Heavy Hearts: “This is a tough loss for our entire community”
By FRED KRONER
A friend once told me what he considered the biggest drawback to aging.
“People all around you start dying,” he said.
In my younger years, I didn’t realize the accuracy of his statement.
Back then, if I would look at the newspaper obituaries – and that was a big if – I might see the name of an acquaintance’s grandparent every few months.
Over the years, those lists started including the parents of my classmates, and the frequency of these sightings also began to increase.
That evolved into seeing obituaries for my own classmates, colleagues from work, along with coaches and administrators from the dozens of schools I covered regularly for decades while at The News-Gazette.
The latest to pass was former St. Joseph-Ogden coach and administrator Dick Duval. He died on Thursday (Aug. 26) at age 64, six days after the football field at SJ-O was named after him. He had been battling pancreatic cancer for most of the past 18 months.
I first met Duval around this time of the year, in 1988. He was in his first year as the Spartans football head coach and I was barely into my 30s and just several years into my tenure as a sportswriter at The News-Gazette.
Those were the days when I pretty much had a one-track mind. When I talked with a coach, it was to gather information about his or her team, not to spend the afternoon chatting in hopes that a friendship might ensue.
Certainly, the coach had other things to do besides talk to me. And, I always had more things on my to-do list than there were hours in a day.
As reporters spend time around the coaches and athletes we cover, we learn more than why a certain play was called or what the key factors were in a win or a loss.
We learn who we can count on if we need a quick quote, who is willing to take the time to explain the background of an issue and why it is important, as well as who would just as soon never see you again.
Duval was the steadfast one, the patient one. When you were with him, you never – ever – sensed that the answer to your question would be followed by the words, “Is that all?” like happened on numerous occasions with others in his profession.
He was more apt to ask, “Do you have enough information?”
He was as much about facts and accuracy as I was, which is a rare trait for a non-media person.
When Duval transitioned away from some of his coaching roles and into the duties of athletic director, he took pride in the successes of all the sports that SJ-O offered, not just the ones in which he was involved with or the ones in which his children participated.
For several years before I retired, I had the privilege to contact him late in the spring to inform him that St. Joseph-Ogden was going to receive recognition as The News-Gazette’s Area School of the Year.
I made that call to him seven times in all, including my last year on the job (2015).
I came up with a point system to score schools in a variety of categories for the entire school year. Everything from 20-win seasons to postseason titles to Players of the Year were taken into account. The total score was divided by the number of sports a school offered, so ones which offered only a handful of sports could be ranked fairly with schools that competed in almost 20 sports.
Duval was always delighted at the news and was excited that his school wasn’t just known as a football school or a basketball school or a track school or a baseball school, but as a school which flourished across the board.
After all, he was the coach who, in the late 1980s, encouraged athletes to participate in multiple activities. He wanted to see them thrive and to help a variety of sports at the school achieve at the highest level.
That was in keeping with his nature.
“Since he retired, he would shoot me a text and ask how the baseball or softball team did, or how the track teams did,” SJ-O superintendent Brian Brooks said. “He genuinely cared about every aspect of St. Joseph-Ogden.
“He loved St. Joe, absolutely loved it.”
When Brooks was still coaching the SJ-O boys’ basketball team, he wouldn’t be surprised to have an extra rider on the bus for out-of-town trips.
“Dick would get on the bus and go to the games,” Brooks said. “This was before (son) Kiel was coaching. Kiel was still in college.
“He went because we were friends and he liked basketball.”
As the years passed, my path would seem to cross often with Duval’s. I might see him at a Thursday night volleyball match, his Friday night football game and then at the Saturday morning Spartan Classic cross-country meet.
When deadlines weren’t an issue for me or he wasn’t being pulled in another direction by someone who needed something that started with his time, we would take a few minutes to sit and talk.
That’s where I first learned about his summer job. Duval wasn’t one to simply sit at home and do nothing once the school year ended.
He spent the hot summer days outside doing construction work.
“He was very good with his hands,” Brooks said. “He could build about anything.
“Those who know him probably have something in their house that he built for us. He had that old-school mentality. I don’t know that he took a day off.
“Even when he was sick, he was doing projects for people.”
During the more than a quarter of a century that Duval coached at SJ-O, observers had a consistent impression of the person who was inducted into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2008.
“They saw a stoic, successful coach,” Brooks said, “a man of few words at times. He was a great leader by example.”
That was only a portion of the total person.
“He was truly even a better man,” Brooks said. “He knew how to connect with people.
“He got it. He understood the big picture and how to handle kids, and that if you led kids the right way, the wins will happen.”
And for SJ-O teams coached by Duval (baseball and football), the wins happened in more than two-thirds of his games. Between the two sports, his combined varsity record was 485-240-3.
Incredibly, he had 44 years of head coaching experience and his Spartan teams had winning records in 42 of those seasons. He guided football teams into state championship games in four different decades.
As Brooks reflects, he remembers when cell phones and social media accounts were in their infancy.
“Dick was so against cell phones and social media when they first came out,” Brooks said, “but once he was done coaching, he re-connected with a lot of people on social media.
“People got to see the side that family and friends knew all along.”
There is never a good time to learn about the passing of someone we know and adore, but there can be reasons to smile as we remember the person.
It is fitting that the dedication of Dick Duval Field was held on Friday (Aug. 20) and that he was able to attend the event.
“He talked with me on Saturday and Sunday, and that was the main thing we talked about,” Brooks said. “He was extremely humbled and honored.
“He talked about how many people came back, former teachers, administrators, players and coaches. He really enjoyed that.
“I am super-thankful that he and his family were able to enjoy it.”
SJ-O will play its regular-season football opener on Friday (Aug. 27) at home against state-ranked Monticello at 7 p.m. A moment of silence will recognize Duval before the kick-off. Weather permitting, Brooks said there will be a painted tribute to the former coach on the field.
“You never want to lose anyone,” Brooks said, “but this is a tough loss for our entire community. He signified what we wanted.
“He made an impact on so many. There will be a huge void in our school and the community.
“I’ve been here for 18 years, and when I think of St. Joe, he is one of those faces who comes to mind.”
