Breaking News: Legendary Football Coach Joe Gliwa Passes Away
Hall of Famer Had Tremendous Success as Head Coach at St. Viator, Hersey and Prospect
Updated July 22, 2025 with information on services
Some sad news to share as Joe Gliwa, one of the legendary football coaches and figures in high school sports in the Northwest suburbs, passed away Monday morning. Gliwa would have turned 89 on September 5.
Gliwa had a record of 134-93-2 in 25 years as a head coach at St. Viator, Hersey and Prospect. He also was the athletic director at Forest View for two years and was the boys sports coordinator at Prospect when he retired as a full-time educator in 1994.
Gliwa had battled heart problems since age 50, according to his daughter Tracey (Gliwa) Banville. He underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery a little more than 3 years before his retirement.
“He had every heart procedure known to man over the course of 20 years,” Banville said. “He was always a fighter and a champion and he always came through it.”
Joe Gliwa is a member of four Halls of Fame - Holy Trinity, the Chicago Catholic League (1987), the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association (1988) and St. Viator (2007). He was a star running back at Holy Trinity in Chicago but was spurned by his dream college in Notre Dame.
Gliwa went to Purdue instead and enjoyed mentioning that he won all three matchups against the Fighting Irish. He became a teacher and assistant coach at Holy Trinity when an unexpected set of circumstances led him to the Northwest suburbs.
Just days after taking a job as a teacher and assistant coach at St. Ignatius the school dropped its football program. Gliwa was alerted to openings at Notre Dame, Holy Cross and St. Viator, although he initially thought the latter was a grade school by the same name in Chicago.
“I got the job immediately and was really lucky,” Gliwa told me in a 1994 Daily Herald story on his retirement. “It was the greatest trip I ever took out to Arlington.”
Gliwa’s first Viator team in 1963 went 6-3 and he would go 47-22-2 in eight seasons. The 1969 team finished 8-1 and won a share of its first varsity football title in the Chicagoland Prep League. He also coached wrestling and baseball and his golf team won more than 40 consecutive dual meets.
Two years later he made the major leap a mile away to Hersey, the new public school in Arlington Heights. He immediately endeared himself to his new school with fans chanting “Gliwa! Gliwa! Gliwa!” after a 12-0 win over Viator in the cross-town opener.
The 1971 season was also the first of six consecutive MSL North titles for Hersey. It was a league record for consecutive outright or shared division championships until it was broken by Fremd and Mike Donatucci with 8 from 2003-10.
Hersey also appeared in four consecutive MSL Super Bowls in the pre-playoff era and won the title game in 1973. The 1975 team finished 10-1 and had the school’s only unbeaten regular season until 2022.
Gliwa went 68-34 at Hersey before moving to Forest View as the athletic director from 1981-83. A return to the sideline at Prospect in 1984 resulted in a MSL South title and the 1986 team went to the playoffs. And he went out a winner in his final game in 1989 with a 21-20 upset of a Conant team that advanced to the Class 6A state semifinals.
Gliwa continued coaching at the underclass level at Prospect through the 1994 season.
“I’ve always enjoyed that,” Gliwa said before he retired. “It was never work to go to football practice.”
Gliwa is survived by Barbara, his wife of 69 years, and his daughters Tracey and JoAnn.
Visitation for Joseph G. Gliwa will be Thursday, July 24 from 3-8 p.m., at Ahlgrim Family Funeral Home, 201 N. Northwest Highway in Palatine. Prayers will be on Friday, July 25, 2025, at 9:30 AM also at the funeral home and process to St. Thomas of Villanova Church, 1201 E. Anderson Drive, Palatine for a Funeral Mass at 10:00 AM. The Entombment will follow at St. Adalbert Cemetery in Niles.
We will also have a closer look at the life and legacy of Joe Gliwa later this week.