Support system helps Hopkins family shine at Marquette

Where most of us are fortunate to have one loving family, the one you’re born with and grow up in, and the one you create with a spouse and children. There may be a second, if you’re lucky enough to have a work career in which coworkers over time become caring, close friends.

But Todd Hopkins is more fortunate still. He has a third, one that the very presence of the first two families makes possible.

His third family is made up of the hundreds and hundreds of players who have played for him, players of different sports and different genders, athletes he has taught the game they were playing and lessons in life coming out of them, young men and women he’s both praised and cheered for or cajoled and yelled at, though occasionally those occured at the same time.

But they learned, and they grew … into another family.

Along the way, the three families have combined to cement Hopkins as one of the greatest coaches in IHSA history.

Just recently, the Crusaders baseball program earned him his 600th career win in now his 25th season, while his winning percentage of 76.9% (601-180) is near the top of that very elite group of mentors. That and four state finals trophies, including the 2019 1A state championship, justify his 2015 induction in the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

In addition, he’s had great success on the basketball court, first with the girls where over 17 seasons his team’s went 371-118 (75.8%) and then with the boys for last seven season, going 114-58 (66.2%).

Together, Hopkins as a head coach of a varsity sport has led his teams to 1,086 wins and 356 losses. That’s a winning percentage of 75.3%.

Those are the numbers, but the story behind how those numbers were achieved is much more personal, going from a small house in McNabb, through small college in Aurora and Eureka to a small high school in Ottawa, through the lives of hundreds of athletes and on to another home in the latter place, occupied by Hopkins, his wife, Katie (Bute) Hopkins and their four children, Hunter (14), Tate (12), Ty (also known as Birdie, 10) and Tillie (3).

“I couldn’t do any of it without my family,” the normally stoic Hopkins said with a touch of emotion in his voice. “Katie handles everything for us from November to June, pretty much, taking the kids everywhere for all the things they do. I try to make it to those things, but can’t always. She takes care of it all and so much more, some things I don’t even know about until after she’s taken care of it.

“My mom and dad (Nancy and Phil Hopkins) have been so supportive of everything I’ve done. I couldn’t do what I do without them.”

Hopkins, a baseball and basketball star for coaching legend Ken Jenkins at Putnam County High School and later a standout at Eureka College, admits that when he went looking for a teaching job after graduating from college, he came to Marquette because it was closest to his family home in Putnam County.

In his early years in Ottawa, he met Katie, the daughter of Beth and the late Dan Bute, a lifelong Ottawa resident and a Marquette and Northern Illinois University alum. They married in 2007 as Katie was embarking on her own teaching career at St. Columba, now Marquette Academy.

Needing a change in 2020, she made the difficult decision to leave teaching to become a distributor of health and wellness products, a job that still involves teaching – now adults – that gives her the time to care for the family while balancing and supporting all their activities, many of them at the school where she taught.

The Hopkinses credit MA principal Brooke Rick with helping with the career transition.

Now, their connection with Marquette is stronger than ever as Katie watches so many of her former grade school students go on to shine for her husband’s athletic teams. Soon, their children will join that list.

“I loved my time at St. Columba and at Marquette. I miss the kids, but needed to do something else,” Katie said. “Living with Marquette now through Todd, I know that the families are still exceptional. They love us, they support us and we’re super lucky to have them … and the kids. So many of them come back. When Todd finishes a season and the seniors from that team move in, they always come back and always sticks with us. We’re invited to weddings, baby showers and all the big things that happen in their lives. They respect us and want to include us, even after they’ve been gone from here for some time, because of what Todd has given them, and that’s really special to us … That’s why we don’t mind having 13 kids in the yard. This time is fleeting and we want them there.

“We may have had an impact on their lives, but they’ve had a bigger one on ours, and they don’t even realize it yet. They’re just all great people, and we’re so grateful to have them in our lives still.”

Quipped Todd, “And athletes make great babysitters.

“We’ve had great kids. They’re the ones who make coaches. You just try to give them something while you have them.”

The Hopkinses have never really sat down and thought about how many lives they’ve touched as a teacher, coach or athletic director. They are too busy living day to day, moving from one duty to another, putting that reflection off to “maybe someday when we’re older and not doing all this.”

“To be honest, I didn’t intend to stay at Marquette for very long,” Todd Hopkins said, “but life evolves and now it’s been, what, 24 years? And I love it. I’ve had opportunities to move elsewhere, but this is home now. My family is here now.

“When I don’t like doing all this anymore, I’ll go farm, drive a tractor, because I’ll always have my connection to (the Putnam County area), but I don’t think that’s going to be for a while yet. I’m still having fun. We all are.”