A preamble: Please keep in your prayers the family of John Tracy.
John passed away a couple of weeks ago. He had been the Dean of Students for a
little over 20 years, and the varsity basketball coach for about 10 years. In my
experience, John was one of the good guys.
Recently, I was reminded of the Walk for Ignatius, so,with the help of Don Hoffman, the school’s archivist, I perused the 2000 Fall edition of the St. Ignatius Magazine. That year marked the 30th anniversary of the walk, and, coincidentally, that was the last Walk for Ignatius. Since the first walk was held in the fall of 1971, it would have been more appropriate to wait and write an article on its 50th anniversary, 2020, but at my age...Well, you know. I don’t even buy "green bananas” anymore.
Those of you who are over 60 years old may remember selling chances for the Mother’s Club Luncheon which was held each spring. In 1970, Fr. Stan Wisniewski was confronted by the seniors who said that they absolutely would NOT sell chances any more. Stan wrote, “I had to scour around to find some other source of revenue-raising.” Stan finally hit on something and, for one year, the students sold World’s Finest Candies. While that brought a marginal increase in funds for the school, it also brought with it something else...vermin. Additionally, the Student Council informed Fr. Stan that selling candy was a “grade-school kiddy job”, and they weren’t going to do that either.
Frank Raispis, who was principal from 1970 to 1973, recalls Joe Rubinelli (’72) coming into his office and saying that the Student Council wanted to do a “walk for Ignatius". Frank was pessimistic about it succeeding, and he told them, “If it goes well, you get the credit; if it doesn’t, you get the blame.” We certainly would be the first high school in the area to try such a fund-raising project.
In fact, it “took off’. The plan was to have a 20 mile walk along the lake front, starting and finishing at North Ave. beach. Father Jim Condon took care of the arrangements with the city. The route would run north to Hollywood, then the students would return as far south as Navy Pier. To complete the full 20 miles, there were "outposts" at the ends of harbors where the students would get their walk-cards stamped, and, in order to get credit for having completed the walk, each student would have to show the filled-in card when he finished. (We were an all male school at the beginning.)
Frank remembers the spirit and energy that were present during those early years. For example, the students taking Greek formed a club-”Pheidippidedai", and they wore t-shirts of their own design. One year, some students carried a sedan chair with a student in it, and, during at least one walk, Jim Connelly’s cross-country team ran the entire route. A popular tradition was the buttons given to the students either before or after the walk. Ray Kizelevicus, who took over organizing the walk from Fr. Wisniewski, still has a pretty complete collection of those buttons.
Eventually, the length of the walk was shortened to 20 kilometers, cutting off some of the more out-of-the-way detours and the Navy Pier leg. The distance really wasn’t that big of an issue anyway. Despite the fact that the students were suppose to show their stamp-cards to their sponsors, the money was usually given whether or not the walk card was produced. After a few years, it became something of a game with students to leave the walk route, and catch a ride to the end of the route and back. They were going to get the money anyway.
Over the years, it was the tradition to kick-off the fund-raising portion of the walk with some kind of themed assembly. One year, Father Wisniewski was escorted into the gym by the Chicago Honey-Bears, the dance troop of the Chicago Bulls. The sight of Fr. “Wiz” surrounded by a group of beautiful young cheerleaders can only be described as surreal. Another year, Father Beuter, the principal, climbed into a hot-air balloon to sail away...“back to Kansas” would be my guess...but it was a too windy that day to risk it. Still another year, a 100-yard subway sandwich (Tony Rosinia claims that it was 500 feet. Whatever!) was the attraction to rouse the student body to a fever pitch and get them to plead with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa and less threatening neighbors to pledge something per mile.
Over the 30-year span, the students brought in a total of close to $3,000,000. There are a lot more stories to tell about the “Walk”, but that's enough for now. I’m not sure why the walk was stopped, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if the liability factor played a part. Twelve hundred teen-agers walking 20 km along a narrow path between Lake Michigan and the Outer-Drive...I‘m happy that we made it through 30 years without a major mishap.
