We worked a camp once and the coaches would gather at the end of the day,” Conover said. “Guys would get up with the marker on the big board and start talking about various subjects. I remember Brian Hill, who was coaching the Orlando Magic at the time, just finished when it was Bill’s turn. He was just a basketball junkie, drawing his diagrams. He's up there at the board, pauses, turns to us and says, ‘I love this (stuff).’ We all laughed.”

Reagan, in the Navy during the Suez Canal crisis later in ’56, didn’t have many contemporaries left, save Conover, who goes way back-back-back, as Chris Berman might say. All the way to Little League.

“Bill hit his only home run off me early in one of the games. The only homer I gave up all season,” Conover said. “But in the fourth inning, it started pouring rain and the game got postponed, along with the home run. He never forgot that.”

Perhaps Ireland and Finland were Reagan’s greatest coaching contributions, although his seven years at Aquinas would get votes. Aquinas was the small Catholic school with the big basketball resume that closed in 1999. But not before what Reagan helped build turned into a monster at which Cardarelli won four state titles, navigating the old All-Connecticut Conference against St. Joseph (Vito Montelli), South Catholic (Joe Reilly), Notre Dame (Gary Palladino) and St. Bernard (Rich Pagliuca) among others.

“I started as Bill’s freshman coach in ’73,” Cardarelli said. “In two years, I learned so much. Bill was a terrific coach. An unbelievable innovator who understood kids. Taking over for him was hard because he was so well-respected. He was a legend.”

A memorial service is planned for November. Here’s hoping that whoever reads the eulogy scribbles it on a napkin.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.