Personal Reflection On Lewis College/University

I don’t know what is the right time to say this, but I need to say it.  I am one lucky guy and Lewis College/University had a lot to do with it.  Maybe because it’s winter for me, or maybe it has been gestating in my mind over many years.    

Put it this way.  For a 17-year old boy migrating to Lewis College from Braidwood, Illinois via high school at Joliet Catholic, a brand new world emerged for me.  I played baseball (no basketball) my last two years in high school, studied enough to get accepted into college, and hoped someday to drive a big rig like the ones I saw travelling on route 66 through our little town. Dad was a truck driver and equipment operator and my mother was a seamstress and worked part time in town.

Freshman at Lewis College

A coach I had known in high school, Gordie Gillespie, had seen me play baseball and offered me a small scholarship to go to Lewis.  I commuted from Braidwood for the first semester of 1958, played basketball with some friends in the Joliet and Lockport park districts, and studied enough to pass my college courses.  While playing ball with a loosely organized team, I improved enough to catch the eye of Lewis assistant coach Pat Callahan.  The end of the semester wasn’t kind to some of the Lewis basketball players who lost their eligibility for the 2^nd semester and Coach Gillespie suddenly asked my to start practicing with the team. I suddenly had a coach for the first time in my life.

Over the next three years, Gordie worked me until I was a reasonably good basketball player and became a starter halfway through my sophomore year.  By graduation time in 1962, the Chicago Zephyrs, precursor to the Bulls, drafted me.  In the meantime, I was offered a job to and coach at a brand new Christian Brothers high school in Aurora.  I did stay with the Zephyrs during the summer of 1962 and was cut in early September. Fortunately, the Brothers kept my job open and for the next 4 years I taught and coached at Roncalli High School.

Dream Job at Lewis

In the spring of 1968, Gordie asked me to be his assistant baseball coach at Lewis, while I completed my teaching assignment at Providence High School in New Lenox. The following fall, I became fulltime at Lewis as the first soccer coach, co-director of Intramurals, and assistant baseball coach.  I continued with coaching duties for the next five years before becoming the Dean and VP for Student Affairs at the University.

By the time that I left Lewis, it was apparent to me that my role in intramurals made the most impact on me. The friendships and camaraderie of fellow coaches and student athletes left an imprint that would carry me forward.

St. Francis with Gordie and Sullie, Then to Colorado

My connection to Lewis was interrupted with the coming of a new president in 1978 when I emigrated to the College of St. Francis in Joliet where Gordie and a good friend, Pat Sullivan, had begun coaching two years earlier.  After eight years at St. Francis, I then took a job in 1986 at Regis College/University in Denver, Colorado where I stayed for the next 27 years, retiring in 2013.

From 1990 through the current time, I was able to work part time at Lewis in a variety of capacities, helping the University to develop its accelerated adult education program, conducting occasional reunions, and then more actively working with Lewis alums who were from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.

Over many years, beginning in 1958, my experience with Lewis has saturated my very being.  Through the Spartan 1950s, Lewis consisted of Sheil Hall, the barracks, the hangars, student union, cafeteria, and the chapel. To me, however, it was my new second home and I happily lived there.  During the years I worked there, we became an upgraded version of the past but were now a Christian Brothers institution with a credential that really meant much more.  We were financially strapped but continued to build more facilities and dominated in athletics. 

To this day, I can say that we have had, and continue to have, great people at Lewis.  Our faculty and administrators make the University a place that I value to the highest degree. The students from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s are some of the best people you can meet.  Few of us came from wealthy or privileged families.  We came from working families where our parents didn’t have the chance for college, just like my family. And we continue to make a mark on our communities.   

I continued to work at, and contribute to, MY college/university as long as I could.  In the past several years I have realized, like never before, that my Lewis experiences have made me into what I am.  Those experiences built my foundation and developed me in ways that will never be eradicated.  I am Lewis, warts and all.

Thank you, Gordie Gillespie, Brother Phil Lynch, Tippy McFadden, Fr. Brennan, Paul Ruddy, Brother Leander Paul, Jeff Stiker, Pat Callahan, Brother James, Kathleen Bolden, my classmates and teammates, my colleagues from UA, my students from coaching and intramurals, and the Golden Flyers.  I consider all of you my friends and colleagues, linked by our respective experiences at Lewis.

Tom Kennedy ‘62

December 2014

Coach, teacher, administrator, former student, and athlete