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Former Fenwick Coach Ed Galvin (1933 – 2021)

Legendary, Hall-of-Fame basketball player and coach passes away at age 88.

By Leo Latz ’76

In the long and storied history of American amateur athletics, only a miniscule fraction of coaches and athletes ever earn membership in a high school, college or professional sports Hall of Fame.

As a both a player and coach, another rarity, Ed Galvin was selected as a member of not only one, but five Halls of Fame: Chicago Catholic League, Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame, Illinois Basketball Coaches Association, St. Rita High School and Loyola University New Orleans Athletics.

Even with all of these athletic achievements and recognition, Ed was most proud of his 63-year marriage to Eileen (nee Day), his six daughters, 18 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Galvin passed away at his home in Glen Ellyn surrounded by his wife and family on September 18, 2021, at the age of 88.

As the son of Irish immigrants, Galvin grew up on the West Side of Chicago and, at an early age, fell in love with the game of basketball on the hardwood and asphalt courts of school gyms and Chicago Park District playgrounds. As a 6’ 5” Chicago Catholic League and All-City forward for renowned Coach Clem Naughton at St. Philip’s High School, Ed was awarded a basketball scholarship to Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana. At Loyola, Galvin set team scoring and rebound records, was the Wolfpack’s most valuable player for three straight years, a member of Collier Magazine’s All-American Basketball Team, and the 77th overall pick of the 1955 NBA draft selected by the Syracuse Nationals (now the Philadelphia 76er’s).

Galvin began his Hall-of-Fame coaching career as an assistant for three years at his high school alma mater, St. Philip. Galvin left Chicago’s Westside at age 28 to become head coach at Chicago’s St. Rita High School at 63rd and Western Avenues. There, Galvin led the Mustangs to immediate and unprecedented Catholic League basketball success, winning 232 “heavyweight” and “lightweight” (5’9” and under) games in only six seasons, including one heavyweight and two lightweight league championships.

Coach Galvin at Fenwick in 1974-75.

In 1969, Galvin returned to his Chicago westside roots. Fenwick High School Athletic Director and Chicago Catholic League founder, Tony Lawless, hand-picked and personally recruited Galvin to succeed another Chicago basketball coaching legend, Bill Shay, as only the fourth head basketball coach in Fenwick history. During his 10 years at Fenwick, the Friars won two Chicago Catholic League Lightweight titles and was the first team to win three consecutive Fenwick Christmas Lightweight Tournament Championships in the 34 years of the famed tourney. After the Chicago Catholic League entered the IHSA for the first time in 1974, Galvin’s Friars won two regional championships in Fenwick’s first four years of IHSA membership.

Galvin was also voted by his peers as the Chicago Catholic League Coach of the Year for all sports in 1971.

While at Fenwick, Galvin would also serve as the first Head Men’s Basketball coach at Rosary College (now Dominican University) from 1976-78. Post-Fenwick, he was head basketball coach at North Central College (1980-82) and finished his 40-year coaching career at Illinois Math and Science Academy (1988-1997) with more than 600 coaching wins at all levels.

Galvin was also a respected athletic administrative leader as the Athletic Director at St. Rita and Fenwick High Schools, and Rosary and North Central Colleges.

And if all those long hours of coaching and managing athletic departments weren’t enough, Galvin supplemented his income to support his family through a successful business career, first as a trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and then with Galvin Marketing, which he established with his life-long friend Dan O’Donnell.

During his retirement years, in addition to spending time with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Coach Galvin and Eileen would welcome and enjoy lunches and long, story-telling visits with former teammates and players from Loyola, St. Rita and Fenwick.

Coach Galvin at Fenwick in 1975-76.

Coach Galvin’s impact and influence on thousands of Chicago-area players and their families will be remembered for many generations. Here are a few reflections from a some of his greatest players:

From Jeff Carpenter All-State and All-American player at Fenwick 1974 and member of Notre Dame’s only Final Four Team in 1978:

“For whatever reason, Coach saw potential in me and always encouraged me and my teammates.

“Coach Galvin had confidence in me from the start, and I never wanted to let him down. We all knew Coach was gruff on the outside, but he loved his boys! Plus, he had an awesome hook shot and drop kick!

“My favorite coach!”

From Neil Bresnahan, All-State forward at Fenwick in 1976 and University of Illinois four-year starter and captain of the 1980 Illini:

“Coach Galvin got the most out of every player. We always played hard, and we were always the best and most-feared rebounding team in Chicago because of his teaching and emphasis on that aspect of the game. Outside of the game, he was always there for us.

“He will be missed by all who ever played for him.”

From Jeff Norris, Fenwick ’72, St. Mary’s University MN 1976 and member of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame:

“Coach Galvin taught us many things but the infamous Power Training at the very end of practice was one of the most important. Everyone thought it was physical training, but it was really mental training as well. It was the overtime of the game, and it prepared us for the realization that, no matter our situation, we can overcome it both physically and mentally. It taught us to improve our discipline to prepare for both — and the best part was we didn’t know it till later.

“Thanks again for everything, Coach. You will be deeply missed.”

