Sunday Slam: Harper Baseball Rebuilding Project Continues Under BG's Gord
Harper Trio Enters Region IV Hall of Fame; Big Milestones for Palatine's Millstone
Nelson Gord didn’t apply for the Harper College baseball coaching job when it opened up after the 2019 season. But his name kept popping up enough to pique the interest of then-athletic director Doug Spiwak.
“He called and said, “I’ve got 60 to 70 applicants with varying degrees of experience and interest and 20 listed you as a reference,’” Gord said. “‘Do you have any interest in taking a look at this?’ It was April 2020, I was sitting home in the middle of COVID and going stir-crazy.
“I talked to my wife (Sarah) and said I think I want to do this, I can recruit well and I know all the guys close to home. She said, ‘Go for it.’”
So Gord did and is now entering his third season in charge in Palatine. The 1999 Buffalo Grove graduate inherited a program that won only 5 games in 2019 but the outlook is the upward progression will continue from 2 wins in Gord’s first year - yes, only 2 - to 13 last year.
“It’s a night-and-day difference,” Gord said. “It’s the first time it’s all guys we recruited who are on the field and we return most of our lineup and pitching.”
Gord played in programs run by a unique trio of longtime head coaches at BG in John Wendell in baseball, Rich Roberts in football and Doug Millstone in basketball. He was a Daily Herald All-Area pick and Mid-Suburban East co-Player of the Year as the baseball team won a school-record 29 games and reached a sectional final in 1999. He also was an all-conference pick for the football team that won the MSL East in 1998.
From there he was a two-time all-Horizon League third baseman at UIC, played professionally for the Schaumburg Flyers and Kansas City T-Bones and was part of the Houston Astros’ spring training minor league camp. Gord was also familiar with junior college baseball as an assistant at Harper and Oakton. He had a successful six-year run as a high school head coach at Notre Dame before stepping down to devote more time to his family and three young kids (Lacey, Kendall and Tanner).
But the timing was right to return to coaching at Harper since his kids were older. As if the demands of his new job weren’t challenging enough, because of COVID he could only meet with his team via Zoom calls until March 15, 2021, which was less than two weeks before the season opener.
He quickly found more challenges ahead.
“In our first scrimmage no one threw 80 (mph),” Gord said. “I had a radar gun, quickly put it away and didn’t take it out again that season.
“Adam O’Malley, my assistant then, would sit and look at me and say, ‘How are you staying this calm right now?’ I said, ‘What else are you gonna do? We don’t have the horses, so we’ve got to stay positive and stay calm.
“The crazy thing is we ended up having a second-team all-American (Joey Fitzgerald Jr.) in the lineup. It was an example of how some guys really grew during the downtime and used it wisely and others kind of coasted.”
Fitzgerald Jr., from Marian Central in Woodstock, was also at Harper last year and is now playing at Central Methodist University, one of the top NAIA programs in the country. All-region and all-conference picks Kaden Gray and Ehire Adrianza were big parts of the program’s significant improvement as it won 7 of its last 12 games.
Harper’s season-ending loss in the Region IV tournament was 12-11 in 10 innings to a Joliet team that won 36 games and the N4C league title and was ranked as high as eighth nationally in the NJCAA Division III polls. The good news for Gord is he has seven starters and three of his top five pitchers back.
Having connections in all corners of the baseball world helps. Gord was teammates with Gray’s father Brett on the Flyers. Ehire Adrianza, the nephew of Ozzie Guillen and brother of Atlanta Braves veteran infielder Jose Adrianza, came to Harper from Miami through Gord’s relationship with Ozzie Guillen Jr. And two of his top returnees, outfielder George Betevis and Nic Castrovillari, played at Bartlett for Chris Baum, who was an assistant to Gord at Notre Dame.
Gord also knows the importance of recruiting the MSL and is excited about freshmen such as outfielders Tommy Jusi and Cole Ratliff from Fremd and pitcher Steven Byrne from Schaumburg. Gord said one of his selling points is the Harper Promise Scholarship program which pays in-district public school students (which encompasses all 12 MSL schools) up to two years of their tuition as long as they meet certain criteria. Harper doesn’t offer athletic scholarships as an NJCAA D-III program.
“One of my first big things was talking to (Palatine’s) Paul Belo, (Prospect’s) Ross Giusti, (Buffalo Grove’s) Bill Montemayor and all the MSL coaches about the program and all the steps,” Gord said. “You can fall back, play a couple of years of baseball for free and it’s a good position to be in.”
Gord said one of the great aspects of junior college athletics and baseball is the mix of players who are driven to reach a higher level at a four-year program and others looking to play a little longer as they figure out their next step academically.
“That’s the neat part from a team dynamics standpoint,” Gord said. “It mirrors what the real world is like. You don’t have 35 guys who are all elite-level players like a big D-I program. You have some guys who want to be part of something and really just love the game. You are trying to lead them to work together.
