Three coaches enter Geneva Hall of Fame

It was only fitting that the Geneva Vikings pulled off a surprising upset of first-place Elgin on Saturday night during Geneva’s 11th annual Hall of Fame induction night.

Three coaches were inducted this year, one of them a basketball coach who engineered one of the biggest upsets in Geneva hoops history.

John Barton, the boys’ basketball coach from 1980 to 1989, was inducted along with Julie Koivula, a girls’ tennis and golf coach from 1972 to 2004, and Jerry Vitton, a successful assistant football and track coach who guided Geneva pole vaulters to record-breaking performances.

Barton’s legacy was cemented in his first season when the 1981 Geneva Vikings ran to a 22-7 record, beat Batavia for the first time in a decade and sent shock waves throughout the Fox Valley by beating a heavily-favored East Aurora team 74-70 on its home floor with a stirring second-half comeback in a state tournament sectional battle.

“I had a bunch of really good kids and I was very fortunate to have them,” Barton said of his teams.

Barton said his team that won the regional the year after the stunning East Aurora victory was also a solid club.

“I can’t really identify any one kid who really stands out,” Barton said. “They all played hard and they were all good kids, and it was really one of the things I loved about coaching.”

Barton also served as a defensive assistant for football coach Jerry Auchstetter during a five-year run in which the teams compiled a 35-4 record.

His basketball teams won two Little Seven titles, five regional titles and the sectional semifinal win over East Aurora.

Koivula was in the forefront of girls’ athletics at Geneva because she helped begin the process of having more teams compete in the IHSA when Title IX legislation ruled that all sports offerings should be equal for boys and girls.

When girls’ sports expanded, Koivula went on to coach girls tennis teams to 12 conference titles and eight sectional championships, while also having three top-four finishers in the state tournament.

“I think the girls wanted to be athletes, and we did do sports, but it was limited by the state as to how many games you could play in club sports,” Koivula said about the situation prior to Title IX.

“I think the girls were really ready to get out there and compete at the state level and it was fun,” Koivula added. “I remember a bunch of women who were coaches in the Little Seven came to my house and we wrote up the constitution (for IHSA competition) and that was a lot of fun.”

Inductee master of ceremonies Kurt Wehrmeister said that Jerry Vitton had the task of training pole vaulters “in a highly specialized and technical event.”

Vitton did his task well, coaching Sarah Landau to two consecutive state titles with a state record vault of 13-3, which still stands today.

He also coached Mark Schick to a boys’ pole vault record of 13-6, which stood for 22 years, and also coached Allie Pace to a state title in 2010.

In addition to his track prowess, Vitton also served as an assistant football coach for 25 years.