Abandoned - Epilogue

 ’89 huh?......yeesh…

That was part of the reply I received from Jeff Swigris, the shortstop on our 1989 Quincy College team, in response to the text I sent him in February 2024,

During a three-week period, I contacted most of my players from that squad from 35 years ago. There were a few guys who I had communicated with occasionally through Facebook or a rare phone conversation. Mike Egenes and Lance Marshall, two freshmen from the 1989 squad, were the only two I had seen in the last 30 years.

Most had fallen into the same category as Swigris. I hadn’t seen them since my coaching years at Quincy College which ended after the 1991 season.

Although they didn’t use the exact same expression as Jeff, I knew that most of them would wonder “Why do you want to write something about us?”

 I wanted to make sure I could ease anyone’s curiosity or angst as quickly as possible and assure them that my ambition was very sincere.

 I said, “Everything I write about you and the team will be positive. That’s easy because I have honestly felt that way about all of you and that year. Finally, I think it’s an inspiring tale and an emotional story and coincidentally it happens to be 35 years after we played our last game as a team.”

They could call it an anniversary if they wanted to, but that was not the impetus for writing.

The four months spent coaching that ’89 squad may be the most significant time I ever spent in baseball. Twenty years of coaching youth leagues, collegiately and professionally added to 25 years of professional scouting has certainly been memorable, but I don’t think any year of baseball has felt more purposeful than 1989.    
I have always felt that what these players experienced, if not unprecedented, has thankfully been few and far between in college baseball history.

There have been teams that had worse seasonal records than 6-40, losing streaks longer than 25 games, and lost a game 32-0 (or worse), but the wins and losses of that year is only a fragmented look at the entire picture.

The 1989 team kept a collegiate baseball program standing when baffling decisions had threatened to, if not completely disassemble the program, never allowing it to compete at a true Division 2 level again.

Sophomore Chad Gooding, astutely speaking about this writing, “It’s about the tumultuous season that birthed the future of the program for Quincy University, which is something we never contemplated in the presence of the moment.”

Jim Wissel, Derek Van, Jim Cerneka, Chad Gooding, Brian Mullen, Lance Marshall, Brian Allen, Dave Schuering, John Cassidy, Matt Baalman, and Mike Egenes were players whose contributions pushed the baseball program forward. Their against-all-odds actions allowed their ’89 colleagues:  Elvis Turkovich, Dave Mikolaczak, Don Hargis, Tony Preall, Jeff Swigris, Mark Trapp, and Joe Nardi an opportunity to play a major role on the 1990 team.

That 1990 team went 25-17 and the 1991 club went 25-15-2 and started a chain of eight successive winning seasons. There is no doubt that the efforts of the ’89 squad led directly to the success of the ’90 team which led to the success of the ’91 club, and it goes on with no assured way to measure how long the 1989 team’s endeavors continued to have an impact on QU baseball. 

After the 1989 season, the QU collegiate baseball program has played 36 seasons. They’ve had only two losing seasons, two .500 marks, and 32 years of winning campaigns.

QU baseball has won 30 or more games 18 times and six of those 30 or more-winning seasons, saw the Hawks win 40 or more.

In the last 17 years, QU has put together stalwart seasons that have included ten GLVC (Great Lakes Valley Conference) conference titles and/or NCAA appearances. The Hawks joined the GLVC in 1994.

The Hawks’ baseball program has flourished because of outstanding coaches and players through the last three decades. 

Well-deserved congratulations to the QU players and the five head baseball coaches of the last 30 years: Pat Atwell, Greg McVey, Brian Unger, Josh Rabe, and Matt Schissel. Their work has made the Quincy University Baseball Hawks one of the premier Division 2 baseball programs in the Midwest. 

We made sure that after missing the 1988 fall season to have a superb 1989  September and October autumn, setting the stage for the ‘90 season. It was a fall season that began with a 25 man addition of freshman and junior college players plus several ex-players from the 1988 team who came back to the program after a one-year hiatus. 

 The 1990 team was able to create a junior varsity program for those young players who needed some experience at a higher level than they had in their high school year

1990 QU team that finished the season 25-17, 19 more wins than the '89 squad. The '91 team finished 25-15-2.

1989 was over. Coming back from the depths of complete disregard for the players and the program was inexcusable, but the 1989 team opened the door for future QC/QU clubs who, to their credit, took full advantage of what the Hawks' team had produced going through the quagmire of that season. 

For me, in terms of wins and losses, it was a most difficult year, but it was not the most disappointing year I’ve ever had in my baseball career. Maybe that ‘89 season becomes a bit more gratifying as the years add up. 

Abandoned - Chapter 12: It was the Summer of ‘89

 The Hawks’ 1989 season ended on May 2^nd, the same way it began on March 13^th, with a doubleheader loss to Missouri-Saint Louis.

And in between, there were 51 days of the most disconcerting baseball experience that any of the 19 players who made up the QC roster had ever gone through. It was a campaign of personal feelings and emotions that ranged from embarrassment, disappointment, and frustration to a few moments of relief and celebration. 

 
Some observers and maybe even a player might say it was a baseball year of few highs and many lows. I would dispute, but respect that representation with some of those commentaries coming from a direction and individuals who understood what had transpired in the past year.  There were a few other criticisms from others whose reasoning and portrayal meant absolutely nothing to me.  I had the advantage of age and the experience of familiarity and insight to grasp what would and eventually did take place with the Quincy College baseball program in the years to come.  Many of the '89ers" would continue to be a part of that in the years to come.

There is always a transition of students leaving their initial college of choice after their freshman year and in our specific case, I don’t think baseball had anything to do with their departure. We could have been a complete reversal and finished 40-6 and some players would have transferred and/or reconsidered the whole higher education concept.

Too far from home, missing a girlfriend, academic concerns, financial worries, a change to a major not available at their first-choice college and a myriad of other reasons can be present. 

The summer months of mid-May to late August found four players from the ’89 team, who were returning to Quincy College, choosing different paths than baseball with all of them form-fitting their academic and/or work schedule during the school year.  
There were some who had to step away for a few summer months. One pitcher who had thrown a ton of innings during the season needed a summer of non-throwing activities. He received his summer physical training by filling, lifting, and stacking 50-pound bags of wheat working for a seed company.

Quincy was not part of the CICL (Central Illinois Collegiate League) in 1989. It would be another 5-6 years before a Quincy franchise would join the league. That would have been a very viable option for several of our players had that opportunity been present in the summer of 1989.

Summer school was an option for some, either at Quincy, or a college close to home.
Then there were a few individuals who had an opportunity to undergo a baseball pilgrimage and a well-deserved change-of-pace. 

Catcher Bud Mcginnes had an invitational tryout in the summer with the USA Team in Millington, Tennessee. 

I had coached a team of college players in Millington one year earlier. We faced the 1988 Olympic team twice and were handed two sound losses, but what an observation post and thrill it was to participate in those games.

Bud had a much better day participating on the field in Millington than my summer group of fine collegiate players had. He went 1-2 with a double and threw out two baserunners. He also had an opportunity to catch a couple of the finer college pitchers in the country.
He wasn’t selected for any further workouts that are set up in large part to see pitching prospects pitch in live situations.

