Hastert 'the speaker' will always be 'Coach' in his hometown
The crowd was much younger in 1976. More boisterous. Thinner. The occasion happier. But the feelings about the man behind the podium haven't changed that much.
"I was a wrestling coach and our Yorkville High School team won the state title, and we celebrated with a parade in front of this courthouse," former House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Friday from the steps of the historic Kendall County Courthouse in Yorkville. The 65-year-old Republican returned to that familiar ground to announce that he won't run for a 12th term in Congress.
Hastert's unlikely rise from small-town wrestling coach to the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House never surprised those who knew him as a coach.
As key members of Hastert's state champion squad, David and Mick Torres say the coach not only pushed kids to reach for more than they thought they could achieve, Hastert led by example.
"He modeled that all the time," says Mick Torres, who overcame injuries to place in the top four in the state throughout his high school wrestling career. Today, Mick Torres works as the educational technology director for Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128.
"He (Hastert) had the capacity to lead," says David Torres, who won the individual state 112-pound wrestling championship under Hastert's tutelage, and now works as associate superintendent for business for Palatine Township High School District 211.
Critics of Hastert were nonexistent in the glow of 1976. But when you become speaker of the House during a bitter, partisan political era, critics abound. Rolling Stone magazine dubbed Hastert the nation's worst congressman, while the right criticized him as being slow to address a sex scandal involving young congressional pages and a Florida congressman.
Wading through a crowd of 200 that boasted far more canes than iPods, protesters Chrisi Vineyard, 52, of Oswego and Mike Clawson, 28, of Yorkville tried to bring attention to issues ranging from the nearly $9 trillion national debt to the war in Iraq. Their crude, homemade sign reading, "Hastert Republican Rotten Barrel of Corruption" was constantly shadowed by slick Hastert campaign signs.
Hastert's political legacy doesn't matter to many in this crowd.
"That doesn't affect my image of him," says Iris Steinhoff, who has lived across from the old courthouse for 19 years. "When George Bush and Al Gore couldn't decide who should be president, we said, 'How about Denny?'æ"
Friday's goodbye was about the man, not about Hastert's party, his support of the president or his votes.
"You go to the bank and it's 'Hi, Denny,' not 'Hi, Congressman Hastert' or 'Hi, Speaker,'æ" notes Steinhoff.
"Politics is politics, but I think his perseverance and his ability to work with people speaks for itself," says David Torres. "We are very proud of him. I've always looked up to him."
In his role as coach and Explorer Scout leader, Hastert took students on trips to Gettysburg, Washington, the Bahamas, Virginia Beach, Colorado and the Grand Canyon, where the fit wrestlers had to wait for their stocky coach to finish the climb.
Now Hastert, who recently lost more than 80 pounds from his rotund figure, has finished his political climb.
"But he always will be 'Coach,'æ" says Mick Torres, who recently ran into Hastert shopping in Yorkville.
"He had on a big, flannel shirt and was pushing a grocery cart," Mick Torres says. Torres' 16-year-old son, Ramon, who fits somewhere in the autism spectrum, boldly walked up to Hastert and asked, "Who are you?" and "What do you do?"
Hastert smiled.
"I was," Hastert said simply, "your dad's wrestling coach."