Bartlett's Stephens still going strong

Dick Stephens finally knows how to run the video machine at Bartlett High School.

OK, you might read that and say, “Huh? So what?”

Well, so what is that Stephens is 75 years old now and we all know that old saying about teaching old dogs new tricks, right?

Sorry, doesn't apply to Stephens.

See, Dick Stephens is 75 going on 50. He's got a pop in his step and a smile on his face as he does the one thing he loves the most coach football.

Stephens is a legend around here, and not because he won a bunch of championships, but because he's a winner and one of the best molder of young lives this area has ever had as a high-school coach.

Stephens has coached football at Elgin and Bartlett for 28 years all told. This fall, he's celebrating his 50th season as a high-school football coach by mentoring the defensive line for the 7-2 and 10th-ranked Bartlett Hawks, who will host Chicago Dunbar tonight at Millennium Field in Streamwood in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs.

“It's still fun,” says Stephens, who went 92-80-2 and made five playoff appearances as Elgin high's coach in two stints, the first from 1969-77 and the second from 1987-95.

“Every year when it comes football season ... I missed it when I was out of it for a couple years and sometimes when you get out of something you forget things. I still want to be able to diagnose plays but I'm like that country song ... I'm not as good as I once was.”

Bartlett head coach Tom Meaney and his staff would beg to differ.

“Dick has good discipline and I know I have to be on my toes with him around,” said Meaney, who was a Stephens assistant along with Mark Williams when Stephens completed his second stint at Elgin.

“He wants to share anything he knows. He's not only the D-line coach but he'll come down from the press box at halftime and tell us what he sees open, things like that.”

Stephens and his wife Mary Jo live in Jackson, Mich. He comes down to Elgin at the end of summer camp and this year, unlike the last two, he's stayed the whole time. He lives with the Meaney family in South Elgin “Nancy's a good cook; I get some awfully good meals,” he says during the football season and Mary Jo comes down every third game to take in the game and pay a visit.

Stephens' coaching career started in 1959 in Athens, Mich. He moved on to Battle Creek-Springfield from 1962-68 before coming to Elgin in 1969. He went back to Battle Creek from 1978-86 and then became Bartlett's first coach when the school opened in 1997. He went 27-22 as the Hawks' first coach and made three playoff appearances before retiring from U-46 and turning the reigns over to Meaney and Mark Williams, who had come with Stephens from Elgin.

From 2004-07 Stephens coached at Western High in Jackson and when his contract wasn't renewed he came back to Bartlett as an assistant. In the last 52 years he's missed two seasons 1996 after the death of his first wife, Beatrice, and 2002, the year after he suffered a heart attack.

And Meaney will attest to the fact that his house guest is just plain hooked when it comes to football.

“He still goes to tons of clinics, and a lot of the big ones,” Meaney said. “And he can't get enough of football on TV. His whole life revolves around seeing the games. He builds his schedule around it.”

“I got to all the clinics I can,” Stephens said. “I go with (Elgin coach) Dave Bierman, I go with Tom and Mark, I go to the national clinic. It's hard for me to miss one. I listened to the Alabama D-line coach and the Penn State D-line coach. You get an idea from them about how things are supposed to be done. But I try to stay out of the one in Mt. Pleasant (Mich.). There's a casino there.”

He makes a lasting impression on the young men he coaches, too.

“I've known coach Stephens as long as anyone on the team,” said senior defensive lineman Brian Polubinski, a 3-year varsity player. “He's a great guy. He's always got a smile on his face. He's a great coach and teacher and person. I'm proud to be coached by a high school legend.

“He's been around so much football. He gets along real well with all the coaches and players. Our football team appreciates him being down here.”

Don't think for a minute that Stephens, who Elgin players used to all the old drill seargent, has lost his edge completely.

“He's old school and Mark and I have a lot of his old school ways in us,” said Meaney. “Kids want to wear sandals in the weight room? He looks at them and says ‘Bull! Go get your tennis shoes on.'

“He's the first guy to practice and he'll do anything you ask. He sets up all the water ... he volunteers to do anything you need done. It's great to have him around. We learn from each other. It's fun. I've learned so much from him.”

Stephens, who gets 20 minutes alone with his defensive line at each practice, says he's still a student of the game, even learning from those he once coached.

“I'm still learning,” he says. “Erik Kramer was our quarterback when I was here and now he's the defensive coordinator and he's telling me what to do. But I really enjoy it. It's different from being a head coach. You don't have all that responsibility so you have to find things to do. So I set up the water.

“Then I just listen. Coach Kramer does such a good job. I get my 9-10 kids for 20 minutes and go through the things they need to do. They're very good kids to be around and they do what they're told.”

Stephens is also grateful his wife, Jo, supports his desire to continue to coach.

“My first wife was a great football wife and my second wife is a great football wife,” he says. “She encourages me. She comes down about every third game and she'll be here this weekend. If we win, she says we have to win the next one then so she can come down again.”

Stephens says the biggest change he's seen in the game in the last 52 years is technology. On Friday nights back in the day, he'd drive game film to Chicago to have it developed, hit a local diner while it was being worked on, and then get back to Elgin at 1 or 2 a.m. Then he'd be up early to watch that film at practice on Saturday morning.

Now, he marvels at how Meaney can burn 50 DVDs of Friday night's game before Saturday morning's practice.

Which, if he's not careful, might become another one of his jobs.

“I've been back here three years and I finally learned how to copy films on their machine,” Stephens laughed. “At 75, that makes you feel good.”

Seeing Dick Stephens with a whistle still around his neck at 75 should make us all feel good.

jradtke@dailyherald.com