Backfield in motion, right into Wheeling’s Athletic Hall of Fame
Don’t be surprised if the Wheeling High School Athletic Hall of Fame’s 2026 induction class shows up Friday in the I-Formation.
A trio from the school’s Class of 1986, quarterback Greg Anderson, running back-cornerback Dan O’Conor, and fullback-linebacker Matt Witt all were three-year starters for Wildcats football teams that went 21-7 from 1983-85 and led the team to its first state playoff appearance in 1985.
They’ll be recognized at about 8 p.m. Friday during halftime of the boys basketball game against Buffalo Grove. A reception will be held at 6:30 in the field house.
“It feels good to be going in with those two guys, guys who I grew up with, guys who I played with. We achieved a lot,” said O’Conor, the 1985 Mid-Suburban League North player of the year. The 1,600-meter relay he ran on in track and field set a school record that still stands.
A salesperson who lives in Chicago and has gained media attention for his daily dives into Lake Michigan from near Montrose Harbor — Thursday will be 2,055 straight days — O’Conor will join his mother, Betty, in the Wheeling hall. She was inducted in 2011 as a “Friend of Athletics.”
Each a team captain their senior football season, Anderson set an all-time program passing record with 3,823 yards, while O’Conor followed with a record 1,765 yards rushing and Witt with a record 126 tackles.
Before ending the 1985 season with two losses, including a first-round playoff game to eventual Class 5A runner-up Forest View months before the Arlington Heights school closed in 1986, Wheeling went undefeated through eight games while outscoring foes 191-49.
“It’s an honor, for sure,” Witt said of the hall of fame. “We get our pictures back up on the wall.”
Now an auditor who lives in Cary, Witt went on to play at Northwestern, where he’s tied for fourth in single-game tackles with 24 against Ohio State in 1989. He coached former Chicago Bears linebacker Jack Sanborn in eighth grade with the Lake Zurich Flames.
Anderson, coming in from Dallas for the ceremony, was the 1985 MSL player of the year. He played at Air Force, which led him to a 28-year career that included active duty in the Persian Gulf. Since 1999 a pilot for American Airlines, on Monday he’ll fly a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to China.
Friendship and school spirit is strong with these men, each of whom had older brothers on the football team when they started on varsity as sophomores.
Witt and O’Conor, friends since grade school, still get together. With Anderson they’re part of a texting thread that includes some 30 graduates spanning multiple Wheeling sports. Many of them attend quarterly and annual holiday dinners Witt said are organized by Tom Stothoff, a 2016 inductee for basketball.
“The friendships we made on the field, they last a lifetime,” Anderson said.
The trio credited their coaching staff including hall of fame head coach Rick Benedetto and assistant Ray Pettenuzzo, receivers such as Bob Holzer, Don Nelson, and Mike Peterson.
O’Conor said that without their offensive line — Rob Lewis, Randy Peterson, Bill Reidinger, Jeff Rockenbach, Shawn Rodack — the hall of famers couldn’t have done what they did.
“The coaches, the families, the characters, the teammates, we just really jelled,” Anderson said. “That’s why it’s surprising, the three of us at one time. It could have been the whole team, to be honest.”
Improving their stock
Football pundits were aflutter after Neuqua Valley graduate Mark Gronowski and Conant graduate Mason Reiger were named the offensive and defensive MVPs, respectively, of Tuesday’s East-West Shrine Bowl football game in Frisco, Texas.
A quarterback whose 58 victories at Iowa and South Dakota State are an NCAA record, Gronowski completed 7 of 10 passes for 86 yards and ran for 28 more.
What seemed to impress people the most was his block on the right edge that took out two defenders and led to a touchdown run.
Gronowski also made the West’s “All-Practice Team” leading up to Tuesday’s game — as did former Wisconsin linebacker Reiger for the East squad.
Exploding off the line, the 6-foot-4, 245-pound Reiger made 4 tackles, including 3 sacks, and forced a fumble on one of those sacks.
Gronowski and Reiger both were among NFL analyst Chad Reuter’s eight NFL “prospects who stood out.”
doberhelman@dailyherald.com