Sidelines: There’s no dodging Kish’s legacy with this popular fundraising tournament

It all started with Joe Kish — and little Annie Myers.

She was a student at Franklin Middle School in Wheaton, where since 2007 Kish has been an assistant principal. Myers had diabetes, and asked school administrators to consider hosting a fundraising event for the American Diabetes Association.

The adults brainstormed a number of ideas, like a 3x3 basketball tournament or a charity walk.

“We actually let the kids vote, and dodgeball is something they came up with,” Kish said.

Done.

Under his leadership, since that first Franklin dodgeball tournament in 2013 the annual event has raised more than $200,000. Proceeds are awarded to national organizations (the Pat Tillman Foundation, for example), local charities (St. Charles’ Cal’s Angels), and the middle school.

“We no longer send kids out to sell cookie dough or wrapping paper. That’s something that always bothered me as an administrator, especially in this age,” said Kish, a 1987 Glenbard West graduate who has coached baseball and/or football at Wheaton Warrenville South, Glenbard West and Glenbard South.

Kish, 57, will be retiring in June. This will be his last year leading the dodgeball tournament before Franklin language arts teacher Allan Rovik takes over the middle school events and the Wheaton Fire Department manages the “Hero Night” tournament between teams of first responders.

This year’s tournament starts Sunday with the “absolute can’t-miss event for our fifth graders,” Kish said.

After they finish, at about 5 p.m. Sunday the focus shifts to teams of high school football players. Kish anticipates roughly 30 teams will show. A group from Oswego High School won the 2025 tourney.

Current NFL players such as Greg Newsome, Tyler Nubin, Alex Pierce and Jayden Reed all have played at this tournament.

Kish typically enlists inspirational speakers to address the players, and has a theme for each tournament. This year’s theme is “Knock Out Cancer: Catch Kindness.”

On Sunday, York football coach Don Gelsomino and Glenbard South baseball and football coach Marco Eufrasio, both cancer survivors, will speak.

Next Thursday and Friday the action reverts to Franklin students with separate tournaments for boys and girls, plus a coed tournament.

On April 10 the tournament will hold its “capstone event,” Kish said, Hero Night. Starting in 2015, Hero Night has blossomed. Fifty-seven teams signed up in 2023. The Wheaton Fire Department is the two-time defending champ, seizing the title from fire fighters in Streamwood.

Kish said one player, Nick Cochran, played in the tournament in middle school, high school, with two different fire departments, and with a group of Central DuPage Hospital paramedics.

“There’s so many people like that,” Kish said.

Dodging dodgeball’s “negative connotation,” he said, special needs students will play alongside Franklin’s top athletes — “and they’ve won,” Kish said.

Lessons on the tournament’s charitable and fellowship aspects have reached Franklin classrooms, Kish said, with teachers addressing inclusivity before the event.

This inclusivity extends to individuals and businesses that donate items for the tournament’s raffles and silent auction, that donate food and $250 sponsorships. People can still get in on that by calling Kish at (630) 682-2283.

“If you saw our gym, it looks like the side of a NASCAR right now,” he said of the sponsors’ banners.

In retirement Kish may still have a hand in Franklin’s dodge ball tournament, he’ll wait and see. But on April 10, he’ll look around and reflect.

“Put it this way, I’ll be proud,” he said.

“I think it’s a great reminder that schools are a part of communities, and communities are a part of our schools. We’re one and the same, and our kids and staff and parents have done a great job living that mission.”

A tournament of their own

The Chicago Bears will host Illinois’ first collegiate women’s flag football tournament at the Walter Payton Center at Halas Hall in Lake Forest on Saturday and Sunday.

It comes one year after the first women’s collegiate flag game on March 8, 2025, when Rockford University beat Benedictine University 32-0 also at the Payton Center.

Those two teams are back this weekend, along with first-year programs Aurora University, College of DuPage, Illinois College, Illinois Wesleyan University and North Park University.

Incidentally, Aurora played its first game in program history on Feb. 25, on the road at Wisconsin-Oshkosh. The Spartans won their debut 34-0.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com