Round Lake prepares to open hall's doors

As the back of his 1978 Topps football card notes, with cartoon caption, Tom Wittum once was offered a contract by the White Sox as a third baseman.

Got 'im?

I'm glad my mom never threw out my trading cards. Two of my three Tom Wittums ('76, '77 and '78) are in near-mint condition, and 30 years later, they're still fun to look at.

I don't have any Tim Unroe baseball cards, but I looked them up online and you can purchase them. And I might. Not that they're worth, say, a Mike Schmidt rookie card (got 'im) or an Ernie Banks rookie card (don't got 'im).

Know what, though? If you have ties to Round Lake, those Wittum and Unroe cards should be priceless in your book.

They're a symbol of Panther Pride, as are R-Lettes.

What do former professional athletes Wittum and Unroe have in common with a 1960s high school drill team called the R-Lettes?

On May 3, they'll all be inducted into the newly established Round Lake Sr. High School hall of fame.

The inaugural class includes former athletes, coaches and administrators, and even a former custodian.

"A few of us coaches have been talking about this for a couple of years," said Howard Conkling, who stepped down as head baseball coach last year after 14 seasons and is serving as chairman of the 12-person hall-of-fame committee.

"It just seemed like it was way overdue. It seemed like the right thing to do."

So, more than 50 years after Round Lake's one and only high school opened its doors, the Panthers are finally going to have their own hall of fame, which will include alums Wittum and Unroe.

"It's to look at the past," Conkling said, "but also to show the present athletes that there were a lot of good athletes at our place."

When you think of perennial powerhouse high school athletic programs in Lake County, you don't think of Round Lake. That's part of the reason Conkling and some other Panther coaches thought the time was right to remind people that their high school has had its share of great teams, great athletes and great people.

"I think it's kind of the shot in the arm that we need at the high school -- to see that there's been some success here and that there's been some great success here," said Conkling, who's in his 24th year at RLHS. "It's an important thing to honor these people and the things they've done."

Conkling was an assistant varsity basketball coach under Jim Prorak in the late 1980s when Unroe decided, as a senior, to take a swing at baseball.

What a swing.

"I remember the first night he's in the cage we said, 'What do we got to do with this guy? Nothing,' " Conkling said. "We saw him swing the bat and we were like, 'Oh, my God.' He was an exceptional talent."

Unroe matriculated at the College of Lake County and then Lewis University, where he was a baseball All-American. He eventually played parts of five seasons in the major leagues with Milwaukee, Anaheim and Atlanta. He hit 3 big-league homers.

Wittum played football and baseball at Northern Illinois, where he's a member of the Huskies' hall of fame, and then enjoyed a five-year career in the NFL. A punter, he made a pair of Pro Bowls for the San Francisco 49ers.

He teaches life fitness at Grayslake Central.

Round Lake's Class of 2008 also includes Karen Favia, who won a sixth-place state medal in the 400 meters; Bill Swieton, who's the Panthers' all-time leading scorer in basketball and later played at Augustana; Cindy Donner, who's the girls basketball team's all-time leading scorer and earned a Division-I ride to Northeastern.

Also in are Clint Rodriguez, who was all-conference in football and baseball, and played wide receiver at Yale; Mike Pratt, who placed third in the state wrestling meet; and Don Reinhofer, a 1962 graduate who was the first Round Lake athlete to receive an athletic scholarship, Conkling said, and then competed track and football at the University of Miami.

Conkling said Reinhofer wrote to say he'd be coming back to Round Lake for the May 3 ceremony.

"He said he would not be any place if it wasn't for his old high school football and track coaches and his athletic director," Conkling said.

"I think I read that five times over."

The inductees also include former tennis player Scott Hayes, and coaches Howard Schroeder, Ralph Lonergan and Jim Rogers. Lonergan and Rogers will be inducted posthumously, as will Jerry Kaires (the school's first athletic director) and R.J. Forehand (the school's first principal).

It was Lonergan, Round Lake's former football coach, who started the marching R-Lettes.

Former AD Ken Ricci is also going into the hall of fame, and so is Fred Priemer, who was a school custodian for close to 40 years.

"He never missed an athletic event," Conkling said.

The co-ed cheerleading teams, which won back-to-back state titles in 1997 and 1998, made the cut. So, too, did Shirley Tripp, who was a pioneer of girls sport at the school.

And talk about a trip.

"She was the bus driver for the R-Lettes," Conkling said of Tripp.

The Saturday, May 3 ceremony/banquet will take place at 6 p.m. at the new Round Lake Beach Cultural and Civic Center. The general public can purchase the $30 tickets at the high school library between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. during the week. The last day to purchase tickets is April 25.

For more information, people can contact Jan Prochnow at (847) 270-9300, extension 5350.

"We're very excited for this," Conkling said. "May 3 is going to be a nice night. I can't wait to hear some of the old stories."

Someone should ask Wittum about his NFC-best 63-yard run from scrimmage on a fake punt in 1973. That factoid is on the back of his 1976 Topps card.