“I try to educate them on different opportunities out there, and the realization that your value is not just linked to your performance on the field and you can bring a lot to a program.”
One of the big challenges can be convincing players to stay close to home rather than go to junior colleges outside the area. The other is in Harper’s backyard with the powerhouse Oakton program led by Bill Fratto that just went to its fourth consecutive NJCAA D-III World Series and won it all in 2018.
Harper lost 5-2 and 8-6 and tied 6-6 against Oakton last spring and Gord said his team won a couple of their matchups during an 8-8 finish last fall. Gord, who coached with Fratto in 2009-10, said losing a couple of in-district recruits to Oakton wasn’t surprising considering its long run of success.
“Oakton will be the bar,” Gord said. “It’s very conceivable we could be a .500 team in the 20-25 win range and still have a chance to compete and advance to the D-III World Series. If things click, the win total could be higher.”
And that would be a long way in a short time from where things started for Nelson Gord at Harper.
Three from Harper College Enter Region IV Hall of Fame
Harper College had a ceremony at Thursday’s basketball games for cross country/track coach Jim Macnider, retired athletic director Doug Spiwak and national champion runner Ali Gutt for their induction into the NJCAA Region IV Hall of Fame. Macnider’s 2022 NJCAA Division III national champion women’s cross country team also had its banner unveiled.
Macnider has now won 12 national cross country titles since coming to Harper in 2011. The women have won four, with the first three from 2016-18, and the men won eight in a row from 2011-18. Macnider also ran for the Hawks and won two Skyway Conference cross country titles in 1969-70 and won the Region IV mile and two-mile runs in 1971. His long and successful career at Schaumburg included three Class AA state cross country titles.
Gutt, who was an all-state runner at Schaumburg, was a three-time national champion and her individual cross country title led Harper to its first team crown in 2016. Gutt also won NJCAA D-III track national titles in the 800 and 1,500 meters and finished second in the national cross country meet as a freshman. She went on to run at Eastern Illinois.
Spiwak spent 33 years at Harper, with 18 as the athletic director before retiring in June 2022, and 15 as the head athletic trainer. The school won 27 national titles during his tenure and he was selected as the 2019-20 National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year.
Millstone’s Memorable Milestones at Palatine
This figured to be a memorable season for Palatine’s Eric Millstone with the opportunity to coach his senior son and starting guard Sam. It continued to get even more special for Eric Millstone on Friday night when the Pirates wrapped up their first outright Mid-Suburban League division title in 27 years when they beat defending West champion Barrington and Fremd lost in overtime to Conant.
The Pirates shared West titles in 2018 and 2005 but didn’t advance to the MSL championship game because of tiebreakers. Their only title-game trips as MSL North champs were a loss in 1996 to Elite Eight-bound Hoffman Estates and a win in 1993 over Conant. The Dick Kolze-coached Pirates also won North Suburban Conference titles in 1962 and 1963 behind Ron Kozlicki, who starred at Northwestern and played 37 games with the Indiana Pacers in the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967-68.
Millstone also passed the 200-win milestone in January and now has 205 after the Pirates improved to 20-6. His 23-9 team in 2014-15 matched the school record of 23 wins set in 1961-62. Eric and his dad Doug, who coached at Buffalo Grove from 1990-2000, are also the only father-son duo to be head boys basketball coaches in the MSL.
While we looked at the MSL coaches who won 300 games when Rolling Meadows’ Kevin Katovich reached the milestone recently, here are the other boys coaches Eric Millstone joined with at least 200 wins at an MSL school or schools:
Steve Messer (Hersey/Elk Grove) 292 - Messer played for George Zigman on Hersey’s 1985 Elite Eight qualifier. He won a school-record 140 games in 9 years at Elk Grove with its only MSL title in 2002 and then won 152 in 11 years at his alma mater.
Don Rowley (Hersey) 287 - Rowley was part of all three of Hersey’s Elite Eight trips - the first two as an assistant (1974, 1985) and then as a head coach in 1995 with a school-record 26 wins. Won 58 percent of his games and 3 of the school’s 4 MSL titles in 1992, 1995 and 2006.
John Camardella (Prospect) 229 - The Daily Herald all-area standout at Hersey won 61 percent of his games before stepping down after the 2021 season. Took Prospect to nine MSL title games and won it all three times (2009, 2011 and 2018).
Ryan O’Connor (Buffalo Grove) 207 - The Meadows grad took over at BG in 2000 after Doug Millstone retired and won 58 percent of his games before stepping down in 2013. Won 5 outright or shared MSL East titles and 3 regional crowns and had four consecutive 20-win seasons.
Paul Grady (Buffalo Grove) 206 - Went 3-19 in BG’s first year in 1973-74 and didn’t have another losing season to win an amazing 69 percent of his career games. Stepped down after a supersectional loss in 1984 with 4 MSL titles (1976-78, 1980) and 8 regional titles. Grady passed away last May at 81.
