A look back, look ahead as Batavia changes ADs

It’s difficult to comprehend that in a football program dating to 1912, Batavia’s first conference title came in 1996.

The Bulldogs have since won five conference football titles. The coach of each squad, of course, was Mike Gaspari.

Coincidence?

Doubtful.

“I think the biggest thing was changing the mindset of the kids in terms of their work ethic and getting the kids to believe in the system that we were trying to put forth, and that they would be successful and it would work if they put their minds to it,” Gaspari said.

“It was just a matter of the kids working hard and believing and sticking with it, and the coaches sticking with it, obviously.”

Gaspari — whose next negative comment about anyone or anything, in this writer’s exposure to the man, will be his first — is in the waning days of his 20-year tenure as Batavia’s athletic director.

After this past season Gaspari turned the football program over to longtime defensive coordinator Dennis Piron, but will stay on as an assistant. As of July 1, he’ll relinquish the athletic director’s position to Dave Andrews, who held that spot at Willowbrook High School.

Under Gaspari, Batavia football took steps toward that first conference title, “building blocks,” he called them, such as a 1986 win over Geneva for the first time in 20 years, and a defeat of Sycamore for the Bulldogs’ first homecoming victory in 11 seasons.

He did, however, have his doubts.

“The first two, three years I didn’t have any,” he said. “Then, as the struggles continued you do start to doubt. You wonder if you did the right thing and if you were the right person for the job, absolutely.”

In 1991 Mr. Right led Batavia to the first of its 14 playoff appearances — peaking in a 2006 Class 6A runner-up spot — behind a group of players Gaspari described as “mature kids in terms of their work ethic and outlook.”

“They decided they were going to be the difference makers,” he said.

As was their coach, who obviously honors loyalty with assistants like Piron, Bill Kettering, Pete Heimsath and P.J. White serving for decades.

They either broke in with Gaspari or arrived shortly after his first season as head coach, the 0-9 campaign of 1985.

“It’s just very rewarding to think of from where the program started to where it’s come to today,” Gaspari said. “It probably wouldn’t have been quite as meaningful if we’d taken over something successful and just tried to keep it going. I think to build it, from where I look back, was incredibly rewarding.”

Perhaps unjustly, football success is how an Illinois high school athletic program is judged. Yet Batavia has enjoyed success throughout its sports — boys basketball has indeed excelled from the beginning — which illustrates the impact of the long-ago junior high physical education teacher who coached track, basketball and wrestling.

“A lot of those things were beneficial to me as an athletic director,” said Gaspari, initially hired by Sam Rotolo, namesake of the school formerly known as Batavia Junior High.

“More important than probably any other thing is that each of the twenty programs that we offer at Batavia, they’ve all had success,” said Gaspari, a Rockford Boylan graduate who played football at North Central College for Ron Guenther.

“We’ve had success across the board, and that’s just very rewarding.”

For his efforts over 33 years in the district, the past 26 years at Batavia High, Gaspari said he’s received more retirement gifts than he could say. A rocking chair, however, is not among them.

“I’m a young 56,” he said. “I don’t feel 56. I feel 25. I just can’t run and jump the way I could at 25.”

That’s one thing kids are good for. Mike and Marcia Gaspari, who met at North Central and married in 1979, have two of them: Andrea, a 25-year-old who lives in Lisle; and incoming Batavia senior Noel, who Mike will continue to work with as the football team’s quarterbacks coach.

Aside from assisting Piron in the fall Gaspari isn’t sure what will come next. Maybe college coaching or teaching. Come November he’ll make those decisions.

Now, though, comes reflection.

“It’s been a great career,” Mike Gaspari said.

“When we start doing the work that we all do, we can’t have the vision to know how it’s going to end up. If I was going to pick a way for it to pan out, and end, I couldn’t pick a better situation.

“I’ve been fortunate,” he said. “If I’m as fortunate in retirement, I’ll have a great life.”

The new guy

Gaspari forecasts smooth sailing under incoming Batavia athletic director Dave Andrews, who will come aboard after six years in the same position at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park.

“I think the transition is going to be very nice just because the school he’s coming from is a very similar type of school to Batavia, in terms of its size and offerings,” Gaspari said.

Andrews, who turned 41 since his hiring was approved on April 26, will be certain to hold the needs of the community foremost in his decision-making process.

That’s because he’s part of it. He and his wife, Dana, and their children Alexa and Cael live only about five blocks away.

“I just wanted to be a productive member of the community that I live in both personally and professionally,” said Andrews, a captain of West Chicago’s wrestling team in 1988, the year of his high school graduation.

Andrews coaches his 10-year-old daughter’s softball team as well as his 6-year-old son’s youth wrestling program.

Hobbies?

“Youth sports are my life,” he said. “I’m constantly either at my daughter’s softball games or my son’s baseball games. Family ties are important.”

Andrews earned his undergraduate degree at Northern Illinois University and a master’s at North Central. He came to Willowbrook after serving a dozen years in Naperville’s District 203. In addition to being an activities director and a dean of students at Naperville North, he also assisted former Huskies athletic director Neil McAuley.

In his time at Willowbrook, Andrews prizes three accomplishments most of all.

First, the development of the Villa Park Young Warriors youth sports programs, including 250 youngsters involved in the football feeder program.

In fact, Andrews said he’s leaving Willowbrook “in a very unfortunate time” since the youth programs have already translated to several freshman and sophomore conference championships.

“I’ll have to live it through newspaper articles and talking to coaches,” he said.

Recently under his tenure Willowbrook’s Athletic Hall of Fame was created, honoring former Blazers coaches and athletes including baseball players Jody Gerut and Dan Schatzeder and footballer Matt Roth.

And in 2007, Willowbrook and District 88 sister-school Addison Trail benefitted from a referendum that, at Willowbrook, gained a 42,000-square foot field house as well as a new football stadium and track.

Andrews won’t need to push for a new field house with Batavia’s beautiful new facility just opened this year. He also sees no reason to overhaul what Gaspari’s done.

“Mike’s done such a great job over the years it’s not like anybody needs to come in and have total upheaval,” Andrews said. “I just want to enhance what’s currently in place. I’m really into celebrating students’ success. It’s really important to (publicize) the things that students do, and not just athletics.”

Community presence, academics, social service, he means.

“I feel like I’m not just an athletic director, I feel like I’m well-rounded and I take education very seriously,” Andrews said. “I think it’s very important not to just be that sports guy. It’s very important to take in the big picture, and how sports fits into the school.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com