Most high school coaches spend decades, or entire careers, building successful teams and athletes. If they are exceptionally skilled and lucky enough to work with highly talented athletes, they might win a few championships. For a very few, election to a Hall of Fame would be a recognition they never thought possible.
Think about that for a minute, then forget it. Meet Ron Helberg, a Sun Citian whose coaching achievements give a whole new meaning to the concepts of fame and success. In a 15-year period coaching track and field at three Chicago-area high schools, Helberg led teams to four state championships and nearly a dozen conference titles. He guided 16 individual athletes to first places at state meets and coached his athletes to nine state record performances in individual state-level events.
Coaching success is truly a lifetime affair for Helberg and his family. His two sons have followed him in the coaching/teaching field, both carrying on his legacy of producing winning teams in track and field – Ken at Wheaton-Warrenville South High School, and Don at Wheaton North.
Helberg has been elected to four halls of fame for his winning ways as a coach and athletic administrator. His two sons are members of one of the halls for their achievements in the family’s next generation.
Photo Provided
“I’ve been told no family has ever achieved that in Illinois,” Helberg said.
A native of Chicago’s southwest side and a 1955 graduate of Blue Island High School, Helberg and his track and field teammates won a state title in his senior year. He was a quarter-miler. He also lettered in football and baseball in high school. He won a track scholarship to Southern Illinois University and was a distance runner on successful Saluki teams while earning degrees in physical education and math.
Almost immediately after graduation, Helberg landed a coaching/teaching job at Palatine High School in the fall of 1960. During four seasons there, his teams won two conference titles, two state team crowns, and qualified many athletes for state competition.
“A highlight of that time for me was coaching the first boy in the state to throw a shot put more than 60 feet,” Helberg said. “Andy Muratka won state one year with a toss of 60 feet, 2 and-a-half inches. That was a state record.”
In 1963, Helberg moved on to Maine East High School in Park Ridge. In four seasons there, he won several conference titles, and he coached Larry Kelly to a national record in the half-mile and to a 600-yard indoor national half-mile record. One of his two-mile relay teams set a national record.
“These national and state records were wiped out when the high schools switched from a yards and feet method of measuring track and field performances to a metric system,” Helberg said.
In 1968, an opportunity opened at Evanston High School, and Helberg jumped at it. His Wildkit teams won state titles in 1970, ‘71, ‘72, and ‘74 (a tie). While there, he coached several outstanding performers – Nat Page, the state’s first 7-foot high jumper, Howard Jones, a sprinter who won the 100- and 200-yard dashes three years in a row at state; and Larry Bates, who was a state champion in the 880-yard run. Helberg also coached freshman football at Evanston.
“By 1975, athletic administrative opportunities were opening up for me, and I became Physical Education Division head and later Athletic Director at Evanston,” Helberg said.
He went on to finish his career as division head and athletic director at Hoffman Estates High School for nine years and athletic director at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview for six years. Helberg retired from full-time teaching and coaching in 1994.
“I got into coaching in a classic way,” Helberg said. “I benefited from the mentoring and leadership I received from several high school coaches when I was a teenager. I could have drifted into hanging with the wrong group, and they steered me in the right direction. I decided I wanted to be like them when I grew up.”
Helberg’s coaching philosophy is also traditional.
“When I came to one high school, the athletes were lazy and thought if they showed up sometimes, they could get by,” he said. “I told them that one blown-off practice or other mistake was tolerated, but two were not. I dismissed some kids from the team before these ideas caught on.”
Helberg is now an honored member of the Halls of Fame of the Illinois Track and Field Coaches Association, the former Northern Illinois Track Coaches Association, the National Coaches Association, and the Illinois Athletic Directors Association.
His track and field coaching colleagues honored him by making him a starter at state meets for 10 years after he stopped coaching. In a grand finale in 2000, he was named an honorable referee at the Illinois High School Association’s state meet at downstate Charleston. Since then, Helberg’s family has carried on the flame.
“Ken and Don both pursued track and field in high school,” Helberg said. “Ken was a half-miler distance guy, and Don was a hurdler. They both qualified for state-level competition. My wife, Marilyn, was an elementary school teacher and principal. We didn’t push or pressure them into high school sports careers. But it pleased us that they followed my career and became teacher-coaches.”
Ken, the oldest, is now a physics teacher and head track and field coach at Wheaton-Warrenville-South High School. Don is a physics teacher and head track coach at Wheaton North High School. They are in the Illinois Track and Field coaches Hall of Fame, partly because in the last 25 consecutive high school seasons, their track teams have won all of the DuPage Valley Conference championships.
Both sons have coached state championship-level teams. Ken has coached two state title teams, two runner-ups, one third place, and two fourth place finishers. Don has achieved three third place state finishes.
Ken, Don, and sister Beth have six children among them. So now Ron and Marilyn are sports fans and cheerleaders, because several of their grandchildren are into sports. The oldest grandson – Ken’s son Jeff – is a teacher and track coach at Wauconda High School in Lake County.
A truly Hall of Fame family, and probably a whole bunch of sports nuts.