Big Mac Hoops Matchup
Saturday night saw retired Conant coach Tom McCormack watch two of his former players square off in a nonconference game when Rolling Meadows and Kevin Katovich hosted Libertyville and Bryan Zyrkowski. MSL East champion Meadows (24-4) won 69-43 over Libertyville (21-5), which is tied for the North Suburban Conference lead.
Katovich graduated from Conant in 1989 and Zyrkowski in 2000 during McCormack’s tenure where he won an MSL boys record 550 games. Katovich won his 300th game at Meadows last month and Zyrkowski passed the century mark in his sixth season at Libertyville and is 111-57 with 2 regional titles.
All three were part of holiday titles as Meadows won at York, Libertyville won at Wheeling and Immaculate Conception, where McCormack is helping as an assistant, won its own tournament. Below in the Twitter picture, from left to right, are Zyrkowski, McCormack and Katovich, with longtime prep writer Greg Swiderski of the Daily Herald photo bombing in the background.
Osei Steps Down at Elk Grove
Elk Grove football coach Miles Osei announced via Twitter on Friday that he was stepping down after six seasons. Osei inherited a program with two winless finishes in its previous three seasons but made a breakthrough this year by going 7-3 for its first winning season and playoff berth since 2013.
“One of the most difficult decisions I have made is deciding to leave Elk Grove next year,” Osei tweeted. “This move is purely one best for my family, nothing more.”
Osei was a two-time Daily Herald All-Area quarterback at Prospect in 2008-09 before going to play at Illinois. He finished 14-38 in his tenure at Elk Grove.
Update: Thanks to old friends John Hardey and Eric Schmidt for the heads up on Miles Osei taking the head coaching job at Kankakee, which was reported by Mason Schweizer of the Kankakee Daily Journal. Osei will be a special education teacher and work in the school’s weight room and his wife Susie will be a guidance counselor at the school.
Osei replaces Derek Hart, who was 34-8 with a second place finish in Class 5A in 2021 and took a coaching job in Indianapolis in December 2022.
From BG to Germany for Potash
Blake Potash, who played football at Buffalo Grove and graduated in 2011, announced on Twitter he will be headed to German Football League 2 to be the defensive coordinator for the Hildesheim Invaders. The GFL season starts in the spring.
Potash was most recently at Black Hills State University in South Dakota as a defensive backs coach and recruiting coordinator. He was also at Abilene Christian University from 2016-19 and his roles included working with the linebackers and as a senior defensive analyst and director of analytics. Potash volunteered as a varsity assistant and junior varsity defensive coordinator at BG while he was in college at Harper and Roosevelt.
MSL Hoops Player-Coach Trivia
Former Daily Herald preps/Harper guy Jonathan Cregier asked if any boys basketball coaches who played in the MSL also made it downstate as a head coach. The only one is current Fremd coach Bob Widlowski, who led the program to fourth place in the Class 4A state tournament in 2017 and played at Palatine.
On the girls side, Hersey coach Mary Fendley, who is retiring at the end of the season, Barrington’s Babbi Barreiro and Rolling Meadows’ Ryan Kirkorsky are MSL alums who took teams downstate. Fendley played at Meadows and led Hersey to fourth in 2010, Barreiro played at Elk Grove and led Barrington to second last year and Kirkorsky played at Buffalo Grove and led Meadows to second in 2013 and 2014.
Tom Dineen, who led BG to the 2000 state title and also had third- and fourth-place finishes, played at Barrington before it moved from the North Suburban to the MSL.
Bubba Following Mariani Football Coaching Footsteps
Former Palatine star Bubba Mariani announced on Facebook this week that he will be the new head football coach at Boulder City High School, just outside of Las Vegas. Mariani was the Daily Herald’s 1996 All-Area football team honorary captain for a state semifinalist and helped the 1994 team reach the Class 5A state title game. He was also a baseball standout with the Pirates.
Mariani’s father Frank Jr., was a longtime assistant football coach at Palatine. Frank Mariani Sr., was St. Viator’s first head football coach.
Legendary Peoria-Area Basketball Coach Norm Reiser Passes Away
Norm Reiser, who currently ranks 48th in IHSA for career boys basketball victories at 587, passed away Tuesday in Peoria at 81. Reiser was 434-195 from 1971-95 at Morton, just east of Peoria, and went 153-51 during stops at Coal City, Chrisman and St. Joseph-Ogden. When he retired his victory total was 21st in IHSA history and his winning percentage of 71 ranked 16th among coaches with 300 or more victories.
Morton had never won a district or regional title before Reiser took over and won 8 regional crowns during his tenure. His 1979 team was 28-0 and ranked fourth in the final regular-season Class AA Associated Press poll before losing to Peoria Central in the sectional final. His 1993 and 1994 teams also reached sectional finals.
Great work, as always!