Big hearts lead to big bucks for a good cause
There's a lot on the line in Friday's football game at Montini. Hopefully plenty in the coffers as well.
The game between Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division heavyweights Marmion and the host Broncos is the highlight of Montini's Tackle for the Cure event. Donations collected this week will be contributed to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and the University of Chicago Medical Center, plus some to defray expenses of Montini's own recent construction.
Last year the Lombard high school undertook a similar drive targeting breast cancer, which Montini athletic director Bob Landi said raised $20,000. He hopes despite the economy this year's figure can approach that.
Montini football parents have been selling T-shirts and caps to raise funds, and they'll be there at the football game. The proceeds from certain concession items will be earmarked for donation, and people naturally are welcome to donate to the effort.
“It's pretty neat stuff,” Landi said.
One person with ties both to Montini and St. Jude is retired coach and educator Bob Hoppenstedt. He addressed the football team Wednesday night; a University of Chicago Medical representative met the team before practice.
Hoppenstedt, who taught physical education and coached at Montini, left in 1974 just as Broncos coach Chris Andriano arrived at the school. Andriano has seen to it that over the past several years annual donations are made to St. Jude.
“Chris considers me one of ‘the guys' at Montini and they've treated us really good,” said Hoppenstedt, whose education and coaching career spanned stints at St. Francis, Montini, Bolingbrook, Wheaton Central and Wheaton North.
He says “us” because of an intimate connection: Hoppenstedt's granddaughter, Virginia, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 3. Over the next three years she withstood 150 treatments either in Memphis or at St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, an affiliate. Now 12 and in seventh grade in Mendota, she is cancer-free.
Hoppenstedt noted that when St. Jude opened in 1962 the survival rate of persons with ALL was 4 percent. Due to ongoing research it's increased to 94 percent, one of many St. Jude successes driven by generous benefactors like Andriano.
“He has a really big heart,” Hoppenstedt said. “Because of people like Chris thousands and thousands of people are alive today. They keep the hospital going.”
Welcome home
The Daily Herald's Marty Maciaszek covered Saturday's football game between Minnesota State-Moorhead and Robert Morris College at Morris Field in Arlington Heights. Robert Morris, playing its second game ever and led by Montini graduate Matt Westerkamp at quarterback, lost 28-17.
We asked Marty to report on another of the game's local heroes. He had plenty of nice things to write about former Immaculate Conception quarterback Kevin Koch (pronounced “cook”).
As Koch was mobbed by well-wishers after the game, Maciaszek heard a Minnesota State University-Moorhead coach loudly joke, “Is anybody left in Elmhurst?”
Nearly 60 friends and family members made the short trip to Arlington Heights to see MSUM play its season opener. Koch started his senior year in style by completing 22-of-31 passes for 279 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 28-17 comeback victory.
“I couldn't have been more excited about our first game,” Koch said. “I was so anxious. I was ecstatic about the whole situation.”
The 6-foot-3 left-hander is in his second year at MSUM, an NCAA Division II school located just across the Red River from Fargo, N.D. He spent two seasons at the College of DuPage.
Koch started as a junior at Immaculate Conception but suffered a broken left ankle in his senior season. At COD Koch started two games as a freshman and was the starter his sophomore year before he headed north to MSUM.
“When I couldn't play (at IC), that's what pushed my choice to go to COD so I could get re-recruited,” Koch said. “As much as the ankle injury hurt, it was a blessing in disguise for me.”
On the other side of the field was Westerkamp, who last year led Montini to its second straight Class 5A state title.
Protected by an offensive line that included former high school teammate Mac Robinson, Westerkamp completed 16 of 31 passes for 236 yards and 2 touchdowns, one on the second play of the game. A week prior, in RMU's first football game in school history, Westerkamp went 17-of-38 passing for 207 yards and a touchdown.
“He's going to be a pretty special player,” Robert Morris coach Jared Williamson told our man Marty.
Glenbard West graduate Tyler Warden is a redshirt freshman tight end for Robert Morris, a transfer from Buffalo. In two games the former Hilltoppers quarterback has 7 receptions for 98 yards.
Wings at Their Feet
North Central College's Wings at Their Feet Back to School Supply Drive is in its eighth year. New and used school and classroom supplies are being accepted at the college athletics office in Naperville and also at the Cardinals football game at 6 p.m. Saturday against Bethel College; and the 7 p.m. Sept. 13 volleyball match against Elmhurst College.
The program's creator is Kari Kluckhohn, North Central head women's track coach and an assistant women's cross country coach. She started the project in memory of her son, Samuel, who passed away at full term but before his birth. She first started soliciting supplies from her track team, but the program was so successful it expanded throughout Cardinals athletics.
For the past three years Wings at Their Feet has been recognized by the National Association of Division III Athletics Administrators.
Legend in his own time
It's not easy to receive career honors while still active. Concordia University football coach Lonnie Pries is in fine standing.
Saturday the Elmhurst resident will be among four former Concordia student-athletes to be inducted into the Cougar Athletic Hall of Fame.
Pries was the Illini-Badger Football Conference's football defensive lineman of the year as a senior in 1992, a Champion honorable-mention All-America and also a second-team CoSIDA Academic All-America.
After teaching in Wisconsin and Florida in 2006 he returned to Concordia as head football coach. In the last two seasons Pries has led the Cougars to program-best records of 8-2.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com