Remembrances: Recalling the Long, Wonderful Run of Reggie Gorski

Award-Winning Girls Cross Country and Track Writer Passed Away Oct. 20 at 82

When Reggie Gorski took over the Daily Herald’s girls cross country and track and field beats it was comparable to stepping in and covering the beginning of the championship era of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

Wheeling’s Dana Miroaballi, one of the greatest distance runners in Illinois high school history, was in the early stages of a decorated four years with 10 individual state titles. It was a golden era for girls distance running in the Mid-Suburban League and Gorski was there to chronicle every successful stride with tremendous flair and accuracy.

Gorski earned tremendous respect from the athletes, coaches and colleagues she worked with in her 17 award-winning years on the beat. And she is fondly remembered after she passed away peacefully in her sleep on Oct. 20 at age 82 in Ohio.

A visitation celebrating her life will be held from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28 at Meadows Funeral Home in Rolling Meadows. The funeral mass is at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Colette Catholic Church in Rolling Meadows.

“Reggie became more than a sportswriter who covered my teams, she became a friend and her passing saddened me when I heard the news,” retired Wheeling girls track and boys cross country coach Mark Saylor said in an e-mail from his Arizona home. “I think all coaches in the Mid-Suburban League greatly respected Reggie as a person and as a writer.”

That included those who worked with Gorski at the Daily Herald. She started writing stories about local people and events in 1982 and was the Rolling Meadows Neighbor section columnist for the paper for 22 years until she retired in 2006 to spend more time with her kids and grandchildren.

Her family was also part of the reason she stepped away from the high school cross country and track beats in the spring of 2001. After covering the state track meet for the final time in Charleston, the Herald’s legendary Bob Frisk paid tribute to her in his weekly Friday column.

“The coaches loved her,” Frisk wrote. “They knew she had a genuine interest in their sport and they would always be quoted properly. She asked good questions.

“The kids also loved her. They could talk to her and not be in fear that something would come out in the wrong way to embarrass them. She earned the respect of all coaches and athletes for her integrity and sincerity.

“She earned our respect at this newspaper as someone we knew would do a professional job and write positive portrayals of our high school athletes and programs.”

Gorski was part of the first group to earn the Illinois Track and Cross Country Association’s annual Recognition Awards in 1992 (now known as the ITCCA Distinguished Service Award). She covered the Chicago Marathon for years and in 2002 received the Chicago Area Runners Association’s Hal Higdon Journalism Award for her outstanding coverage of local and major races.

“I always told her that her copy was easy on the eyes,” said Bruce Miles, who covered high school sports for the Herald and worked on the copy desk before embarking on a long and successful run covering the Cubs. “She had a nice writing touch.”

Gorski worked for Hilton Hotels before marrying her husband George, who passed away in 2004, and starting a family in Palatine. She displayed her gift for storytelling almost immediately with a feature on former Palatine football teammates and coaches Al Eck and Tom Hillesheim and the evolution of their friendship as their sons Dave Eck and Mark Hillesheim became football teammates at Fremd.

Marty Stengle made a similar transition from another industry to freelance sportswriter at the Herald in 1985 and ultimately the coordinator of the growing high school sports department in 1988.

“I had to literally learn my craft from the ground up,” Stengle recalled from his home in Florida. “It did not take long to observe that Reggie Gorski was a reporter to emulate as far as handling local sports beats. Reggie's knowledge of cross country in particular was impressive, as was her ability to transmit that knowledge to her readers through her insightful stories.

“When I became the Daily Herald high school sports coordinator in 1988, I quickly appreciated even more how valuable a resource Reggie was. The respect she earned from coaches was admirable, and the stories she consistently produced were the kind that the athletes and parents treasured and reread through the years. She was truly a joy to have on any beat or assignment she covered. Reggie never missed a deadline  or an opportunity to feature well-deserving athletes with her finely crafted features. My only regret was that I could not clone Reggie.”

