Dundee-Crown HOF inductee Schumacher a 'neat guy'
When Ron Schumacher attended a Dundee High School football game against Geneva in the late 1940s, he ran into legendary Cardunal basketball coach Eugene deLacey.
“Gene said a guy from the Champaign News-Gazette had been after him to come up with his best team of players since he's been at Dundee. Gene used to write for that paper about teams from northern Illinois,” said Schumacher, a 1941 Dundee graduate. “Now remember, this includes the 1938 team that won the state title. Gene said to me, ‘I want you to know, you are the center on my team.' That was very flattering.”
Schumacher's many contributions on the court will be recognized Saturday when he enters the Dundee-Crown Athletic Hall of Fame. The 2014 induction ceremony takes place at Golf Club of Illinois with dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. and the enshrinement to follow.
The 90-year-old Schumacher, who grew up on Second St. in West Dundee and attended Immanuel Lutheran grade school (3 members of the 1938 Dundee state title team also attended Immanuel while Schumacher was there), said the school and community greatly benefitted from deLacey over the years.
“We were so lucky because Gene came to town around 1932 as the coach and he started doing and saying things that made Dundee a hotbed for basketball,” he said. “After the war, I ran into somebody who asked me where I was from. I said Dundee. He said, ‘Dundee is a great basketball town.' We were so dominant in basketball. During my four years there we lost a total of eight games. Gene deLacey was ahead of his time. He was the beginning of the fast break. We scored a lot of points when I was there because of the fast break. We practiced it for a half-hour every day.”
Schumacher, a U.S. Naval veteran, went on to play basketball at Northwestern where one of his teammates and fraternity brothers was NFL legend Otto Graham. He also was the baseball team's No. 2 pitcher and once pitched a game in Wrigley Field. Schumacher said he had a limited baseball tenure at Dundee due to it not yet being a formal sport in high school at the time.
“That was when Wrigley Field still had an 18-inch mound. It was quite a thing,” he said.
After college, Schumacher embarked on a successful business career with Northwestern Mutual. During his 50-year run, he was a member of the company's million-dollar round-table for 34 years in a row and held the company's top district agent position for 8 years in a row at one point (there were more than 260 district agents nationwide at the time).
“Our agency was sort of like the New York Yankees,” Schumacher said with a laugh.
Schumacher, a longtime Elgin resident, also has been involved in a number of community-oriented endeavors over the years, including rotary club, chamber of commerce and helping with the revival of the Elgin YMCA.
“I did a lot of things and met a lot of people,” he said.
Ralph Burhow, who spearheads the D-C Athletic Hall of Fame, attempted to get ahold of Schumacher the day the Class of 2014 was decided in May. Burhow's father was Schumacher's first basketball coach in fifth grade at Immanuel Lutheran.
“He is a first-ballot inductee,” Burhow said. “The day I called was the day of his 90th birthday. I had to leave a message. He called back and said he had a date that night. His girlfriend made him dinner. I had been trying to get him to fill out the nomination form for about two years. We met at Alexander's for a few hours and it was fascinating hearing his stories. He had scholarship offers from Illinois, Northwestern and Valparaiso and was roommates with Otto Graham. He's a neat guy.”
Schumacher's two sons, Bob, and Bill, also played at Dundee. Bill Schumacher was the MVP of the 1974 Dundee boys' basketball team. Both went on to have notable athletic careers at St. Olaf College. Ron Schumacher is the father of five children.
“I'm an orphan in many respects,” he said. “I've been out of high school so long not many people involved today know what went on there 60-70 years ago. I'm glad I got into the hall of fame.”
Schumacher is joined in the Class of 2014 by Steve Grotemeyer (Dundee High Class of 1966), Max Kipfer (Dundee Class of 1975), Mike Lukowski (Dundee-Crown Class of 2008) and Peter Margiotta (Irving Crown High School Class of 1978). Grotemeyer and Kipfer both were standout basketball players, while Lukowski and Margiotta starred in wrestling.