Ending his college career in that setting was a virtuous reward for a player whose four years at Quincy College included a grab-the-lunch pail work ethic and ended with being a leader of a team that badly needed player guidance. Every teammate will always remember his walk-off home run that gave the 1989 club their first win of the season.

Bud’s career performance numbers were clearly affected by the team’s 1987 van accident that severely injured three QC players. Bud broke both wrists and a kneecap that day and played his final two seasons with pins in his right knee and a slight limp that became more obvious when he ran down the baseline.

Maybe I was partially blinded by his overall catching skills, but I never saw his knee affect his ability to block pitches, throw out runners or run-down foul pops. 

It’s an understatement to say that 6-40 was not the way he wanted to close out his Quincy College career, but he and his brother, Pete made a permanent and positive mark on the Quincy College program. 

Bud carried the water for us through most of the 1989 season and I know his teammates will always recall his contributions. His last college coach did.
Simply put, Bud McGinnes was a baseball player. 

Abandoned - Chapter 9: QC Players- What They Had to Say 35 Years Later.

  We lost the next two doubleheaders after our first wins of the year, dropping two games on the road to a very good Division 2 program, SIU-Edwardsville, and then we lost 9-7 and 4-3 to Milliken University at home. 

SIUE, Lewis, and University of Missouri-St. Louis were Division 2 programs that had been formidable for several years. They had veteran coaches and had built strong programs, always high on the list of the better teams in the region. We had already gone 0-6 against them with six games remaining against the trio. I always thought they would be a good measuring stick for us and maybe the second time around we could play better against them.

 We had been very fortunate to escape season-ending injuries or illnesses until slightly past the halfway mark when Jim Cerneka, a freshman infielder from Belleville, Illinois was forced to leave the team with an illness.

Mark Trapp’s jaw injury robbed him of 40 percent of his season.

Bud played the entire season with two pins in his right knee, Chad Gooding had the right shoulder injury that seriously restricted his throwing ability, and Jimmy Wissel played with a life-long physical issue.

It’s uncertain how many players had nagging injuries through at least part of the season, injuries that were kept quiet until after game 46 or maybe until 35 years later. 

The “Magnificent Seven,” who played on the ’88 team and returned to play in ’89 were integral in keeping us competitive for nearly half of our opening 33 games (twelve losses of five runs or less and two wins). Shortstop Jeff Swigris and outfielder/pitcher Tony Preall played all 46 games during the ’89 season. Catcher Bud McGinnes played in 44, outfielder/pitcher Don Hargis (40), dual sport athletes, 1B/DH John Cassidy (39) and p/2B Elvis Turkovich-(38).

Pitcher Dave Mikolajczak was the only returnee who did not play a position (except for the Northern Iowa game) when we were down to nine or ten eligible players.
Freshman Joe Nardi played the most games of any newcomer (39).
Six others who had never played college baseball prior to our ’89 season individually played 25 games or more that year.

Every player who I spoke to beginning in January 2024 when we began putting together the story of the ’89 squad, was asked about his memories of that season. 
Their replies could be totally forthright – it could be something a teammate did during a game or just something funny someone said, an error or a bad pitch they made, something I exclaimed on the bench or in the van. They had free rein. And some used that freedom to expound on some topic I knew absolutely nothing about during the season.

I appreciated the complimentary comments I received (I did not print them, but won’t forget them), knowing there were probably at least one or two statements of another sort that were made in the dugout, the vans or another “players only” retreat that might have been a bit more unfavorable. 

Some player memories:

Freshman Lance Marshall: “The comraderie and those early morning workouts. Going to aerobics a couple times a week.”

Freshman Jim Wissel: “Nothing, but positive. I liked school. I remember playing against one of my high school friends when we played North Alabama. The only negative thing I remember is playing Lewis. They had runners at first and second and the hitter hit a missile at me. It was the perfect double play ball, but I let it get through me and they had a big inning,”

Freshman Mike Egenes: “Bud was a great example. We had to figure out a way to get through it. It wasn’t fun. Feels good comes later when you get into life.”

Freshman Mark Trapp: “You (Coach) told me to get a haircut. (the back of his hair stuck out). I said I didn’t have any money and you said,” ‘Have your girlfriend cut it.’  “I remember that Tony’s helmet was way oversized. There was an incident when you (Coach) argued that an opponent’s HR bounced over the fence. Finally, the umpire asked Tony and he said it did not bounce and that negated your argument.”

Sophomore Dave Mikolajczak: “I remember pitching against SIUE and leaving with the lead with a sore arm. I was really angry when I started against Illinois Wesleyan in game one and we lost badly.”

Freshman Jim Cerneka: “Rooming with Mark in Iowa when he found out his good friend had drowned. We stayed in the hotel and watched the Michigan-Illinois NCAA game. “Crocodile Rock” was always playing from our press box even during practice. All the time. You (Coach) must have loved that song.” NOTE: I liked some Elton John songs, but definitely not that one! It might have been another player who requested that song.

         Cerneka: “Bud and Tony Preall burning wood bats in the dugout to stay warm during the fall.” NOTE: Bud admits that, but remember no coach was present in the fall of ’88.

Sophomore Chad Gooding: “I remember when we were starting to practice outside. I didn’t have any cleats and Tony gave me his old ones.”

Freshman Joe Nardi: “I hit right behind Chad Gooding in the lineup several times. I never saw a guy hit so many line drives that were caught.”

Sophomore John Cassidy: “1989 was a grind. The cupboard was bare when so many guys left the program.” 

Dave Mikolajczak- “I thoroughly enjoyed the season despite the difficulties. I was happy to pitch so much. I wanted to get into the game vs. Iowa to see how I’d do but that wasn’t too disappointing. (Mark Trapp also mentioned that he wished he could have pitched against Iowa for similar reasons) And I was excited to get some ABs at Northern Iowa even though I didn’t get a hit.”
We had a great group of guys and I feel we gave a good effort the whole year even though we were undermanned. We never gave up even though it would have been easy to.”
 
Fifteen games remained on our 1989 schedule after the Milliken loss on April 16^th. We had three days of practice before hosting Northeast Missouri. With a small roster and having to use at least two or three pitchers almost every game, it was certainly advantageous to have some space between our games. Every practice day was important, and I hoped we could keep that mindset right through to the end of our season.

Tony Preall may have been our most consistent player through our opening 30 games. He was a fine defensive right fielder, a middle of the order hitter and one of our position guys who was called upon to pitch more than we anticipated.
Tony either tied for or was our team leader in eight offensive categories at season’s end.

He was from Huntington Beach, California and found his way to Quincy thanks to his uncle, Dr. John Schleppenbach, an English professor at the college.

Special thanks to Dr. Schleppenbach for his contribution on April 20^th as we swept a doubleheader with Tony leading us to our biggest offensive day of the season, winning 10-9 and 8-6. It was the most runs we had scored in a doubleheader all season. In fact, there had been a time earlier in the year when we didn’t score 18 runs in two weeks combined.

