Glenbard East turns to Stone

When opportunity knocks, coaches will say, you've got to take advantage.

One coach who has followed this advice himself is Bob Stone, the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee who is now Glenbard East's interim athletic director.

There's no real football equivalent to this position. It's more like a relief pitcher.

The interim athletic director is a subset of administration, in Stone's own words "a stopgap measure." Recruited from a pool of retired athletic directors who value the high school experience more than a relaxed schedule (and/or are still paying off their kids' college education), the interim AD is brought in, for example, when quick turnarounds between athletic administrations aren't available or the sitting director takes ill.

Naperville North's Neil McCauley and Doug Smith both pitched in elsewhere after retirement. Downers Grove South's Terry McCombs, Conant's Washington Bush and Lyons Twps.' Mike Morris helped ease transitions. In recent years it seemed everywhere you turned the duo of Fremd's Jack Drollinger and New Trier's Jim Bloch were plying their trade in the western suburbs.

Now here is Stone, the former West Chicago athletic director and football coach, temporarily and happily filling in at Glenbard East.

"You're still around it, you're still involved with it," said Stone, a Geneva resident. "You get to do stuff you really enjoy doing, but it's just that you know it's not something you're going to do every year."

At least not all year. Stone noted the athletic director's position is now basically a year-round job, but per Illinois Teacher Retirement System regulations the interim AD can work no more than 100 days of the school calendar year. Stone came aboard in December and will stay through the end of this term.

Actually he was already there. A 2007 East Suburban Catholic Conference Hall of Fame inductee and 2014 IHSFCA Hall of Famer who led Joliet Catholic to the 1990 Class 4A title and 1992 and 1996 5A runner-up finishes, Stone has volunteered on Glenbard East coach John Walters' varsity football staff the last three seasons.

After leaving West Chicago as its athletic director and football coach Stone taught physical education six years at Mundelein until retiring in the spring of 2014. Still looking for work, he was running Glenbard East's in-school suspension room. In December, Glenbard East principal Josh Chambers asked Stone if he was up for a greater commitment following a leave of absence in the athletic department.

"It was a position we needed to fill, and so we filled it on an interim basis and Bob was gracious enough to do it for me," said Chambers, who, like Walters, was a member of Stone's football staff at West Chicago.

"He called me and said, 'You start Tuesday,'" Stone said.

"What better way than to get a guy in who knows the position," Chambers said. "We had the relationship."

Stone was athletic director at Joliet Catholic his last four years there and West Chicago's for a full decade. But times change.

"The biggest thing that's different, first of all, is it's an amazing thing how technology has changed in the seven years since I've been an athletic director," he said. "Everything is computerized now, that's a big difference. And the other difference is every school does things different ways."

Complicating things was the 2014 retirement of Glenbard East's administrative assistant in athletics, Lynn Gottfried. (At least to the press, "athletic secretaries" often seem to be the guts of the operation.)

Stone has been ably assisted by new administrative assistant Phyllis LiFonti - whose son, Tony, is a teacher and coach at Glenbard North - and assistant athletic director Sean Neary.

"I really enjoy it," Stone said. "The people here really are great to work with. Everyone's been very helpful."

Like father, like son

Almost exactly one year ago, retired Naperville North football coach Larry McKeon was preparing his acceptance speech for induction into the Naperville North Athletics Hall of Fame.

Now he can help his son Corey with his speech. Joining current Huskies football coach Sean Drendel and the late Gene Drendel as the only father-son combinations to be entered, Corey McKeon and six others will be inducted into the Huskies Hall on Friday.

The ceremony starts at 5 p.m. in the school's Performing Arts Center and the inductees also will be introduced between the sophomore and boys basketball games against Naperville Central, at around 6:30 p.m.

"It's kind of thrilling to see your son go in. He's all excited about it," said Larry McKeon, who'll form a small welcoming entourage with his wife, Sandy. Both their daughter, Molly, and daughter-in-law, Erika, have work obligations they can't break. Even Corey, who like his wife works for McKesson Pharmaceutical in Lincoln, Nebraska, is flying in Friday morning and flying home Saturday.

"It's kind of an in-and-out thing for him," Larry McKeon said.

Corey McKeon flew in and out of offensive and defensive backfields in high school and college. An IHSFCA All-State pick in 2002 at Naperville North, he made 60 tackles with 6 interceptions at safety and gained 1,900 all-purpose yards and 22 touchdowns at receiver and back on offense.

At Nebraska he bulked up to 230 pounds from 205 to play linebacker. In four starting seasons McKeon made 240 tackles, 36 for loss, with 9 sacks and 17 pass breakups.

"He really was multitalented," Larry McKeon said.

So is the rest of the 2015 cast of inductees. In addition to Corey McKeon, alphabetically they include: former Naperville North principal Bruce Cameron; Brian Dyer, a two-time champion wrestler who went on to Indiana and North Central College; and former football, wrestling and badminton coach Robert Funston.

Also: Jon Joyce, the IHSA's 2000 senior gymnast of the year who excelled at University of Chicago; Lynda (Kukla) Pinnow, an all-state basketball player on the Huskies' 1988 Class AA fourth-place team, whose 101 3-point baskets in 1991-92 still stands as Valparaiso's record; and Jocelyn Petrella, who went from 11-time all-state swimmer at Naperville North to Princeton team captain to Olympic qualifier to master's All-American swimmer and triathlete.

Larry McKeon knows some of these folks. He still sees Dyer running down the neighborhood streets. Of his son, he said being father and coach didn't bother either. The proof is in Friday's ceremony.

"It was a player-coach relationship," he said. "I know it'll be great for us on Friday night."

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

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