Coaches, athletes, teams honored during Oregon School District’s first athletic hall of fame induction

OREGON – An Olympic champion, two coaches, five athletes and three state title teams were among the inaugural inductees into Oregon School District 220′s Athletic Hall of Fame.

It was a night of memories, tributes and camaraderie for those selected to the OSD Athletic Hall of Fame as friends and families reflected on their accomplishments during the Sept. 14 celebration at the Rock River Center.

OHS activities director Mike Lawton was the master of ceremonies for the event and started the evening with a tribute to inductee J.R. Worley, a former teacher, coach and athletic director at Mt. Morris High School.

During his tenure as athletic director from 1956 to 1982, Worley was instrumental in advocating for girls sports in the mid-1970s, scheduling contests for girls teams to compete in before most schools in Ogle County had teams, Lawton said.

“J.R. Worley was a big advocator for sports and girls programs. J.R. didn’t have to schedule games for us in and around the suburbs but did,” said Salley Wessels, a Mt. Morris native and longtime coach and teacher at Mt. Morris who also was inducted into the Hall of Fame. “We had equal time as far as practices.”

Worley died in 2004. His daughters Jo Sanders and Chris Stabile accepted the award on his behalf.

“Thank you very much,” Sanders said. “We are proud of our dad.”

A graduate of Mt. Morris High School herself, Wessels reflected on her 26-year career at MMHS after teaching at West High School in Rockford and in Arlington Heights.

“I am really proud of the fact that I returned to Mt. Morris to be a part of the girls sports program that started in 1972,” Wessels said. “I wanted to play for the Rockford Peaches. I wanted to be the next Babe Zaharias, but I didn’t have the opportunity. So, the next best thing was to help other girls achieve an interest in sports. And I have to say I was just at the ideal time and place.

“The girls were so eager to be able to compete. And that’s what made it so great for me. I loved every minute of it.”

Wessels said her two sons, Thaddeus and Seth, often accompanied her to games and practices and eventually kept statistics for the teams.

“I always said my two boys spent more time in the girls locker room than the girls did themselves,” Wessels joked. “We had basketball, volleyball, field hockey, track, and I dragged them along. They liked it, and [my husband] Phil liked it because he didn’t have to babysit.”

Inductee Doug Engle, a longtime teacher and shot put and discus coach for the Hawks, also thanked his family for their support, as he coached 409 throwers during his career, including 15 state medals for boys and girls and two state champions in the girls shot put in 2021 and 2022.

He retired from teaching in 2007 and didn’t coach for a few years, during which Oregon had no throwers qualify for the state meet. When he returned as a coach, the Hawks had throwers qualify again for the state meet.

“When he did not coach, there wasn’t one single qualifier for the throws,” Lawton said. “So, if someone tells [you] coaching doesn’t matter, they are wrong.”

Engle said he started a “throwers’ picnic” for athletes at the end of his first track season. He said he watched as his throwers got on their knees and played football with his young children while he cooked meat on the grill.

“I knew I was in the right place,” Engle said. “It’s been a pleasure.”

Former OHS athletes Andy Ballard, Jake Carpenter and Jerry Baker also were inducted.

“We had a lot of great athletes at OHS from 1997 to 2001,” said Ballard, who excelled in football, wrestling and track for the Hawks in the early 2000s before competing for Marquette University in Milwaukee in track and field. “It will always be great to be an Oregon Hawk.”

Carpenter competed in five sports at OHS. He said being inducted into the Hall of Fame was metaphorically like being able to put his jersey on again.

“I know how hard it is to take that jersey off after the last contest. This is like being able to put it back on again. Thank you,” Carpenter said.

Baker won the Class A state discus championship in 1982 and held the school’s discus record for 15 years. He was a four-sport athlete, earning All-State honors in football.

Former cross country coach Art Carlson said he knew team members could compete for a state title in 1997 after they won the fresh-soph division in 1995 at a meet in Peoria.

“That was against all big schools, so I said, ‘If you guys can stay together and keep working, you can win a state title’, and that’s what they did,” Carlson said.

Jeremy Benesh, a member of the 1998 championship wrestling team, said the team had “great coaches and a great team.”

The team’s first-place finish marked the first state team championship for Oregon.

“It was a great time to be an Oregon Hawk,” Benesh said.

Coach Mike Papini thanked the team members who were present at the ceremony.

“It was a family,” he said. “The pleasure has been all mine.”

Speaking about the 2009 state championship team, OHS track coach Jim Spratt said: “Talk about being fortunate. I inherited all these people. All I had to do was not screw it up. These guys are special. I will forever be thankful for the people who allowed us to do this.”

Bob and the late Leona Groenhagen received the Friends of Athletics OSD Hall of Fame award for supporting OHS sporting events for 40 years.

“Thank you. This is a wonderful thing that the committee put on,” Groenhagen said. “I enjoyed it quite a bit.”

Also inducted was Sherman Landers, an early 20th century OHS track star and Olympic athlete.

A video from the great-grandson of Frank Loomis, an Olympic gold medalist in 1920, capped off the evening.

“I know my grandfather would be delighted about this,” Frank Loomis IV said from Cincinnati. “He was a kind and witty man. He told me stories about winning the gold medal in Antwerp in 1920. I didn’t inherit any of his athletic abilities, but he never held that against me. And that’s a pretty good grandfather, don’t you think?”

2024 Hall of Fame inductees

• Administrator/Coach: J.R. Worley (longtime Mt. Morris athletic director)
• Coaches: Doug Engle (longtime shot put/discus coach for OHS); Salley Wessels (longtime girls coach at MMHS)
• Athletes: Sherman Landers (early 20th century OHS track star and Olympic athlete), Frank Loomis (early 20th century OHS track star and Olympic gold medalist), Andy Ballard (early 2000s Oregon football/wrestling/track all-state athlete), Jake Carpenter (1990s Oregon cross country/track state place winner, basketball captain), Jerry Baker (1982 state discus champion, all-state football honors)
• Friend of Athletics: Bob and Leona Groenhagen (longtime Hawks supporters and fans)
• Teams: 1997 boys cross country (first OHS state championship team), 1998 wrestling (IHSA Class A state champion); 2009 boys track (IHSA Class 1A state champion)

The OSD Athletic Hall of Fame committee selected the winners from nominations received in the spring.