The sophomore outfielder was on fire (5-5 and reached base seven times in the Milliken series) and then followed that up with four hits including the game winner in extra innings in game one versus Northeast Missouri. He added a home run and a sacrifice fly in game two.

It was the first time all season that one of our hitters had put together a four-hit game.
“I came here on an academic scholarship, but with the intention of also playing baseball-and it’s really fun when you have a day like this,” Tony said.

Another positive team note for the Hawks was that we came from behind several times during the day. It was the first time that our offense brought us back and carried us through not only one, but two games.

We gave up a three-run homer in the top of the eighth in the first extra inning of game one but fought back to even it up on Gooding’s double, a walk to McGinnes and singles by Hargis and Cassidy. 

We won it in the ninth after Jeff Swigris singled, Nardi walked and both runners advanced on a wild pitch. Mcginnes received an intentional walk setting the stage for Preall’s game-winning single.

 Mikolajczak relieved in the seventh and went an inning plus before turning the game over to Turkovich who picked up the win. Mikolajczak then came back to throw a complete seven-inning game in the nightcap. 

 Game one also saw us have two multiple-run innings, which had been an infrequent occurrence most of the season. We picked up four unearned runs in the third on an error, Preall’s single and doubles by Cassidy and freshman Mike Egenes.

Our 15-hit outburst in game one was paced by Preall’s four singles, Gooding’s three hits (including a line drive homer) with Cassidy (4 RBIs), Egenes and Swigris contributing two hits each.

We had five freshmen play in the first game including three in the starting lineup (Nardi, Lance Marshall, and Egenes). Freshman Dave Schuering contributed a pinch hit and Jim Wissel played second base when Turkovich went to the mound.

Jim Wissel played in 26 games during our ’89 season. The Overland Park (Ks.) native was born with bilateral congenital hip dysplasia which wasn’t immediately discovered. He had surgeries as a baby to fix his hips.

As a result, his leg lengths did not match so he had to wear a shoe lift and had an unusual gait, but it didn’t stop him from being an active kid, playing multiple sports, but avoiding tackle-football.

Jim tore a knee ligament on a double play pivot during the beginning of summer baseball following his sophomore year of high school.

Eventually, his hip joints started to wear out and he had to sit out the summer baseball season between high school and college due to arthritic inflammation and continual discomfort.

Jim was able to play his freshman year at QC, but the bone-on-bone arthritic pain was constant, and Jim made the decision after the season to no longer attempt to play college baseball.

During the summer between his sophomore and junior years at QC, he had major reconstructive surgery on his right hip. The surgery was very difficult, and the recovery period was much longer than anticipated.

Jim had to rent an off-campus house during his junior year because he was not able to navigate the stairs in the dormitory. 

Game two featured another big inning for our club, scoring six times in the fifth, three of them coming on Preall’s second home run of the year.   

 
Mikolacjzak was two outs away from a shutout before the Bulldogs rallied behind a mixture of hits and walks and cut our 8-0 lead to 8-6 with men on second and third before we finally got the third out on a ground ball, capping off a day of offense we hadn’t generated all season.

The two games were unlike any of the others we had played during the ’89 season. We weren’t playing against one of the better teams on our schedule, but then again, we were the club starting the day, 2-29.

There were numerous signs throughout the day that we had improved, especially in our last eight games. We were down by three in extra innings and came back to tie and then win it in the ninth. We gave up 13 hits but picked up 15. Preall had the big-time game, but four other hitters combined for nine hits.

We gave up 75 percent of our 8-0 lead in game two, but still held on and got the final out to win 8-6. 

I think with days like this some might want to analyze and break down all the aspects of 16 innings of baseball. There were certainly a couple of guys who had their best games of the season, but we were simply getting better overall. We still had over a dozen games remaining and I just wanted to continue improving in all areas of the game. 

We didn’t set any won-loss goals at the beginning of the season, and we weren’t going to do it now.  I hoped that we could be more competitive against the teams we had lost to the first time around. It would be nice to win some more games, but the games were going to start running closer together (practice time would be cut back) and there were plenty of tough games ahead.

 We were nearing the time when you hope your team can finish the season on a high note.

That is something you never forget. This ball is memorable for one of our '89 infielders, Jim Wissel- his first collegiate baseball hit on March 28, 1989 vs. North Alabama

Abandoned - Chapter 7 Losing Sucks

  You probably did not see this one coming. Maybe this serves a multiple purpose and gets away from the continual calming message of we want to keep working to get better, keep on with trying to do the right things even if we don’t get the hopeful results, and not get bogged down with won-loss records.

Secondly, I wanted to make it clear, crystal clear, that even though I knew the correct path and a plan was in place, the losses don’t disappear, and a new day does not automatically bring hope. Nope. They hit you right in the gut over and over (slight pause) and repeat while you wait for a remedy (a win). You can’t shake what has already happened. Losing takes your spirit and like a tug-of-war battle, you are on the team with the skinny 13-year-olds and you’re pulling against a bunch of Penn State defensive linemen.

 I was not a gracious loser as a young athlete. I took losses very hard, maybe because the teams I played for didn’t lose often. I don’t think I ever played on a youth league team that had a losing record. 

Little League, Babe Ruth and American Legion baseball and high school football and basketball- it was one of those cycles of good athletes who fell in the same age group who had a lot of success. I didn’t show any defeatist emotions on the court or the field. I just took those painful defeats home with me.

My behavior after a loss when I was a little guy, maybe six or seven years old, did not differ before team sports were part of my life. My dad would get the better of me in a card game, and I’d quit and run off. If we visited a relative’s house, I took a cardboard box with my plastic bowling ball and pins and set them up in the largest room available. I never threw the pins at anyone when I lost, but I did throw them back in the box with as much force as a first grader could generate and the plastic bowling ball followed.

The losses as a teenager brought pouting to the forefront. My modus operandi was quite simple. I went home and said nothing or gave replies as short as possible to everyone. Any question directed my way usually received a “yeah”, “no”. or “I don’t care.”

I was fortunate to have very good coaches as a young player. Most of them were teachers in our school district and even though some of them were not familiar with all the x’s and o’s, they were good people who never did anything to embarrass us or themselves. They never stopped teaching and they were wonderful role models.
I saw their actions every day and took it for granted. Occasionally, we’d see an opposing coach who didn’t seem to enjoy coaching and thus his players didn’t seem to be having much fun. I appreciated my coaches, but it took years to fully understand the ultimate effect they had on me.

Several of my players who I spoke to in 2024 remembered some games and individual mistakes that left them disappointed and embarrassed back in that ’89 season. Some were glad that we had our locker room concourse hidden behind our dugout at Q-Stadium that provided a good spot to let off some steam during inning breaks or between games.

I wasn’t blind to their emotions in 1989. I understood the feeling. I hated losing. It was repugnant. It was hellish, but it wasn’t strangling me so badly that I couldn’t remain optimistic. I had it much easier than my players. I knew what I was stepping into and that I could make it better. I had done it before, but admittingly the QC baseball program was unique in the fact it was nearly demolished, bull-dozed to the ground in less than seven months.

