Naperville North mourns the loss of ‘two great people’
The ball cap Bill Petersen wore in his picture would have been a big hit with his fellow Naperville North teacher and coach Stan Gruszka.
The hat pictures a fish lunging at a spinner.
Gruszka was a big-time fisherman in Phillips, Wisconsin, where he retired after his 34-year teaching and coaching career at Naperville North.
Petersen yanked his fish out of Eagle River, Wisconsin, between teaching and coaching for 38 years.
The two men, both inductees into the Naperville North Athletic Hall of Fame and athletes at North Central College, died within days of each other — Petersen on May 30 in Naperville at 83 years old, the 80-year-old Gruszka on June 1 in Phillips.
“They were great guys. They always put the kids first. It’s very sad, to lose both of them together like that,” said Kathy Kavanagh, Naperville North’s athletic department assistant, whose own children knew these men at school.
“Two great men, two great educators, two great people,” said retired Huskies boys basketball and baseball coach Mark Lindo.
A memorial for Gruszka will be held at Heindl-Nimsgern Funeral Home Chapel in Phillips on June 19.
Petersen’s celebration of life will be held June 26 at Beidelman-Kunsch Funeral Home in Naperville.
Matt Gruszka, Schaumburg girls wrestling coach recently named a “person of the year” by the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association (IWCOA), wrestled for his father at Naperville North.
He was inspired by both men.
Petersen, Matt Gruszka said, “was my high school math teacher and was the biggest reason for me wanting to teach math at the high school level.”
In addition to coaching boys basketball — Petersen led various levels of Huskies boys to more than 500 wins but in 2014 was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame as a “friend of basketball” — he and Craig Morse sponsored Naperville North’s competitive math team.
Their mathletes fairly dominated the DuPage Valley Conference and won multiple state championships, several years consecutively.
Regarding Stan Gruszka, son Matt said: “He was the reason I got into coaching and teaching, but I still feel like I have lost more than a dad. I lost my original best friend.
“The number of athletes, coaches and friends that have reached out and shared their stories has been incredible,” he added.
Matt Gruszka modeled much of his coaching after his father, who coached Naperville North wrestling, offensive line in football and throws in boys track and field. Stan Gruszka competed in all three of those sports at North Central College.
Entered into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2002, Stan Gruszka earned induction into the IWCOA hall the next year. His teams won three DuPage Valley Conference titles and in 1987 placed second in Class AA.
While Gruszka assisted now-retired Naperville North football coach Larry McKeon with the linemen, Petersen and Morse did the football stats, which always have been a professional operation.
“Stan was more outgoing, high-tempo, an old-school kind of coach, and Bill was more of a quiet guy who led by example,” McKeon said.
He also noted that Gruszka, a physical education teacher, twice was named the school’s Distinguished Educator. Much of it, McKeon said, was due to his touch with special needs students.
“The kids loved him because they knew that he knew what he was talking about,” McKeon said of Gruszka.
And Petersen’s big brain often came in handy in helpful ways for people like me, the mathematically challenged.
“He was really good with numbers, so whenever we went out to dinner, he knew how much to tip,” McKeon said with a little humor, but also appreciation.
Of course their demise is sad. But Gruszka and Petersen went out together.
“Different personalities,” Kavanagh said, “but they got the same results. The kids liked and respected them.”
doberhelman@dailyherald.com