Beebe wrestling with new career that’s all ‘The Rage’

It’s like wrestling, Chase Beebe said. But with punching.

The 26-year-old Montini graduate known on the mixed martial arts circuit as “The Rage” was granted Tuesday off from his new job at the Chicago Board of Trade. Beebe said his boss allowed the reprieve to “take care of his face.”

On Dec. 9 Beebe earned a five-round draw in a United Combat Sports bout in Oregon to run his career record to 19-8-1 since his first fight in July 2005.

“I think I caught a head butt in, like, the first 10 seconds, and my eye swelled shut pretty tight, as well as getting cut and bleeding everywhere,” Beebe said. “It was pretty much a test.”

There weren’t many of those at Montini, where Beebe won four state wrestling championships from 2000-03. His 174 wins rank 17th all-time on the Illinois High School Association list.

Chase is the second of five grappling Beebes, behind older brother Cole and younger brothers Conor, Carson and Carter, the youngest a senior at Lyons Twp. Carson — “The Little Juggernaut” in MMA parlance — is 8-1 in his fledgling pro career.

In his perfect world Chase Beebe would be wrestling for a living, and not the type with folding chairs used as weapons. When Eastern Illinois University’s wrestling program got cut after his sophomore year, Beebe sought a similar outlet, as close as he could find.

“A battle of wills,” he called MMA, a contest between who trained the hardest, who wants it more. His parents, Larry and Lori, have supported first Chase and now Carson in this pursuit.

“They get scared as any parents do, but I think they realize how much we love to do it and our potential with our wrestling backgrounds,” Chase Beebe said.

“They’re kind of the ones who gave us the tools to do this thing. I think they understand. It’s a challenge that you really can’t go much else with it. You can use it to pay for school and make some money afterward.”

Beebe has fought for $200 on local circuits and for purses of $20,000 in front of 40,000 Japanese, where he discovered the natives’ appreciation in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.

“I kind of think of it as a chess match,” he said. “In fact in Japan they don’t call it fighting. They call it art.”

Normally fighting at around 135 pounds, Beebe has won two bantamweight titles — a World Extreme Cagefighting title in 2007 in Las Vegas and a Warrior Fighting Championship belt in London last July. In October 2009 Beebe lost a split decision for the Ultimate Warrior Challenge in Fairfax, Va., which the MMA website Sherdog termed the “Robbery of the Year.”

Working with “five or six” different people who get him bouts, Beebe has appeared on a smorgasbord of other circuits: Bellator, DREAM, Evolution, Extreme Fighting, Ruckus, Lords of War.

It’s all a work in progress particularly in the jujitsu and boxing specifics, which he’s honed through training at Jackson’s Mixed Martial Arts in Albuquerque and Gilbert Grappling in Chicago.

In Beebe’s first six matches, five of which he won, he said he didn’t throw a punch. He won his bouts with submission choke holds and didn’t win a bout on punches until his seventh event, according to Sherdog.

“It is kind of crazy because we’ve been wrestling our whole lives,” Chase said of himself and Carson, “but we haven’t had to stand up since we were 5.”

There’s no upcoming bout cemented in place, though he’s still got fights left on his Bellator contract and he and Carson may compete at Navy Pier on New Year’s Eve, Chase said. Beebe holds out hope that submission grappling becomes an Olympic sport.

Meanwhile, he’ll nurse his bloody sinuses and black eye and stay ready for the next opportunity, whether it’s in a cage with some gladiator or the pit at the Board of Trade.

“The thing about fighters is we could get beat up or look real bad, but we’re fighters, we know how to take care of it,” Beebe said. “The more you do it, too, you don’t really get scared. It’s just like a day at the office, kind of.”

Vision accomplished

It was Eleanor “Noree” Mares’ concept to add a fieldhouse to Glenbard East, so last Friday’s commemoration of the facility in her honor was most appropriate.

“It was really a passion of hers to work on that and pull that together,” Glenbard East assistant principal of operations Bill Mushrush said of Mares, who retired in 1999 after 32 years at the District 87 high school.

“She was just a really terrific person in the history of our school, and really it was her vision back in the 1990s ... to add a fieldhouse,” Mushrush said. He recalled driving with Mares on fact-finding missions to different high schools for ideas of what they could bring to their school.

Ironically, the fieldhouse opened in August 2000, shortly after her retirement.

Criteria are demanding for dedicating parts of the school, which now has four sections named after individuals: Fred Biester, the first Glenbard principal and superintendent; William Rider, Glenbard East’s first principal; and former English teacher Dr. Robert Lindsey.

Former band director and music department chair Ross Kellan will be the fifth such notable when on Feb. 1 the Glenbard East Music Wing will be named in his honor.

In Mares’ case, testimonials and letters from scores of students, athletes, outside athletic directors and principals made the dedication question a no-brainer. District 87 approved the measure at its Nov. 28 board meeting.

“It was totally unanimous that she was very deserving,” Mushrush said Mares.

Mares started her teaching career at Glenbard East in 1967. She went on to chair both the physical education and drivers education departments and also to serve as Rams athletic director.

Mushrush estimated about 120 of her former colleagues showed up for the Dec. 9 Mares Fieldhouse dedication ceremony before the boys varsity basketball game against Glenbard North. He called the ceremony “heartwarming.”

“She has been retired for 12 years,” Mushrush said, “and to many of us it was like she had never left.”

Last one standing

Lake Park junior Kaylee Flanagan capped a long, successful cross country season with a 31st-place finish at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships on Dec. 10 at Balboa Park in San Diego.

This was off her goal of a top-15, All-America finish, but Flanagan did help the Midwest runners to the overall “team” title, earning a medal in the process.

“At least I made it there,” she said. “That was one of my main goals from the beginning of the whole, entire cross country season. Just being out there added to the whole excitement and everything.”

A week before, on Dec. 3, Naperville Central senior Amanda Fox — the IHSA Class 3A cross country champion, with Flanagan third — did earn All-America status. Fox placed ninth overall at the Nike Cross Nationals at Portland Meadows in Oregon.

This was the icing on Fox’s cake. As a sophomore Fox placed seventh in Class 3A, but only 34th as a junior.

“It’s just been really rewarding,” Fox said, “and being able to come back this year and have the season I did, it taught me that you never want to let any disappointment get to you, and you always want to keep pushing yourself to get back where you want to be. And that’s definitely what I accomplished this season.”

They say running is a lifestyle, and it certainly is to these girls. Indoor track practice starts Jan. 16.

“I get to relax and recoup, and then it’s back to running,” Flanagan said.

oberhelman@dailyherald.com