There are not many collegiate programs that are torn down to their roots in such a short amount of time unless they’ve committed serious infractions. 

That was not the case in Quincy, but this might have been more infuriating. These young men had done nothing wrong, and they had only two choices if they wanted to attend Quincy College- not play baseball at all or play in 1989 and probably lose a ton of games. 

Some people might think if those young players who chose option two knew they were going to be 0-25 and lose one game, 32-0, they may have chosen option one instead. After spending a season with them, I don’t think they would alter their decision. 

I’ve never been a proponent of all the cliches and aphorisms about winning and losing: 

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win,” 
“We wanted it more than they did.”
“We had a greater will to win.” 
“Losing builds character.”

And 5,000 more adages and trite phrases are on posters, bumper stickers, etc. 
 I never was a one size fits all person. I think you must coach your personality, instead of creating a metamorphosis every time the situation changes. If a coach at any level wants to quote Vince Lombardi, Mike Krzyzewski, or Dusty Baker to motivate his players, that’s cool. Go ahead. It’s just not me.

What I did learn and thought about often was some of the wisdom that was directly delivered to me through the years by coaches who I considered my mentors. 

I was eating at a fast-food restaurant in the spring of 2024. It was late morning and there was a table with two youngsters in baseball uniforms, probably 13 or 14 years old, and one adult. They were in town for a youth tournament at a state-of-the-art baseball complex that hosts these travel teams.

The kids were wiping away the crumbs and taking their final sips of what appeared to be a 128-ounce bucket of soda when I walked by and said hello, asked if they were participating in the tournament and wished them good luck. They said thanks and as I started to move away, I said, “Have some fun.”

That was a trigger for the coach/dad who told me, “We didn’t come here to have fun. We came to take home some hardware.” Case closed.

In my 2024 conversations with my 1989 players, many of them including Jim Wissel, Mike Egenes, Mark Trapp, Joe Nardi, Jeff Swigris, and John Cassidy told me about coaching their own children and kids of close friends in sports. Some of those ex- Hawks’ players coached baseball, but lacrosse, soccer, softball, and football were also on the list.

I never saw them directing their players from the dugout or the third base coaching box, but I’m confident these ex-players were fine coaches and unlike the coach/dad in the restaurant, not overly concerned about taking home hardware. If they coached their personality, then the kids would have learned a lot and had fun.

Some ex-players even told me they talked about the Iowa loss and framed it as a teaching moment with their youth league teams. 

 I used to adamantly say that coaching baseball is always about development until you reach the big leagues where you must win. There’s not a lot of front office patience and major league organizations don’t want to hear about the “five-year plan” you have. The monopoly money in play adds to the decision-makers’ inability to tolerate delays in putting a winning team on the field.

Minor leagues are a developmental platform. Winning is a part of the development process that could eventually take a young man to the big leagues, but it’s only a part of the process.

There is a strong aroma of “need to win” with baseball programs in major and probably mid-major conferences. You’re still developing, but now you’re dealing with boosters, alumni, and athletic directors and they can carry some weight. 

I had no pressure in 1989. I wasn’t going to get fired for starting out 0-25. I don’t think many members of our administration cared one iota.  Our daily paper always published a report of our games and there were a few player profiles, but any criticisms that any campus personnel had must have been behind closed doors. 
I made an unspoken comparison of some professional organizations who just wanted to put a team on the field. They were not going to sign any free agents or give long-term contracts to their best players-just trade them for “prospects”. There would be no stadium repairs and prices of game tickets would not be reduced. In other words, they would do anything possible to create a scenario that would allow them to move to a new city of riches.

The QC baseball program was not going to be eliminated or moved, but there would be little help provided. College officials allowed players to leave without concern and provided minimal support to those who remained. The stadium was not going to undergo any renovations in the foreseeable future. The coming times would be determined by what we did on the field and that started with how we performed in 1989. We had to construct our own fate.

We were developing, we were striving to get better by doing the right things and, oops, we’re right back to paragraph one and the chapter’s title. Losing still sucks. I couldn’t deny it, but we also couldn’t let it shape every aspect of each player’s life. They were college students with other concerns; academics, financial/tuition worries, a girlfriend 500 miles away and countless other apprehensions. 

We were still going to do the right things and unlike dad/coach, we didn’t go to Iowa, SIU-Carbondale, Illinois Wesleyan, and the other stops to take home some hardware. We went to play hard and if we returned with one loss or two, we’d still come back with something learned.  

Note: It’s not mentioned in earlier chapters, but Quincy College baseball was not in a conference. We had a Division 2 classification, but played an independent schedule which literally meant we could play any of the three division levels and NAIA schools.
Quincy University was admitted to the Great Lakes Valley Conference in 1994. The value of being in a conference is multi-fold with one of the positives being that half (give or take a game or two) of your seasonal schedule is already in place each year. Conference titles, conference playoffs, and added incentives for universities to improve facilities are just a few of the upsides.

There’s still enough space in the schedule to play traditional rivals, some Division 1 schools and/or travel south for some early-season games (talk to me about that last example- a ridiculous staple of college baseball).

The addition of the Quincy Gems to the Central Illinois Collegiate League (CICL) in 1996 was a tremendous baseball boost for the community. They drew 1,500-2,000 fans for many of their home games, added new dugouts, and put in seats and decks in foul territories for parties. They upgraded the press box, and each year made another improvement.

When I was working on our 1990 schedule, I called three of the colleges who had defeated us in doubleheaders at their home fields in ’89. Surprisingly, none of the three schools had “any open spots on their schedule.”

Why would you not want to play a doubleheader versus a program that you beat relatively easily the year before?

I didn’t ask that, but I had some beliefs, and they weren’t about open spots on their schedule

1. Any opposing coach who had at least a moderate level of observation skills could tell, despite the scores and the number of losses, that our players knew how to play, but the execution was well below a standard Division 2 program in 1989
2. Any opposing coach should have understood that I knew what I was doing. I had read the book, and I knew how this was going to come out in the end. I’m not saying that anybody should have feared us, but there was no way we were not going to be more competitive soon. These opposing teams needed assurances they were going to come in and sweep us and those guarantees would not be present any longer.
3. I must be fair. Maybe one or all three did have scheduling issues that prevented them from coming over and playing us. Maybe.

Abandoned - Chapter 4: A Hawk or Not

 I arrived in Quincy late Tuesday afternoon, December 6^th. I always have remembered that date, even 35 years later, because it was the day the great singer, Roy Orbison died.

I went out to dinner that night with QC football assistant coach, Tom Lichtenberg. We ate at the Coach House Restaurant. It was a family type atmosphere, and it provided a pleasant opening to my Quincy exposure. Tom seemed like a good guy, and I enjoyed spending time with him and finding out at least a little bit about this small midwestern city and the college. 

There was a men’s basketball game that evening and I met a bunch of QC people, too many names to remember them all. Sherrill Hanks and some other coaches and/or college personnel sat with me. I had no idea that Coach Hanks was a legendary basketball coach in Illinois when we first met.

