Sidelines: Inspiring Evans Scholar finds joy in ‘the most challenging of circumstances’

Touching stories from deserving students are why every year this column highlights the Glenview-based Western Golf Association’s Chick Evans Scholarship Program.

Entering her fourth summer caddying at Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn, Glenbard West senior Gabrielle “Gabbi” Bertrand joins 135 caddies in Metropolitan Chicago named 2026 Evans Scholars. She follows her brother, Zach, an Evans Scholar who graduated from the University of Missouri last December.

The Evans Scholars Foundation benefiting caddies began in 1930 and is funded by thousands of individual donors and by proceeds from the PGA’s BMW Championship. Evans Scholars receive a housing and tuition grant valued at more than $125,000 over four years to attend 28 participating colleges. Their graduation rate is 98%.

Gabbi Bertrand will go to the University of Iowa and into pre-nursing. She has her reasons.

“Obviously having my brother as an influence was very impactful, but I think a big part of my story was also my sister (Madeline, or Maddi). She wanted to go into nursing, but she actually passed away my sophomore year in high school,” Bertrand said.

“Her legacy reminds me every day of the realities of life and how joy can be achieved in even the most challenging of circumstances.”

Maddi Bertrand died at 23 in 2023 of cystic fibrosis, a genetic lung ailment. A 2019 double lung transplant allowed her to take classes at College of DuPage, but Gabbi Bertrand said after less than a year at Olivet Nazarene, Maddi returned home, ill.

Gabbi finds a positive in her loss.

“The way she persevered through all these things and she still was able to find joy through the difficulties, and being able to see how the nurses impacted her life is what actually made me want to go into nursing,” she said.

Bertrand is in the National Honor Society and last year tutored at the Glen Ellyn Children’s Resource Center but didn’t golf until she went all in and joined Glenbard West’s team last fall.

“I did OK,” she said.

She learned the sport while caddying at Glen Oak, watching and talking with club members. It gave her discipline and focus when focus couldn’t have been easy.

“It’s taught me a lot about others, but it’s also helped me discover resilience in myself that I didn’t really know I had before I came on the course,” Bertrand said.

It translated clearly over the phone. Obviously a people person, Bertrand anticipates more connection, more joy, at the Evans Scholars house at Iowa.

“I’m really excited to meet the other kids,” she said, “and be a part of something that is like a family.”

Class acts

Barrington baseball coach Paul Belo knows greatness when he sees it. Even when he was a boy playing for Hoffman Estates High School.

And Barrington, which won the 1986 Class AA title under one of his predecessors — Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame coach Kirby Smith — had it.

“I remember that team being so incredibly gritty and disciplined and tough,” said Belo, also in the hall of fame. He’s in his first spring coaching the Broncos after 22 seasons at Palatine and two more as the Joliet Slammers hitting coach.

“Kirby had such a presence,” Belo said. “I was an opposing player and could recognize that as a coach he had such command of who they were. All the way from how they wore their socks, their uniforms. They hustled on and off the field. They played the game hard, they played the right way.”

On May 9 Barrington hosted a reunion of that 1986 team and players from other Broncos teams at Coach Kirby Smith Field. They even brought out the state trophy, among five overall from the Smith era.

About a dozen players from the 1986 team showed, and around 20 overall, Belo said. Several later attended a White Sox game, where they met 1987 Barrington graduate Dan Wilson, in town as manager of the Seattle Mariners.

Smith “was as fiery and as critical as he’s always been,” Belo said.

“He seemed very happy with the day. He commented about the positives, and certainly there weren’t many negatives,” Belo said of a 10-4 win over East Peoria.

Lengthy introductions and ceremonial first pitches could have disrupted the current players, but they showed “ultimate levels of respect,” Belo said.

“It was just a great day for our community, and I was glad to be part of it.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com