Who is Coach Gordie Gillespie?

You never know who will spring into your life and make such a remarkable impact that it determines your destiny. I have written three blogs that capture my journey with the man who would literally change the lives of thousands of men and women. Similar stories about him have been told or written by many others, so I don’t consider myself special in that regard. But in all that time, Gordie Gillespie made me feel that I was the best, most special person he had ever known. Such was the effect that he made on each one of us.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.“
Maya Angelou

The first of three segments

Joliet Catholic: 1954

When I first heard their names, I thought it was pretty funny. I was a skinny Braidwood kid just entering Joliet Catholic High School where I was a freshman. It was funny because I was sitting in the old gym bleachers with perhaps 200 other 13-14-year-old boys when the faculty were being introduced. The coaches named seemed to rhyme: Gillespie and Zalejski. It was September of 1954. At the time, I didn’t have a foggiest idea of how the first one named, “Gillespie,” would become a most significant force in my life.

First Step in My Epic Journey with the Coach

At 5’ 8” and 130 pounds, I must have been a sight in the first P.E. class at Catholic High. My memory of that class, which I hated, was doing uncoordinated jumping jacks in baggy gym shorts while a priest, Fr. Austin, meandered through the rows swatting kids with a huge brown leather belt. For no apparent reason other than to intimidate. Welcome to high school.

I learned quickly from my new classmates that the new football coach was Ernie Zalejski. Ernie had played for the University of Notre Dame on the team that won the national championship for three of his four years. A former professional football player with the Baltimore Colts, he now was my physical education teacher. And the other coach, Gordie Gillespie? Had no idea about him.

In my sophomore year as I sat in the same bleachers, we were again introduced to the faculty and there was a new coach introduced along with Gillespie and Zalejski: Leroy Leslie. We now had a third rhyming coach: Gillespie, Zalejski, and Leslie.

The new basketball coach, I learned, was a graduate of Notre Dame who had set records and was a 1952 All-American. He would also be my baseball coach in my junior/senior years. Coach Leroy, along with Coach Ernie, both had outstanding credentials. But who is Gordie Gillespie?

By my senior year, I stood at 6’ 4” and boasted about my weight being 150 pounds. After my sophomore year, my parents had permitted me to use some of my savings from paper delivery jobs to buy a used car. Now, I might actually stay for extracurricular activities. At age 16, I had been periodically liberated from the confinement of the “Braidwood bus” and joined the band, the newspaper/yearbook staff, and baseball team.

Being on the baseball team gave me the chance to be accepted – for the first time – by the Joliet Catholic classmates and jocks. Leading the team in hitting as a junior meant more than participation in the band, yearbook, and newspaper. And the baseball team did provide the chance to finally meet the mysterious Coach Gordon Gillespie at the end of my senior year.

Until that time, I was unaware that Coach Gillespie was also on the staff at Lewis College in addition to being at Catholic High. At the end of our season, a game was scheduled at Lewis where we scrimmaged against some of their varsity players. Gordie himself was the scrimmage catcher as well as the head baseball coach.

To this day, I don’t know what Gordie saw in me hitting against a flame throwing right-handed pitcher, Don “Red” Casper. Red was throwing in the low 90’s and was not considered a “control” pitcher. I had never batted against someone like this and quickly struck out. But Gordie may have seen himself in me as a 17-year old, 6’4”, skinny ball player. To my shock, he did offer me a baseball scholarship, perhaps based on Coach Leslie’s recommendation.

Wow. I had a $300 scholarship to play baseball at Lewis. I was going to go to college and delay my career as a truck driver except during the summers. I would continue to drive trucks for many more years, but only on a part time basis.