Recently, I was reminded of the Walk for Ignatius, so,with the help of Don Hoffman, the school’s archivist, I perused the 2000 Fall edition of the St. Ignatius Magazine. That year marked the 30th anniversary of the walk, and, coincidentally, that was the last Walk for Ignatius. Since the first walk was held in the fall of 1971, it would have been more appropriate to wait and write an article on its 50th anniversary, 2020, but at my age...Well, you know. I don’t even buy "green bananas” anymore.
Those of you who are over 60 years old may remember selling chances for the Mother’s Club Luncheon which was held each spring. In 1970, Fr. Stan Wisniewski was confronted by the seniors who said that they absolutely would NOT sell chances any more. Stan wrote, “I had to scour around to find some other source of revenue-raising.” Stan finally hit on something and, for one year, the students sold World’s Finest Candies. While that brought a marginal increase in funds for the school, it also brought with it something else...vermin. Additionally, the Student Council informed Fr. Stan that selling candy was a “grade-school kiddy job”, and they weren’t going to do that either.
Frank Raispis, who was principal from 1970 to 1973, recalls Joe Rubinelli (’72) coming into his office and saying that the Student Council wanted to do a “walk for Ignatius". Frank was pessimistic about it succeeding, and he told them, “If it goes well, you get the credit; if it doesn’t, you get the blame.” We certainly would be the first high school in the area to try such a fund-raising project.
In fact, it “took off’. The plan was to have a 20 mile walk along the lake front, starting and finishing at North Ave. beach. Father Jim Condon took care of the arrangements with the city. The route would run north to Hollywood, then the students would return as far south as Navy Pier. To complete the full 20 miles, there were "outposts" at the ends of harbors where the students would get their walk-cards stamped, and, in order to get credit for having completed the walk, each student would have to show the filled-in card when he finished. (We were an all male school at the beginning.)
Frank remembers the spirit and energy that were present during those early years. For example, the students taking Greek formed a club-”Pheidippidedai", and they wore t-shirts of their own design. One year, some students carried a sedan chair with a student in it, and, during at least one walk, Jim Connelly’s cross-country team ran the entire route. A popular tradition was the buttons given to the students either before or after the walk. Ray Kizelevicus, who took over organizing the walk from Fr. Wisniewski, still has a pretty complete collection of those buttons.
Eventually, the length of the walk was shortened to 20 kilometers, cutting off some of the more out-of-the-way detours and the Navy Pier leg. The distance really wasn’t that big of an issue anyway. Despite the fact that the students were suppose to show their stamp-cards to their sponsors, the money was usually given whether or not the walk card was produced. After a few years, it became something of a game with students to leave the walk route, and catch a ride to the end of the route and back. They were going to get the money anyway.
Over the years, it was the tradition to kick-off the fund-raising portion of the walk with some kind of themed assembly. One year, Father Wisniewski was escorted into the gym by the Chicago Honey-Bears, the dance troop of the Chicago Bulls. The sight of Fr. “Wiz” surrounded by a group of beautiful young cheerleaders can only be described as surreal. Another year, Father Beuter, the principal, climbed into a hot-air balloon to sail away...“back to Kansas” would be my guess...but it was a too windy that day to risk it. Still another year, a 100-yard subway sandwich (Tony Rosinia claims that it was 500 feet. Whatever!) was the attraction to rouse the student body to a fever pitch and get them to plead with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa and less threatening neighbors to pledge something per mile.
Over the 30-year span, the students brought in a total of close to $3,000,000. There are a lot more stories to tell about the “Walk”, but that's enough for now. I’m not sure why the walk was stopped, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if the liability factor played a part. Twelve hundred teen-agers walking 20 km along a narrow path between Lake Michigan and the Outer-Drive...I‘m happy that we made it through 30 years without a major mishap.