Watching the local late evening news on television, I tried to figure out what “hog futures” were. Although I had recently lived a mile outside of Washington, D.C. and now had purchased a home in a part of Florida where the population seemed to be growing by the hundreds each day, I was still a small-town guy and that wasn’t going to change no matter where I lived. 

I was born and raised in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. My hometown of Eldred had 1,000 residents, much smaller than the Illinois city I was now scrutinizing.

The next day and a half was spent touring the campus, having some brief meetings with school personnel, and visiting Q- Stadium (it was quite a landmark). I had been on the fields of most of the spring training game sites in Florida- all perfectly manicured and surrounded by other practice fields, covered hitting cages, full clubhouse facilities and a players’ parking lot with every automobile one of the latest models of some luxury car or truck. 

After the first sight of Q-Stadium on the drive up 18th street, (I challenge anyone to say their first thought wasn’t, ‘It looks like a prison’). Once I got past that initial thought and began walking around the facility, you begin to grasp the history- the players who had stepped on that field. At least, I did.

It certainly was showing its 50 years of wear and tear. The dugouts and the press box were outmoded and there were plenty of bumps and bruises around, but overall, it was indeed a positive baseball environment for me. It was proof there had been a period when baseball was important to the community, and it wasn’t that long ago. One point for the Hawks. 

It was Thursday afternoon when Sherrill Hanks offered me the head coaching position. He asked if I would respond before the end of the evening. I can’t recall completely, but I imagined I went back to the hotel and did the plus and minus list that people do when they’re weighing a decision- buying a house, relocating, choosing a college to attend or other types of major decisions.

My columns were nearly balanced. I certainly liked a lot of aspects about the town and campus environment. I was not encouraged by the fact that I did not always receive straightforward answers to some of my questions. Sometimes it seemed like everyone studied the same playbook. I look back and wished I had pressed QC personnel more about the reasons for a seven-month gap between coaches and the devastating effect it had on the baseball program.

The athletic department decision-makers didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in the baseball program (no kidding!) and offered no valid explanation about the almost seven-month delay in hiring a coach.

I saw the inability to decide on a coach and the lack of proficiency to decipher the cause and effect they had created for at least three dozen students as incomprehensible.

The players who transferred, the students who came back to school, but no longer had an interest in playing, the absence of any recruits, and the players who remained to form a skeleton crew who were underdogs in 90% of their games were victims. 

 
I have no doubt there were several college officials who were way over their level of ability (Peter Principle) to follow what should have been an elementary and standard process. A baseball coach should have been in place in less than a month, not nearly seven months.

Since I had never even heard of Quincy College in the early summer months of 1988, that new coach could not have been me. 

There’s little doubt that the 1989 baseball team and 25-30 young men would have been better served with a head coach in place when the students returned to campus in late August. Even if that coach was not the “ideal” fit for the job, it’s likely that some of the members of the ’88 team would have returned to play again, and the new coach may have been able to recruit a couple of “undeclared” students for the new semester. 

This is not an act of “venting” 35 years after the fact. Simply, most of what has been stated are the realities that created the environment the ’89 team was thrown into without ever having a voice or receiving a direct answer why.

The coaching position was indeed a full-time job, but at the bottom rung of the full-time pay ladder. Looking back to the hiring process, it probably was a financial error on my part not to play the holdout card as it pertained to the now desperate circumstances the athletic program had created. They had to recognize the questions they had faced from the media, parents and students and those would only continue to grow as the position remained vacant.

I also misread the influence that the admissions department had over the athletic department, especially the non-scholarship programs. Baseball had become solely j an arm of the admissions office.

I was content to stay in Florida and could have asked for a better salary, a multi-year contract, and/or concrete plans to improve the stadium. 

 
The overriding component for me was that I wanted to coach again. That trumped everything else, even the ominous signs that were clearly present. I could have done more homework. It was more difficult back then to acquire information, but despite being there for only three or four days I believed there were enough people who would back my play.

 I knew it was more than just a challenging position, but I believed there was an upside, but it was going to take some time and I made that very clear to university officials if they were interested in me or not. The program had basically been swept under the carpet and that was shameful, but I was still a relatively young coach and not afraid of taking a few punches on the chin. I had to build or rebuild some teams in the past and I was confident and maybe a bit naïve to think I could do it again. 
I can’t remember if I called Coach Hanks or met with him later that evening, but I accepted the position. There was a press conference on Friday morning. I met with the players that afternoon and flew back to Orlando the following day.The following week I resigned from my teaching position and saw my students one last time. 

 
I stayed at our Saint Cloud home until New Year’s Day and then packed my Oldsmobile Omega to maximum capacity and drove 1,100 miles non-stop to Quincy.

My new office was located on the North Campus, a quarter of a mile from the stadium and a half mile from the central part of campus -administration building, library, dormitories, athletic center, etc.

Our indoor facility at QC was also located on the North Campus. It was an old basketball gym that had seen its better days many years before my arrival. Half of the ceiling tiles had either been broken or had fallen out and the lighting was poor. The batting cage and the protective screen (there was only one) had tears in them, a sure-fire accident ready to happen.

We began indoor practice as soon as the players returned from the holiday break, and I soon discovered the gym was too small for 18 guys so we made some adjustments to our daily workouts. 

Instead of one split (45/45), 90-minute afternoon workout, we also ran three different practices each morning. Pitchers and catchers went from 6:30- 7:15, infielders hit, fielded, and threw from 7:15- 8:00 and the outfielders went through their drills from 8:00-8:45. We’d flip the group times each week, always allowing for guys who had early morning classes. Each player got more reps and individual help with usually only six or seven in a group. 

We added an aerobics program at an off- campus facility on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We started at 6:30 a.m. and it ran for about 45 minutes. All our players were there at the same time. (Chad Gooding joined our team a little later in the semester.) The players carpooled and it was another way to bring everyone together for an organized activity that they had gone without for seven months. We had a very good instructor, and she made it a very active and fun program.  Plus, it was a good workout that was directly related to baseball.

The weight room was located on the bottom floor of the building that housed my office and several football offices. I got to know the football coaches well and they were good guys who, like me, put in a lot of hours. Division 3 football began at QC in 1987. Our kids lifted a couple of times each week and the football players kept the room active with individuals and small groups in there almost every afternoon or early evening.  

Elvis Turkovich was a second baseman/pitcher for us in 1989.  Turk was also a quarterback on the Hawks’ football team. The Hickory Hills (Il.) sophomore was one of the seven returning baseball players from the ’88 team.

The six other players who returned from the previous year’s squads and Elvis all led the same way. None of them were extremely vocal, but all of them had been through circumstances that the average player in a conventional collegiate baseball program, regardless of classification, ever had to face. Yet, they rarely said anything about the past and despite the distress and discomfort of the unknown for seven months, they worked hard daily, never complained and the freshman and the other “rookies” witnessed that and fell into line.

I never spoke to our players about the long-time absence of a coach, our upcoming spring schedule or what I thought hurt our program immensely leading into the spring campaign- no structured fall workouts. 

I rarely thought much about the previous years of the program. It’s not that I wasn’t interested, but we didn’t have time to look back.  I found out more about the history of QC baseball in the opening three months of 2024 than I did in my entire first year in Quincy.  

