Gandolfi fits in fine at Mundelein

It still shocks Charlie Gandolfi.

Every time the senior Mundelein outfielder sees his father, Chuck, wearing Mundelein red or any kind of Mustangs gear, he does a double take.

“He’s trying to support me and the team but it’s still weird to see,” the younger Gandolfi said with a laugh. “The other day, he wore a Mundelein hat to a game. I’ll probably never get used to seeing him in red sweaters and Mundelein hats.”

The funny thing is, just two years ago, Gandolfi never thought he’d get used to his new life.

But he did. And despite an initial rush of disappointment, uncertainty and heartache, he’s now loving it — even flourishing.

Last month, Gandolfi helped the Mundelein basketball team put the wraps on a 29-5 dream season that extended all the way to the sectional title game. The 5-foot-8 guard was a top reserve who hounded opponents with his pesky, hard-nosed defense.

Now, Gandolfi is back to shining on the baseball diamond.

He has been batting leadoff for the Mustangs the last two seasons. His heady, clutch hitting is a big reason Mundelein is the hottest team in Lake County, off to a sparkling 15-0 start.

To begin the season, Gandolfi reached base in 17 of his first 19 at-bats. Even now, he boasts an .800 on-base percentage.

“Charlie is as good of a leadoff hitter as we’ve had at Mundelein in my tenure,” said Mustangs coach Todd Parola, who is in his 17th season at the helm. “It’s just his attitude at the plate. He’s a fierce competitor, he’s scrappy and hard-working.

“Charlie personifies everything we strive for Mundelein baseball to represent.”

It’s ironic, really.

Two years ago, Gandolfi wouldn’t have wanted to represent Mundelein baseball if his life depended on it.

His loyalties ran deep with Mundelein’s biggest rival: Carmel, the cross-town powerhouse.

Gandolfi was a Carmel Corsair, through and through.

Born and bred.

He is his dad’s biggest fan, after all. And his dad had a closet full of brown and gold Carmel gear.

Chuck Gandolfi was Carmel’s head varsity baseball coach, starting his tenure long before Charlie was even born.

Charlie grew up assuming two things, giddily dreaming of them, really: He would play baseball at Carmel — and he would play for his dad.

“I was raised on the Carmel baseball field,” Charlie said. “I’d have birthday parties there, I’d take groundballs with my dad’s players after practice. I went to all the games.

“My whole life, it was engrained in me that I would be a Carmel Corsair.”

But as baseball players know, every once in awhile, you get thrown a curve.

Although, Gandolfi’s curve was more like a 180-degree spin.

In August 2009, just as he was beginning his junior year at Carmel, Gandolfi’s world crumbled. Every dream, every hope, every expectation he had for the remainder of his high school career suddenly was yanked out from under him.

“My dad got home one day and called me downstairs and told me that Carmel decided not to re-hire him as baseball coach,” Charlie said. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I couldn’t understand it.

“Then I got sad, then I was furious. It felt like a betrayal. I felt so bad for my dad. His world had been turned upside down. I felt like mine had, too.”

Chuck Gandolfi had coached the Corsairs for 21 seasons and had built one of the most successful programs in Lake County. But several incidents that occurred during a summer baseball trip to Kentucky, in which Gandolfi was the chief chaperone of an 18-and-under travel team consisting of Carmel players, raised eyebrows with school officials.

They weren’t happy about the fact that Gandolfi allowed his players to visit Churchill Downs, where gambling takes place, attend a R-rated movie and eat a meal at a restaurant that was nearby but separate from the coaches.

Gandolfi still can’t understand why any of those events would lead to his dismissal. But he theorizes that his reputation as a squeaky wheel, a guy who was always requesting improvements and funding for his program, left school officials looking for a reason to dismiss him.

“I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe they weren’t re-hiring me, but what could I do? So I was like, ‘OK, fine. I’ll just retire,’” Chuck Gandolfi said. “But they wouldn’t let me retire. After all those years that I gave to the school, to not let me go out on my own terms, it was very upsetting.”

Within days, Gandolfi pulled Charlie and his younger son Thomas, an incoming freshman, out of Carmel. And that officially pulled the plug on the dreams that the Gandolfi family had of a father getting to coach his sons.

Charlie had played on the underlevel teams as a freshman and sophomore. His first full season of playing varsity ball for his dad was supposed to be that coming spring.

“That was a really tough time for me back then,” Chuck Gandolfi said. “But it was also tough on our whole family. And for Charlie, it was devastating. He was going into his junior year at Carmel. He had a lot of friends there. He was close with his teammates and was getting ready to play varsity baseball for me.

“Then, it was like he was losing all of that. Suddenly, everything you’ve been brought up to do, everything you’ve believed in your whole life has changed.”

And leaving Carmel wasn’t even the biggest change for Charlie.

Enrolling at Mundelein was.

Even though he grew up in Mundelein, and even though both his father and his mother Linda are Mundelein High School alums, Charlie was having a hard time picturing himself being part of the school he grew up loathing.

“The rivalry between Carmel and Mundelein is huge and I think because I had so much pride in my dad’s program at Carmel, I took it extremely seriously,” Charlie said. “Growing up, I was against Mundelein in everything. I used to love cheering against them, in baseball, in basketball, in everything.

“To be on the other side of it now is pretty interesting.”

Charlie was prepared for a rough ride. Although, he figured that finding comfort in formerly hostile territory might be the easy part, compared to assimilating to his new baseball coach.

Dealing with Todd Parola, he feared, could get sticky.

Perhaps the most heated part of the baseball rivalry between Carmel and Mundelein was the stormy relationship between Parola and Chuck Gandolfi.

The two fiercely competitive coaches didn’t always see eye-to-eye on the field, or off.

“I was extremely nervous about that,” Charlie said. “But then, just before baseball started last season, I had this meeting with Coach Parola and I knew right away that me playing for him wasn’t going to be a problem.

“I knew that he was going to treat me like any other player. And he does. I think that speaks volumes about the kind of person Coach Parola is. He’s a great guy, and I’ve grown to have a really great relationship with him.”

Called “likeable” and “a leader” by Parola, Charlie has forged great relationships all over the place at Mundelein High School. He says that when he first enrolled two years ago, he was overly outgoing by choice.

“I’ve met all kinds of new friends, and I’ve met some really great teachers here that I like,” Charlie said. “I just decided that I could either be mad and pout about what happened at Carmel and throw away my last two years of high school by having a bad attitude, or I could be positive and I could make the best of everything.

“I decided to be positive, just like my dad has been, and I’ve had a great time. We had a great basketball season and we’re undefeated in baseball so far. I really think everything has worked out for the best.”

pbabcock@dailyherald.com