Feutz is one name - and one person - we should never forget

It is nice to know names placed on high school fields, gyms and events are usually earned by someone's well-spent time and energy rather than money.

But as time goes on, fewer and fewer people really know what's behind the name on a sign or event program.

"We used to joke a few times at games," said retired Conant football coach Dave Pendergast with a laugh of Charlie Feutz, "that we wonder how many of the kids know this guy standing next to us is the guy they named the field after.

"He was surely deserving to have the field named after him (in 1994)."

As well as Conant's early-season wrestling tournament. And certainly deserving of his 2004 induction into Palatine's Hall of Fame.

They were all fitting tributes to the dedication to high school athletes for more than three decades by Charlie Feutz, who passed away Sunday at age 87.

"He was one of the great ones," said retired Conant boys track and field coach Ron Gummerson.

Feutz spent more than 40 years in teaching and coaching. He joined District 211 at Palatine in 1952 as an English and reading teacher and a coach in football, wrestling and track and field.

He was Palatine's head football coach from 1953-62 and his teams only had three losing seasons. Amazingly, he never suffered a defeat in four years of varsity football at Oak Park-River Forest and was an all-state tailback as a senior in 1939.

And he became the first athletic director at Conant in the fall of 1964 and held the position until he retired in the spring of 1985.

"He was a very easygoing guy and wanted to see everybody succeed," Pendergast said.

Everybody is no understatement.

Current Conant girls track head coach Bob Borczak recalled running in a sophomore track meet for the school. Out of the then-cornfields around Glenbard North appeared Feutz to watch what was happening.

"I think everyone of my group that went through high school, he knew everybody and could talk to them in the hallways," said Borczak, who graduated from Conant in 1975. "He would ask how the meet went, how the game went and how the match went and he could talk to them about it."

In a calm demeanor that rubbed off on his coaches.

"He was always really supportive and I may have seen him upset only once in all the years I knew him," said Pendergast, who went with former Conant head football coach John Ayres and Joe Petricca to visit Feutz about a week ago. "He was a very easygoing guy and he wanted to see everybody succeed.

"He led by example with the way he approached things and wanted to get things done and he didn't have to rile people up to do it. Everybody worked hard for him because they knew he was a great guy."

Feutz, who coached two-time state shot put champion Andy Merutka at Palatine (1961-62), continued to work the state track meets as an official well after retirement with former Palatine colleagues Chic Anderson and Dick Welty.

Gummerson recalled the year the Palatine Relays were moved to Conant because of the construction of the new Palatine school building. The day before the meet, Feutz was out repainting all the lines on the track.

"He was that kind of guy who would do anything for you," Gummerson said. "His office was always a gathering place and he was always there for everybody."

Feutz's influence went beyond the athletic fields as well. He established the developmental reading program at Palatine and is credited with being instrumental in starting the first District 211 reading laboratory.

"He was so dedicated to everything," Gummerson said.

Visitation for Feutz will be from 4 p.m. until the time of the service at 8 p.m. today at Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral and Cremation Services, 330 W. Golf Road in Schaumburg. Interment will be at 11 a.m. Thursday in Bluff City Cemetery in Elgin.

"That's a loss," Pendergast said. "A great guy."

The sign on Conant's athletic field is just one lasting tribute to what Charlie Feutz accomplished during his time there and at Palatine.

mmaciaszek@dailyherald.com