Before our season began, I received a call from Dewey Kalmer, the head baseball coach at Bradley University. I had never met or spoken to Coach Kalmer before. He invited me to Peoria to meet with him at his on-campus office.  He asked if I’d be interested in looking at some of the inquiries and curriculum vitae he had received from players and/or their coach. They were players that Bradley was not going to recruit but might be potential considerations for QC. I jumped at the opportunity to meet with him.

Coach Kalmer also knew a countless number of high school coaches who would be good contacts-coaches who ran fine programs in Illinois and some bordering states. We met the day after he called, and I spent over two hours in his office and walked away with a ton of information about schools, coaches, and players.

It was a very classy thing for him to do and I’ve always appreciated that he took the time to point me in the right direction. It was an enormous help.

Dewey won 1,032 games in his 40-year career as a head coach. He was quite familiar with QC with a portion of those wins as a head baseball coach at Quincy College. He coached at QC from 1969-79 and was 190-42-1 in his 11 seasons with the Hawks. 

Coach Kalmer, a Trenton, IL, native, graduated from QC in 1966. He had a three-year professional baseball career before returning to QC where he was named head baseball and assistant basketball coach. He won 20 or more games in five of his last six seasons at Quincy. He handled both jobs for 11 seasons before leaving for Bradley. 

Quincy native, Scott Melvin, former player, coach, and scout in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization played for Kalmer at Bradley. 

Melvin said, “Dewey was a great athlete himself and a no-nonsense coach. He taught us how to play baseball, but he also kept us in line and taught us to be good men. His players have done well in life. 

He taught us a work ethic and to be responsible and to never give up. Dewey has a lot of class and is well respected.”

There were several opposing teams on our ’89 schedule who were ready to take advantage of the newcomer including a seasoned Division 2 coach who called after I had been on the job for about three weeks and asked if I wanted to schedule another doubleheader with his club for the ’89 season. We already had them on the calendar for two twin bills, but he wanted to tack on another two games against us on his schedule. He acted like he was doing us a favor when all he wanted was to pick up two more D-2 wins that would help his team with their regional standing. I graciously declined. 

Quincy’s hometown paper, “The Quincy Herald Whig,” printed a pre-season look at our club four days before our season opener. 

“Sophomore Elvis Turkovich posted a 2-2 mark with a 3.98 ERA, toiling in 31 innings. Sophomore Dave Mikolajzak and junior Don Hargis are the only other pitchers with college experience.

Rounding out the pitching staff will be sophomores Tony Preall and Matt Baalman, and freshmen Mark Trapp (Nauvoo-Colusa HS), Lance Marshall, Mike Egenes (Liberty HS), Jamie Cerneka, and Brian Allen.

Senior catcher Bud Mcginnis will be the catalyst for the Hawks. A four-year starter, Mcginnes hit.270 with three homers and 18 RBIs in 48 games last year.

Sophomore Jeff Swigris has earned the starting shortstop job. Swigris batted .261 in 23 games in ’88. Turkovich will handle the duties at second base when he’s not pitching. A pair of freshmen will be at the corners for the Hawks. Egenes is penciled in at first base while Joe Nardi will be the third baseman.

Hargis, Preall and sophomore Brian Mullen will patrol the outfield. Hargis and Preall combined for only 18 bats in 1988, and Mullen is a first-year player. Lance Marshall and Derek Van will see action in the outfield.”

The Herald Whig sports staff had to anticipate a “down” season for the baseball Hawks. We had that pre-season article, but the press did not “blister” university officials which would have occured at a large percentage of college programs.
The area papers justifiably covered Quincy High basketball and Quincy College basketball thoroughly as those programs highlighted the Quincy sports scene.

1990 roster, left to right- OF David James, 1B Bob Bowsher and RHP Dave Mikolajzak (pitched on the '88 and '89 teams)

Abandoned - Chapter 3: Two Back Stories and One Phone Call

 How did 19 players and one coach find themselves on the losing end of a 32-0 score in Iowa City on April 1, 1989? 

What chain of events had taken place in a ten-month span that created a framework of only one regular player and six others from the 1988 squad (that had a 28-man roster) to return to play baseball at Quincy College during the 1989 season?

Is there a justified explanation why a college baseball team, who compiled a record of 251-188 through the seventies and the early 1980’s, loses a season-opening 21 consecutive games in 19 days?

 
I was living in central Florida (Kissimmee-Saint Cloud) and began teaching at a public school in late August 1997. I also worked weekends as an instructor at a baseball academy in Sanford (an hour’s drive from Kissimmee) and was active with the Houston Astros both on and off the field. The Astros’ spring training facility and the site where their Florida State League team played was ten minutes from my home.
I had moved to Florida after coaching four years (1982-1986) of Division 1 baseball at both Saint Bonaventure University (N.Y.) and George Washington University (D.C.) Both of those colleges competed in the Atlantic Ten Conference that included West Virginia, Penn State, Duquesne, Temple, Rutgers, and several other universities. 
When my Florida school year ended in late May/early June (1988), I had the opportunity to coach a selective group of mostly Division 1 college players from major universities (Baylor, Florida, Texas, Mississippi State, Texas Tech, and Toledo among others).

We worked out a couple of days in Nashville, Tennessee while awaiting the arrival of our entire roster of players before beginning 35 consecutive days on the road.
Back in west central Illinois, the Quincy College baseball team had wrapped up their 1988 campaign in the early days of May, ending with an overall record of 20-30. Head Coach Ron Clark, after four seasons, resigned from his baseball position and his job as an admissions counselor on May 25^th.

 A college athletic department always hopes that a coaching transition can proceed relatively quickly and smoothly. No one benefits from a lengthy delay. The longer a coaching position remains vacant and especially if all the potential players for the upcoming season are kept in the dark, the chance for a potential player exodus grows greater with each passing day.

In Nashville, all our summer team players had arrived, and we began our five-week tour. We played a couple of men’s amateur teams before heading to Millington, Tennessee to participate in a four- team tournament hosted by the 1988 Olympic Team. The United States team included Jim Abbott, Andy Benes, Tino Martinez, and Mickey Morandini along with a host of other future big leaguers. 

 We defeated the other two teams in opening games that allowed us to play the Olympic team in back-to-back games. Despite two convincing losses, it was a memorable experience for everyone on our team. The USA went on to beat Japan in the championship game in Seoul, South Korea later that summer. Baseball was a demonstration sport; no official medal was awarded.

We ended our tour after a seven-day stay in Ecuador. After playing a series of games there against various teams from the home country, our team flew back to Miami for one evening and then we boarded separate flights back to our homes. It was certainly a once in a lifetime baseball and cultural experience, but I was ready to get back to central Florida. 

  
Meanwhile back in Quincy, the baseball program remained without a coach and several players were looking at other options. I don’t know exactly when individuals began to transfer, but at least five players who had been integral to the 1988 team ended up at other colleges in 1989, mostly Division 1 programs. 

