SUN CITY – In athletics, if you can’t play the game, coach it and help prepare future athletes. Teach physical education and pass on the merits of exercise and fitness.
This is the philosophy that propelled Sun City’s Dan Wile into an impressive coaching and teaching career after he ran into an unforeseen wall on the playing field. In short, he changed his original dream and created another.
Wile was a high school All-American football player at a time when such honors were rare. He was an all-state, multi-sport athlete, and a good enough scholar at one of the smallest high schools in Illinois to win a scholarship to the University of Illinois. He was a sports nut who found a way to pursue his passion, despite unforeseen adversity. He per¬severed and adapted.
Dan Wile was a high school football standout but unexpected
factors led him to reconsider his future as an NFL player. (Chris La Pelusa/Sun Day Photo)
“I enjoyed playing sports, and I was fortunate to find a way to do that as a coach and teacher,” he said.
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, he grew up in the oil fields where his father worked.
“My family moved around somewhat as my dad followed the jobs from place to place,” Wile recalled. “I attended two high schools in the early 1950s. I attended Salem, Illinois, High School in my fresh¬man year, transferred to a high school in Bristol, Oklahoma, in my sophomore and junior years, and then returned to Salem for my senior year. I played several sports as a kid, and I decided early on that sports would be a big part of my life.”
That senior year proved to be Wile’s high-water mark as an athlete. He started in football, basketball, track, and baseball. He was selected as an All-American in football, where he was a 170-pound fullback and linebacker.
“In those days, you didn’t have to be big to play football, just athletic and willing to take a lot of hits,” he recalled.
He lettered in all four sports but attracted the most attention from college football scouts. He won a scholarship to the University of Illinois when Ray Eliot was the coach. His dreams of playing major college football and possibly going on to pro football were alive.
“I gained about 900 yards rushing in my senior year of high school, and that was a school record at the time,” Wile said. “I believe I was the first all-state-er at the school in football. We were a very good team that year, one of the best in Illinois, at a time when they didn’t have state playoffs. We won our conference and just had a great time in the 1954 season.”
He got scholarship offers from several Midwestern-area colleges, and he chose Illinois. He was red-shirted in his freshman year but looked forward to making the varsity for the Illini in his sophomore year.
“They said they were short of fullbacks at that time, so I thought I had a good chance.”
Then came a major and challenging surprise. At practice for the 1956 season, he met two teammates who would combine, by coincidence, to alter his career plans. He didn’t realize it then, but he was competing for a starting spot alongside two guys named Ray Nitschke and Bill Brown, who would eventually go on to become pro football Hall of Famers.
“I was good, but they were great players,” Wile recalled. “I quickly discovered that they were gifted and talented. Coach Eliot gave them a priority. In the next three years, I played quite a bit, but always in the shadow of those two guys.”
By the time he reached his senior year, Wile decided he needed to adapt. He switched his focus from playing to teaching and coaching. After earning a teaching degree in 1959, he began a nearly 40-year career as a teacher and coach in several sports. He finished it in the mid-90s with the satisfaction of knowing that he taught and positively influenced hundreds of student athletes, just like the high school coaches he admired so much at Salem High School.
He taught physical education and coached football, baseball, basketball, and track teams at Carl Sandburg, East Peoria, Oak Forest, Hillcrest, and Tinley Park High Schools for more than 35 years, until retiring. He paid his dues by coaching underclass teams and quickly worked up to the head coaching level. Several of his football teams made the state IHSA playoffs, and other teams enjoyed modest success in statewide competition. He served as athletic director at Hillcrest for several years.
“I always measured myself by how student-athletes I taught and coached did later on,” he said. “Many of them went on to solid careers in sports and life, and a few accomplished much in athletics. I coached Bobby Mitch¬ell, a wide receiver and punt returner for the Washington Redskins of the NFL, and Abe Woodson, who played for the San Francisco 49ers. I also coached and taught Tom Haller, who was an outstanding quarterback in high school and eventually went on to be a Major League Baseball umpire.
“I also coached a guy named Ernie Sharp, who was one of the best backs ever to play football at Sandburg.”
Wile himself never stopped learning. He served as a high school guidance counselor for seven years and earned three master’s degrees, all from the University of Illinois.
“They kept encouraging us to get advanced degrees to im¬prove our teaching skills,” he said.
After his retirement, he lived in Arizona for several years then returned to Illinois and Sun City to be near his son and daughter.
