Area mourns passing of MSL coach Glen Elms

Not even the final hours of his fight with pancreatic cancer changed Glen Elms.

According to friends Kevin Katovich and Mike Riedy, Elms awakened briefly very early Saturday morning and saw family members at his bedside.

"What the (heck) are all you staring at," Elms said. "Waiting for the chicken to be cooked?"

It was blunt yet with a tinge of the humor those who knew the man affectionately called "Elmo" could appreciate.

They were among the endearing qualities of Glen Elms, one of the most successful boys basketball coaches in Mid-Suburban League history at Forest View and Prospect, who passed away Saturday morning at age 70.

"A heart of a giant," said Chad Freeman, a starting guard on Elms' 1991 Sweet 16 team at Prospect and now a teacher and football and basketball assistant coach at Hersey.

"Very smart, very student-oriented and very loyal," said close friend and Prospect boys volleyball head coach Mike Riedy.

A gruff exterior on the basketball sideline belied what was inside Elms.

"People would say to me, 'How do you coach with that really old guy?'" laughed Katovich, who worked for Elms for four years at Prospect and is now in his seventh year as Rolling Meadows' head coach. "I'd say, 'Here's what we talked about on the bus. The flowers and birds he saw in his yard.'

"I would tell people it was just an outside wall against the world. The image isn't how he is at all."

But Elms, who scored 40 points in a game for Millikin University in 1960, also saw the game of basketball unlike many others.

Opposing coaches always talked about trying to crack Elms' trademark matchup zone that has been passed on to Katovich and Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, whose dad worked with Elms at Forest View.

Elms is one of seven boys coaches to win 300 games at an MSL school or schools as he went 314-286 from 1977-2000. He won 4 regional titles at Forest View, led Prospect to its only Sweet 16 appearance and split 4 MSL division titles between the schools.

"Here's how smart he was," Katovich said. "He could remember not only the last game possession by possession, but he could remember at Forest View possession by possession what happened."

And Elms shot it straight even when his team didn't.

"People really appreciate that and kids appreciate it," said Freeman, whose dad Ron was an athletic trainer at Forest View. "He would lay it on the line for you. At first it might be hard to swallow, but you'd think about it and realize this is actually going to help me as an athlete."

Or help a kid such as Freeman follow Elms' career path.

That was what Elms was about as a math teacher and coach.

Elms helped boys who wanted to play volleyball at Prospect start a club program two decades ago. He continued to help the last three years as an unpaid volunteer assistant.

"The thing the general public didn't see was how student-centered he was," Riedy said. "He had a unique ability of working with and coaching kids other people would have given up on.

"The kids just loved him."

mmaciaszek@dailyherald.com