Former St. Louis University basketball coach Charlie Spoonhour has been diagnosed with a lung disease and was approved Tuesday to go on a transplant list at Duke Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

He will remain at Duke Medical Center until a matching donor can be found.

Spoonhour could not be reached to comment and is said to be able to speak only a few moments at a time, but in a June interview with the Post-Dispatch he casually let on that he had been having some trouble with breathing and coughing.

With his customary playfulness, he added, "I'm trying to quit that. Not the breathing, the coughing."

His illness kicked in with force in July, according to Missouri Valley Conference associate commissioner Jack Watkins, and has been identified as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

The condition is defined on the Mayo Clinic website as 'scarring or thickening of the lungs without a known cause."

According to Watkins, Spoonhour's path to Duke Medical was cleared with the help of West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, a longtime friend of Spoonhour's who called Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski for help.

Spoonhour visited Durham in July and initially was given medicine that proved ineffective, Watkins said.

Spoonhour retired from SLU in 1999 after going 122-90 in seven seasons and leading the Billikens to three of the six NCAA Tournament appearances they've ever made.

Before that, Spoonhour was 197-81 in nine seasons at what is now Missouri State, where his Bears qualified for five NCAA berths.

He came out of retirement to coach UNLV for three seasons until 2004 and started a second stint broadcasting for the MVC.

"He is so many things to so many people," Watkins said, adding, "He is to me in a lot of ways almost the Will Rogers of college basketball."

Those wishing to send a message to Spoonhour and stay updated on his condition can visit www.caringbridge.org/visit/charliespoonhour.