Reflection #88: Sports in the Early ‘60’s

           As a north-sider, before I signed the contract to teach at St. Ignatius High School, I didn’t even know that there was a high school named St. Ignatius.   I was a “public” and the Catholic high schools with which I was familiar were Loyola, St. George, DePaul, Gordon Tech and several parish high schools in the area.  Now DePaul and St. George no longer exist, and Gordon is now DePaul Prep.  Of course, Fenwick, Mount Carmel and a couple of others were known city-wide for their athletic accomplishments.                                                       *So when I arrived at St. Ignatius in Sept. of 1961, I had no idea what to expect with the athletic programs.  Tom O’Hara’s (class of  ’60) name was still spoken around the school in hushed tones.   In 1961, he was running for Loyola U., and in 1964 he broke the indoor 4-minute mile record just prior to becoming a member of the U.S.A. track team in the ’64 Tokyo Olympics.                                                                                                                                            In tennis in 1964, Mike Sheehan either won or came in 2^nd (memory is a little fuzzy on that) in the Illinois State Tennis Tournament.  The following year, Fred Hogan won, and set the state record in swimming in the 50 yard free style, and came in 2^nd in the 100-yard free-style event.

             It is easy to identify outstanding athletes in individual sports like track, swimming, tennis, golf and bowling.  If they won they were better.  Track men like George Sajewycz, ’62, and Bill Stevens, ’65, who made a name for themselves at Ignatius come to mind.  But the quality of a player can be lost in a team sport due to a mediocre team record and the skill set of his/her teammates. 

            Such was not the case in the fall of 1960.  In May of ’61.  Don Hogan was an outstanding football player who earned a scholarship to play at Notre Dame.  Joe Fisher, ’67, told me that he was the best athlete he ever saw at Ignatius and that seeing Hogan play actually convinced Joe that Ignatius was the school for him.  The yearbook that year said, “After the season’s 1^st  six games, the followers of the Wolves were excited about the stellar play of Don Hogan who led the league in scoring”, but the record at that point was an unimpressive 2 wins and 4 losses.  The best that the Ignatius fans could hope for was a “gracious” loss to league-leading Mount Carmel.  However, in that game, Hogan scored 2 touchdowns to earn a very unexpected 12-12 tie.

             As I became more familiar with, and involved in, St. Ignatius athletics, I saw many wonderful athletes which I am reluctant to name for fear of missing those who may be equally or more deserving of mention.  Of course, they didn’t participate so that some old man, 50 years later, could identify them.  They did what they did for the love of the sport and the spirit of competition.

            As a post script to this reminiscence, On Friday, Sept. 16^th, the class of 1966 held their 50-year reunion, and I was pleased to have visited with some of the freshmen football players that I coached from the 1962 team…which was the last one before the 40 year hiatus that Ignatius took from football until it was reinstated in 2003.                                        (*I apologies for the "strange" paragraph alignment.  Such is the level of my computer skills.)