 Most of what I know about the period when the QC baseball coaching position was vacant came from researching Quincy Herald Whig archives in early February 2024. Information was also gathered with conversations from members of my ’89 squad in February and March of 2024. 

The veteran players who were planning on returning to QC and playing baseball for the Hawks in the ’89 season, potential freshmen and junior college recruits, and any walk-on athletes were left in the dark after the completion of the 1988 season. They received little if any information about the coaching vacancy. Some didn’t even know that Ron Clark was no longer the coach.

If there was an attempt to fill the coaching opening in a timely fashion it was a lackluster effort at best. Quickly, the baseball program was pushed to the back of the line and a ‘no hurry, take your time’ mentality was in place. 
 Joe Nardi was my freshman third baseman on the ’89 team and a four-year performer for the Hawks. Joe (Brookfield, Illinois) had an excellent career at QC and remembered his first visit to the college.

“Coach, when I graduated high school, I had visited Illinois State and Lewis and intended to visit Evansville and Quincy. However, I visited Quincy in late June with my dad and never went to U of E. I had sent out my high school stats to all four schools and received a letter back and a photo of the baseball stadium but can’t recall if it was from Coach Clark or something canned. I absolutely had no idea Coach Clark had left or the state of the program.”

“I had to look up faculty members. The professor who gave us the tour was also the head women’s tennis coach. He walked us around campus, and we saw the stadium (which I thought was the coolest thing). He said the baseball team had struggled over the past few years and might be a good fit for me, giving me a chance to play. That was good enough for me.”

Joe continued, “The first I heard there was no coach was at the very first workout when school started. Note: The workouts were set up and run by one of the returning seniors, who had been an everyday player in past seasons, but had decided he was not going to play his final year.

 
“Coach Hanks (Athletic Director Sherrill Hanks) had addressed the team at QC Stadium at the advent of the fall semester (late August) and said they were still searching for a coach. The version I remember is Coach Clark had left unexpectedly and that was it. There were a good number of players at the initial meeting. I presume most were returning players. They were shocked. The next practice it seemed like all those guys were gone. It seemed like it was 10-12 players.”

Nardi stated, “The only person we ever heard about being interviewed during the fall was Al Oliver and we saw him getting walked around campus. Nobody ever updated us about anything that fall, and I don’t recall ever being addressed again by the administration, not until you were named as coach.”

I never knew Al Oliver, the former Pittsburgh Pirate, had been a candidate until several years ago. I’m lucky the final decision didn’t come down to a home run derby contest. Oliver was a seven-time major league all-star. 

Many of the players who did not show up again after that first meeting were players who were on the 1988 team and returned to QC in 1989. Most of them were prepared to play again, even though they received nothing but silence during the summer months. 

Some of them had been two-sport guys in ’88 combining baseball with basketball or football. There had been at least five two-sport players in 1988. Only two of the five continued playing two sports in 1989. The others chose not to participate in baseball again.

There were many experienced baseball-only players who simply decided not to play another season, discouraged by the fact no coach had been hired during the summer months and now the spring semester had resumed, and the position was still vacant. The students were back on campus and these young men saw for themselves and correctly surmised that several college officials had no interest in the future of the baseball program.

Nearly four months had passed since the head coaching position became vacant and if there had been an authentic exploration to hire a legitimate baseball coach with a proven background, it was certainly an ill-advised and lethargic endeavor. 

Working on this project, I talked to the only senior on our 1989 club, catcher Bud Mcginnes. Bud played four seasons at QC and was a hard-nosed player and an excellent defensive catcher with a strong arm and the ability to work with our entire staff, many who had no previous college experience on the mound. He was an on-field leader by example and well-respected by all his teammates.

My first question to Bud was the most obvious, “Why did you stay, especially when Pete (twin brother) transferred to Bradley?” Bradley University is in Peoria, Illinois, the hometown of the Mcginnes brothers.

Bud stated, “I was only a year from my sports management degree. I had a lot of good friends at QC, and I really loved the school. Bradley had a very good catcher coming back and I wondered how much time I would see behind the plate. Plus, I really thought more players from the ’88 team would come back and play.”

After my summer travels, I was back in Kissimmee-Saint Cloud which meant there was a ton of mail to inspect. I just made two piles, one for junk and another for bills and any other correspondence that needed a reply. I had a subscription to the NCAA News, a newspaper that had articles about recent changes in the NCAA and anything pertinent in the college sports world. It also contained a few pages on job openings in various sports and on the back cover there was an advertisement that read something like:

 Quincy College Athletic Department

Quincy, Illinois

Full- time, Division 2 Baseball Coaching Position

  Contact Quincy College Athletic Department

 

It listed an address and phone number. It may have also listed the athletic director, Sherrill Hanks’ name.

 I had been to Illinois only once. That instance was a flight into Chicago, a connecting site for another flight. Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other midwestern states were uncharted territories for me. 

I sent my resume.

It was more of a reflex action than any legitimate interest in the position. I didn’t even update my curriculum vitae with my recent coaching sojourn or any other pertinent information.

Quincy never crossed my mind again until I received an acknowledgement about three weeks later that they had received my resume. It was simply a form letter, and now it was early August. If they still didn’t have a head coach yet, well, that would be puzzling, but I had zero enthusiasm in finding an answer to their mysterious hiring practice.  

I disregarded that letter quickly because I had finally decided on purchasing my first house, not only in Florida but ever. My uncle and I went house- hunting in the Saint Cloud area and in two weeks I had found the perfect house and location for me. It was a 15-minute drive from school, ten minutes from the Houston Astros complex and less than an hour drive to Sanford, and my instructional work. It was a good feeling to know that I had finally made a commitment to living in central Florida.

While I was settling in, QC baseball was not. The students were back from summer break and no baseball coach was in sight. Now there were two more issues that were very apparent. There had been no recruiting done for the ’89 season. No high-profile player from either high school or junior college had been recruited. Not one.

 Secondly, fall practice consisted of a couple of seniors conducting some workouts.  That was probably better than the potential team sitting on their hands, but not much.
As a college coach, I always loved fall practice. The northeastern fall weather was much better than the bitter early spring cold temperatures. The fall was a perfect teaching and evaluation time without a lot of game performance concerns. It provided an opportunity to see what the team that took the field in the spring might look like. It also gave the freshman another academic advisor- someone else to make sure the young guys got off to a good start.

The QC fall roster numbered 18 at that time with eight freshmen, seven sophomores with only four of them seeing any quality time the previous year, two juniors (one who never played baseball in college) and one senior, Bud Mcginnes.

September turned to October and October turned to Thanksgiving and still no coach. Thanksgiving came and went. The players had no idea what was happening. Some may have thought there would be no Quincy College baseball season.

Days without a baseball coach at Quincy College now totaled 189- One-hundred and eighty-nine days without a baseball coach.

 I was teaching during the afternoon of December 2^nd when the main office notified me that I had a phone call. 

 “Jim, this is Sherrill Hanks, athletic director at Quincy College. We’d like to fly you in for an interview as soon as possible. If you are interested, let us know and we’ll make the arrangements.”

My first thought, but left unspoken, was, ‘You still don’t have a baseball coach?’
I told him I’d get back to him the next day.

