Wrestling: Glenbard North's Hahn not ready to go just yet

Several times during the wrestling season accolades and tributes deservedly poured in for Glenbard North coach Mark Hahn, slated to retire after 35 years in the program.

As Chicago Blackhawks play-by-play announcer Pat Foley would say: “Not so fast, Kowalski.”

Retiring after 33 years as a physical education teacher, Hahn pulled a reversal and decided to stay on as the Panthers' coach. He will continue on a yearly basis, according to Glenbard North athletic director Matt Bowser, who on March 7 had to post the job to keep things legal.

Thirty years as coach plus five years prior as an assistant turned out not to be enough for Hahn, a 2006 inductee into the Illinois Wrestling Coaches & Officials Association Hall of Fame.

“That was the original plan, but that was four years ago (when he filed retirement papers) and you can't tell how you'll feel four years in advance, because you have to tell the district that you're going to retire four years out. At the time, four years out, I figured I'd be ready to end coaching as well. As I got closer to it I decided I wasn't ready to go,” Hahn said.

The 58-year-old is Illinois' active leader in dual meet victories with a career record of 677-144-2, according to Rob Sherrill of Illinois Matmen.com and wrestling historian Ed Ewoldt of Wheaton. The Illinois High School Association lists only retired Mt. Carmel coach Bill Weick's 687 dual meet wins ahead of Hahn's total.

Since 1987 Hahn has coached a list of state medalists, including this year's Class 3A 138-pound winner and three-time champion Austin Gomez, that for most of us is literally as long as a forearm. Hahn's teams have earned 12 top-four state finishes including the 2011 Class 3A championship.

When Wheaton North and coach Travis Cherry — one of those past medalists — defeated Glenbard North at the DuPage Valley Conference championships, it ended an 18-year string of Panthers conference titles.

Hahn waited until after the state meet to declare his intention to stay so as not to disrupt Glenbard North's season. He believed current assistants Tony LiFonti and Chris Edwards may have been disappointed not to get a shot at the head job at this time, but “on the other hand they've always been supportive, the program is all about the assistants,” he said.

“Just like anything else, there's days when you go into coaching, you've had a hard day, a hard week, and you're like, 'Gosh darn it, I wish it was over with.' Then there's days you feel like you could do it for another 10 years. I was probably having one of those weeks where I figured I'd be ready to go in four years. I still enjoyed it, was still going strong, but I figured it'd be time,” Hahn said.

“Now coming up to it, the fact of the matter is I told our assistants and the guys that are going to go for the job that if I walked away and regretted it there's no turning back, and I decided to stick with it because I'm not ready yet.”

With longtime Panthers assistants Jeff Cherry, Jim Considine and now Kent Garrett having stepped back from the program, in time it will be Hahn's turn. Now is not that time.

Asked what he was most proud of in his career, and expecting a certain number of titles or champions in reply, Hahn instead responded with the real reason why. “They all come back and say how Glenbard North wrestling has changed their lives. That's gratifying to know that we're doing that,” he said. “I've always believed that, believed that being in the Glenbard North wrestling room is going to prepare you for life.”

Hear the sneaker squeak

There have been past movements toward creating some sort of Illinois basketball museum. One plan finally seems to have gained traction.

At a March 22 news and teleconference from Pontiac's City Hall, the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association's Bruce Firchau announced that details had been reached on a museum site between the city and the IBCA.

Targeted to open in 2018, the 25,000-square-foot Basketball Museum of Illinois, which Firchau described as a “museum-slash-events center,” will be located in a plaza on Routes 66 and 116, near Interstate 55. The Basketball Museum and an adjacent transportation museum will serve as anchors to attract other business to the site.

“We couldn't have picked a better site,” said Firchau, noting that 30,000 vehicles pass the location daily on I-55.

Redesign of an existing structure that will house the museum will be done by The Maude Group, headquartered in Chicago. Firchau characterized The Maude Group, which has an extensive clientele list including the Chicago Bears, Ford Motor Company, Nike, Caterpillar, the University of Chicago and the U.S. Navy, as a “Rolls-Royce company.”

IBCA Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Ward, who calls himself a museum “quasi”-board member as an archivist (he frequents all the most interesting garage sales), said the portfolio “very much reflects what a modern museum looks like.”

The centerpiece of the museum, a long-held goal of the late IBCA chief Chuck Rolinski, will feature the more than 3,000 inductees into the IBCA Hall of Fame since 1973.

“We need to tell the stories behind those teams and those coaches and those players and the media,” said Firchau, a 2007 IBCA Hall inductee who coached the sport 40 years before retiring in March 2015 with a lifetime record of 557-447 with several teams.

With an eye toward gender equity and an interactive approach to appeal to younger fans, the collections highlighting Illinois basketball from junior high to professional levels won't stop with pictures and plaques. Plans include a 60-seat theater and even outdoor courts to host clinics and 3-on-3 tournaments. Of course there'll be a gift shop.

As with anything money is a determining factor. It'll take $2.5 million to $3 million to open the museum, starting with updating the infrastructure. Firchau said the entire tab would be $4 million. In addition to the construction cost there is an endowment fund to sustain operations.

“We are looking for advocates,” Firchau said.

It definitely sounds much more fun than one of the IBCA's past displays, in a hotel room in Bloomington.

“When you come in we want you to smell the popcorn and hear the sneakers squeaking,” Firchau said.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

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