On Campus: Greg Whalen reunites with familiar faces at Western Michigan

Greg Whalen’s college football career was a choice between playing for two coaches with impressive offensive backgrounds – Tim Lester or Jeff Thorne.

“My final decision as far as which college I was going to go to came down to North Central or Elmhurst,” he said. “I was going to play for Coach Thorne or Coach Lester.”

In 2010, Lester was the head coach at Elmhurst College, while Thorne was the assistant head coach overseeing the offense at North Central College. Whalen picked North Central and was a three-year starter on the offensive line.

Twelve years later, Whalen has reconnected with both as the new tight ends coach at NCAA Division I Western Michigan, where Lester is approaching his sixth season as head coach and Thorne is the team’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

“It’s an amazing opportunity,” said Whalen, a Marian Central graduate whose hiring was announced Feb. 7 by the school. “Coach Lester has given me this opportunity and I’m working as hard as I can to make him proud. I’m enjoying it.”

Whalen, who served as a North Central assistant after his playing career, spent the past three seasons at NAIA Marian University as the school’s offensive line coach … with a twist.

“When you’re at a small school, the running backs and tight ends just get thrown into your room, so you’re coaching the offensive line, the running backs and the tight ends,” he said. “Having worked with Coach Thorne before, I understand how important the tight end position is in his offense.”

Western Michigan, which starts spring practices this week, is coming off an 8-5 season and a 52-24 victory against Nevada in the Quick Lane Bowl, the program’s second bowl win in school history.

Whalen has spent his first couple of weeks on the job refamiliarizing himself with Thorne’s offense and studying its terminology.

“When you come into a new place as a football coach, it’s all word association,” he said. “There’s a lot of similar words that mean the same thing in other offenses. I’ve spent a lot of time by myself, drawing up play calls and making sure I’m 100% locked in to the terms in the offense.”

Whalen said he will be responsible for recruiting Wisconsin, along with a portion of Michigan, and the tight end position.

In his new role, Whalen expects his tight ends to provide the offense with plenty of skills.

“The thing about tight ends is they have to do it all,” he said. “They have to be involved in the run game and they have to be involved in the passing concepts. What excites me is we have different types of athletes in our room. We have guys that can go in there and block and some guys who can split out and make some plays on the outside (in the pass game).”

In his short time on the job, Kalamazoo, Mich., has been a welcome place to coach the game, according to Whalen.

“I’ve been so impressed by the city and the community and how much they support the football program,” he said. “When you’re making decisions as a football coach, you have to go somewhere where football is important. When you come here, it just oozes support for the football program.”

Sroka shines at IWU: Huntley grad Ryan Sroka, a sophomore guard at D-III Illinois Wesleyan, scored eight points off the bench Wednesday to help the Illinois Wesleyan men’s basketball team a 78-65 victory against North Central, which helped the Titans clinch the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin regular-season championship.

IWU (20-4) is 5-0 in February and ranked No. 6 nationally this week.

Sroka grabbed a season-high seven rebounds in a 66-57 victory Feb. 5 against Carthage and scored 14 points – two shy of his season-best 16 – in a 73-49 triumph Feb. 7 against North Park.

For the season, he is averaging 6.0 points and 3.5 rebounds while appearing in 19 games, including five starts.

Evans reaches 100 wins: Cary-Grove grad Dan Evans, the head men’s basketball coach at NCAA Division II University of North Georgia, achieved his 100th career victory Jan. 5 in his team’s 72-60 victory against Georgia Southwestern State University.

Evans is in his third season at UNG, where his team is 13-10 overall and 6-8 in the Peach Belt Conference.

Evans arrived at the school in 2019 after six seasons as the head coach at D-II Ohio Dominican, where he compiled 76 victories.

From Johnsburg to Iowa to DeKalb: Johnsburg grad Ryan Linkletter, a sophomore pitcher at Iowa Central Community College, announced Feb. 7 via Twitter that he has committed to continue his baseball career next season at Northern Illinois University.

Linkletter pitched for Triton College in River Grove last season. He was 2-2 with 18 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings.

• Barry Bottino writes about local college athletes for the Northwest Herald. Write to him at barryoncampus@hotmail.com and follow @BarryOnCampus on Twitter.