Gorski didn’t need any help to navigate the local courses and tracks or the biggest running stages of Peoria’s Detweiller Park and Eastern Illinois University’s O’Brien Stadium. She understood the intricacies of each sport. She also didn’t have to worry about spinning straw into golden story material.

Miroballi remains the only big-school girls or boys runner to win four state cross country titles (1984-87) and she won four 3,200-meter and two 1,600-meter crowns in track. Teammate Alice Doyle was also a four-time top-five medalist in cross country as Wheeling won three team titles in four years under Jim Nagel.

The last of those titles started a seven-year run of MSL team Class AA cross country champions by Hoffman Estates under Gary Barker, Conant under Allan Goodman and four in succession by Palatine under Pat Gleason and Steve Currins. Palatine would repeat again in 1995-96 and Schaumburg won in 1999 under Jon Macnider’s direction.

The exploits of state track champion distance runners Erin Redig and Julie Justmann of Palatine, Amy Marts (Barrington), Amy Siegel (Wheeling), Becky Coleman (Libertyville) and Jenny Zehr (Hersey), hurdler Donna Wechet (Palatine), throwers Lindsay Trudell (Schaumburg) and Nicole Salata (Palatine) and the Pirates’ four 3,200 relay state champions were also chronicled by Gorski.

“As a writer Reggie was special,” Saylor said. “She loved our sports. Much like Bob Frisk, she was a great supporter of all high school sports. Being a high school sports writer cannot be an easy job because they must try to cover all teams and be fair in coverage.

“She had the best interest of the athlete in her writings. You never found criticisms of athletes in her articles. Reggie was genuine.”

She also wasn’t afraid to challenge those she worked with.

“She asked me hard questions when she felt they were relevant,” Saylor said. “She even challenged my coaching techniques one time, maybe more of my motivation techniques. I provided her my answer of which she accepted and she never again challenged me. What was special is she kept that between us and never put it in an article.”

Gorski believed she had a unique perspective which she shared in Bob Frisk’s farewell column.

“I was a mom disguised as a reporter,” she said. “Maybe I provided an insight that these young guys who make up sports staffs weren’t able to lend to the scene. I felt the athletes’ pain in their failures, shed tears of joy in their accomplishments. Yes, maybe I was just too involved. But it’s what came through in the stories you read about young teens looking for their day in the sun.

“All of these years I’ve tried to be a caring parent first, an informed reporter second. Maybe that’s what earned me respect of coaches, parents and athletes alike. And for that I’m so very grateful.”

Those two worlds collided in a story Saylor recalled. Gorski had to balance her daughters Lisa and Renee running for Fremd and eventually in college. Wheeling was looking to claim the 10th of its 11 consecutive MSL track titles in 1988. Lisa Gorski was favored to win the 800 but Saylor entered Miroballi in that race as well. 

Saylor said Reggie was surprised, albeit not pleasantly, when she saw Miroballi was in the middle-distance event. Miroballi won but Lisa Gorski also got a win by breaking the Fremd school record in the 800 by nearly 1½ seconds.

“Reggie came to me before the meet and said, ‘Thanks a lot, you just moved my kid to Number two,’” Saylor said. “After that race Reggie came to me and said thank you. That was Reggie, tell it like it is, but then accept the results. That was my friend Reggie.”

As many longtime coach-reporter relationships do, particularly at the high school level, they grow from just asking questions in search of answers and quotes to friendships. Gorski had the opportunity to visit Saylor and his wife twice in Arizona after their retirements.

“Each time was a joy,” Saylor said. “A time filled with laughter because it was not the coach and the writer but two old friends sharing the past and the present.

“I extend my condolences to (her children) Eric, Lisa, Renee and all the families. Reggie will be greatly missed by me. I went from the coach/writer relationship to one of friendship to which I will be forever grateful.”

As will so many others who were fortunate enough to run across Reggie Gorski.