My parents, who wintered in Florida, thought it was simply foolish to go out there for an interview. My friends, in and outside the game of baseball, thought it was a waste of time. I basically agreed with all of them.

I flew out of Orlando to Quincy, Illinois on December 6^th.

1990 photo, left to right- Elvis Turkovich, pitcher and infielder on the 1989 team. Paul Littleton, volunteer assistant coach on the '90 squad and Eric Shogren, centerfielder on the '90 team.

Abandoned Chapter 2 “Gem City” and a Rich Baseball Tradition

 The city of Quincy, Illinois overlooks the Mississippi River and has a population of 40,000. The “Gem City” designation comes from the 19^th century when the city was a flourishing transportation center for riverboats and rail services that linked the city to many destinations along the river.

Quincy is 110 miles west of the state capital city, Springfield, and 135 miles north of Saint Louis, Missouri. Chicago’s Wrigley Field is over three hundred miles north of Quincy, but the city still has a fair representation of both Cardinals’ and Cubs’ fans which makes for some friendly “discussions” in diners, barber shops and other popular gathering sites. Occasionally, a White Sox fan even joins the fray.

Quincy College, now known as Quincy University with the name changed in 1993, is a private Franciscan university founded in 1860. The student enrollment is 1,300.

The on-campus athletic stadium, originally named Q Stadium, was built in 1938 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and initially owned by the city of Quincy.

In 1984, the city sold the stadium to Quincy College. The name of the facility, made of large limestone blocks and concrete, was named QC Stadium and later QU Stadium.

The football side of the stadium is located beyond the right field fence and right center field wall.

The baseball history of the stadium includes almost 30 years of professional baseball beginning with the Quincy Gems of the Three-I League (Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana) from 1946-1956. The Quincy Giants of the Midwest League called Q Stadium home from 1961-1962. The 1962 and 1963 seasons saw the New York Mets farm club, the Quincy Jets of the Midwest League, at the stadium followed by another Quincy Jets squad in 1964.

Those 19 years of professional baseball saw future big leaguers; pitcher Tom Sturdivant, 1B Marv Throneberry, infielder/outfielder Woody Held, OF Whitey Herzog (who later became manager of the St. Louis Cardinals), SS Tony Kubek (one of all-time favorite Yankees player), and scores of other future major leaguers who played at the “Rockpile.”

The Quincy Cubs had the longest consecutive affiliation with a big-league organization as they played in the Midwest League from 1965-1974, Pitchers Joe Niekro, Dennis Lamp, Gary Ross, Bruce Sutter, and catcher Ken Rudolph were all Quincy Cubs and future big leaguers. 
The stadium then became home for the Quincy Rivermen from 1974-1987. The Rivermen played in the Central Illinois Collegiate League (CICL) and again more future major leaguers used Q-Stadium as a building block on the way to the big leagues. That group included outfielders Kirby Puckett and Jim Lindeman (both players from Bradley University), pitcher Jeff Brantley (Mississippi State) and pitcher Dan Quisenbery (Laverne College (Ca.).

The city of Quincy was represented in the major leagues by two hometown players.  El Tappe was a native and a lifelong resident of the “Gem City.” He attended high school and Quincy College, beginning his professional baseball career in 1947. He made his MLB debut for the Chicago Cubs on April 24, 1954, and made his final big-league appearance for the clubs in July of 1962.

El and his twin brother, Mel, ran a sporting goods store in Quincy for many years. We purchased most of our baseball equipment for the 1989 season from Tappe’s.  El also attended a couple of pre-season practices and worked with our catchers. It was a real pleasure having an experienced major leaguer on the field with our young players. El Tappe died in 1998 at the age of 71.

Jim Finegan was also a native of Quincy who attended Quincy College and later Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Jim made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Athletics on April 25, 1954, one day after El Tappe. He was the regular third baseman for the A’s and in his rookie season hit .302 in 136 games and finished second in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. His final major league year was 1959 playing for the Baltimore Orioles. Finegan later became the head coach for Quincy College for the 1980 and 1981 seasons compiling a record of 53-38. Jim died of a heart attack in May of 1981 at the age of 52.

 I remember walking on the stadium field a day or two after I arrived in Quincy for my job interview. There was just a light covering of snow during the early days of December and the students were nearing their final exams and the conclusion of their fall semester.
 I could almost feel the history come to life as I slowly ambled in the direction of the shortstop position. I remember thinking, ‘One of my favorite Yankees, Tony Kubek, began his professional career right here.’ 

The stadium was showing its age, and I guessed a realtor would say, “It’s what we call a “fixer-upper, but it’s got great potential.”

 I walked underneath the stadium seats beginning behind the third base dugout. There, inside the cold cement walls, was the old locker room area and some rooms the size of offices where maybe the manager and the coaches dressed and later went over the day’s starting lineup. As I continued forward, I could tell where the concession area and restrooms had been, but of course the water had been turned off for years and these areas were in extremely poor condition.

I retraced my steps and as I came closer to the entrance where I had started my fascinating journey through the cavernous building, I bent down and picked up a white cardboard-like piece of stiff paper with two columns of names that lay on the concrete floor. It was a 1976 major league all-star game ballot. It had been a while since the tunnel had undergone any type of even moderate cleaning.

When I spoke to Chad Gooding, one of my players on the 1989 team, I asked him as I did all my players what he remembered about our season. No specific order or pre-determined number of highs and lows was requested. Whatever the guys wanted to say was fine with me.
 Chad, a sophomore from St. Louis, was not with our club during the initial indoor workouts. 

He came up to my office one day and asked if he could try out for the team. To the best of my knowledge, I believe that Chad took some batting practice in the old north gym, and I hit him some ground balls. He swung the bat well and was adequate with the glove but had noticeable problems throwing because of an injury (dislocation) to his right arm suffered in high school. As he was recovering from that injury he slipped on some steps and injured his right elbow.
 It was apparent that he would be limited to first base and maybe get some game swings as a DH also. He was a good athlete and had a tremendous will to play. He became a contributing member of our 1989 team.

Chad’s first response to my question about memories of that season was going to the stadium and helping clean up a couple of the areas underneath the bleachers. We made a part of the tunnel area usable so that we could store our equipment, dress for the game, and even used one of the rooms as a place to escape between games of a doubleheader. A couple of small space heaters had a game day tug-of -war with the bitter March winds, but they allowed the players an opportunity to temporarily escape the cold or maybe just find a quiet spot for a few minutes. 

We swept the floors, threw every piece of garbage into trash bins, and brought in a few chairs and an ancient couch. I even had a full-size advertisement cardboard figure of Kevin Costner standing in front of a field of corn in “Field of Dreams.” I picked that up at Blockbuster’s.

I found Chad’s comments very illuminating, and it explained the circumstances well. Thirty-five years later he had fond memories of just being a young college baseball player. He recognized what had taken place in that stadium decades before and appreciated the fact that in 1989 he became part of that history. 

1990 QC photo, left to right- Brian Ritzheimer, Steve Ebersohl and Joe Nardi. Nardi was a freshman third baseman on the 1989 team.