‘I enjoyed the classroom and I enjoyed the ballfield,’ hall of famer recalls
Maybe this assumes too much, but if you grew up playing sports there probably were those hometown heroes you looked up to.
For example … Decades before a grocery store replaced the building that housed Wheaton Central High School, and the long-gone Pony League field across the street was the big summer draw, not the pickleball courts, in 1970s Wheaton athletes like Derrick Jackson, Charlie Martin, Dana Noel and Steve Thonn reigned.
A 1976 Wheaton Central graduate, Gar Simers watched Jackson and Martin — but Simers was one of those guys, too.
Football quarterback and baseball belter, after walking on to Western Illinois University’s ballclub and then attending DeVry, Simers struck lightning at College of DuPage.
In 1979 he earned All-America honors after hitting .509 and setting program records with 11 home runs and 42 RBI. He was COD’s first baseball All-American.
That season with the Chaparrals — which ended with a Wrigley Field home run during a junior college all-star game, leading to a scholarship at Southern Methodist University — has earned Simers entry into the College of DuPage Athletic Hall of Fame.
He and five others in COD’s Hall of Fame Class of 2025 will be honored Saturday at the DoubleTree Hilton Lisle-Naperville. This class brings the total number of inductees to 37 since the hall of fame was established in 2019.
“We had a very good team, I think we finished 26-6. I had a lot of fun. Steve Kranz was my coach there, great guy. It was enjoyable — I enjoyed the classroom and I enjoyed the ball field,” Simers, 67, said of his All-America season.
“Since then I had to get right rotator cuff surgery and had to get my right ankle replaced. Other than that I’m old but still standing.”
We hear that.
Retired and living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, brother of the late Los Angeles Times sports columnist T.J. Simers, Gar Simers also stands in testament to one of his prime mentors in Wheaton, John Thorne.
Former Wheaton Central, Wheaton Warrenville South and North Central College football coach, Thorne didn’t become a head coach until 1980 but worked with Simers on underclass levels and as a varsity assistant.
“Coach Thorne was a huge influence on my life. His integrity is second to none,” Simers said.
Simers hadn’t spoken with Thorne for more than 30 years until he got the call about the COD Hall of Fame, he said. Simers quickly reached the coach to ask if he’d introduce Simers at the ceremony.
“He said he’d be delighted,” Simers said.
He’ll be inducted along with three-time All-America track athlete Bethany Ester Atchison, four-time national champion softball coach Deb DiMatteo (already in three other halls of fame), wrestler and All-America lineman George Hawthorne, softball All-America Kris Morton Holtquist, and former assistant football coach Joe Roman, who helped head coach Bob MacDougall assemble that 36-game winning streak the Chaparrals had from 1993-95.
Like Simers, these people earned admiration. Sometimes to their own surprise.
“I always just wanted to be nice and have fun and make everybody else’s day better,” Simers said. “I never wanted to be a good athlete.”
Lancers bruisers
A pair of former Lake Park Lancers earned United Football League honors on Monday. The UFL is the eight-team spring league formed in 2024 by the merger of the XFL and the United States Football League.
Big boys Mike Panasiuk and Perrion Winfrey were named All-UFL after the 10-game regular season ended.
Panasiuk is a 6-foot-4, 300-pounder who played defensive tackle at Michigan State and plays center for the UFL’s St. Louis Battlehawks. It’s his second straight All-UFL campaign on top of an All-XFL season in 2023.
Winfrey, 6-3, 290, plays defensive tackle for the Birmingham (Alabama) Stallions. He made 29 tackles with a sack and 4 pass breakups. Out of NJCAA power Iowa Western, Winfrey played two seasons at Oklahoma and a year in the NFL with the Browns.
Panasiuk and Winfrey both have games this Sunday in respective conference finals. Their teams could advance to the UFL Championship on June 14 in St. Louis, a game shown on ABC.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com