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FOREVER FRIARS: Remembering Fr. Roderick Malachy Dooley, O.P. (1919-2002)

By Will Potter, Chicago Tribune staff reporter (originally published on June 18, 2002)

Rev. R. Malachy Dooley, 82, was at nearly every wedding, funeral, baptism and party involving alumni of Fenwick High School. His giving spirit – from remembering the anniversaries of couples he married to taking friends on tours of Ireland – made him a cornerstone of the Fenwick community.

“Everyone thinks of him as their best friend,” said Bill Stein, a former student [Class of ’53, now deceased] and longtime friend. “And he thought of everyone as his best friend. Asking for nothing and giving everything, that was him.”

The late Professor Peter Bagnolo, a former student, painted this watercolor, which hangs in Fenwick’s 4th-floor (priory) Dooley Conference Room.

Father Dooley, a Dominican friar for 60 years and a teacher and fundraiser for Fenwick High School in Oak Park, died Saturday, June 15, of cancer in his home in the Dominican Priory of River Forest.

Father Dooley was born in Minneapolis. He started at Fenwick in 1950 as a theology teacher. When administrators asked him in the early 1950s to head fundraising projects for the school, he threw himself into the new task.

In the 1950s Father Dooley raised more than $1million for Fenwick’s first capital campaign that resulted in construction of the west wing, including an auditorium and classrooms. In the 1980s he raised more than $3 million for science laboratories and an endowment fund, and in the 1990s he raised $10 million for an athletics field house and pool.

Although quite a successful raiser of funds, the bespectacled Fr. Dooley did not like asking for money.

From 1963 to 1973, Father Dooley was assigned to St. Pius V parish in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, St. Anthony Parish in New Orleans and Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas. He then returned to his work at Fenwick.

Father Dooley did not like asking for money and, in fact, he rarely did, said Leo Latz [Fenwick Class of ’76], a former assistant and longtime friend. He didn’t have to.

“People give to things they feel connected to,” Latz said. “Dooley got legions of people to be connected or reconnected to the school. He had a gift of creating community and connecting people to their alma mater and reminding them of why they should be grateful. He has been the common denominator in Fenwick’s success in the last 50 years.”

He was awarded the [inaugural) Lumen Tranquillum, or Quiet Light, award by the school in November.

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Black History Month: My Fenwick Experience

By Marlon R. Hall, Sr., EdD., Guest Blogger

“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”  ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Dr. Marlon Hall

My journey to Fenwick High School began as a student in 1972. I was one of 11 African-American males that year who entered as freshmen. At the time, there were only two African-American males in the entire school. The most memorable episode of African-American student integration of schools in the history of our nation occurred 15 years earlier when nine students entered Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They were called the “Little Rock Nine.”  I am calling us, “The Fenwick 11.”

The route to Fenwick began at my grammar school, Our Lady of Sorrows, on the West Side of Chicago. During our eighth grade year, high school representatives traveled to our school to speak about the advantages of attending Gordon Tech, Providence-St. Mel, Hales Franciscan, Holy Trinity, St. Ignatius, Loyola Academy and Fenwick.

The Fenwick representative was a man by the name of Mr. Kennedy. At the time, he was the Dean of Students/Vice Principal. His presentation really fascinated me. He spoke about the famous alumni, the class schedule and the opportunity to be enrolled in a Physical Education course for four years. The athletic prowess in me loved the idea of time in the gym for four years. Previously, I had the privilege of attending a basketball game in the old Lawless Gym in 1965. My cousin, Darnell, was playing for the St. Phillips High Lightweight basketball team in the Annual Fenwick Junior Basketball Holiday Tournament, so I was aware of the school, the township of Oak Park, and the ‘el’ ride from the West Side of Chicago.

Marlon Hall as a Fenwick freshman in 1972-73.

I decided that Fenwick was the place for me after Mr. Kennedy’s presentation. I arranged a campus visit with Mr. Kennedy, and he introduced me to Greg Stephans, an African-American student at Fenwick who took me on a tour of the campus. After the tour, I took the entrance exam with five of my classmates. After the testing was completed, one of my classmates was fully accepted, one was rejected, and the rest of us were told that we needed summer enrichment in math, English or reading. For four weeks in the summer, I took a math course with Mr. Finnell and a reading course with Mr. Kucienski (self-appointed ‘Sir’). During those few weeks, I became acquainted with the Fenwick community, travelling to Oak Park, and met new people like Don Howard, Henry Tolbert, George Kas, Kevin Galvin and Kevin Prendergast. They became freshman classmates of mine at Fenwick. I finished the courses sufficiently and I was fully accepted into Fenwick High School.

The ‘N’ word and other slurs

What happened during the next year was unexpected! I guess I was naïve coming from the West Side of Chicago. After the summer school experience, I thought that I would be able to successfully integrate into the Fenwick community. But I was called nigger, bourgie, burrhead, ‘boy,’ and one upperclassman one day decided to take it out on me and slapped me across the head and said, “Nigger, why did you come to this school!” This was not part of the program.

I was spit upon. Pennies were thrown at me, and my classmates threw rocks at us as we walked to the bus stop or the el stop. I can look through my Blackfriars 1973 Annual and remember every Fenwick student who communicated some type of racial slur or comment at me during my brief tenure at the school. The insults hurt but made me stronger. I decided to leave Fenwick after my freshman year. I transferred to Hales Franciscan, where I completed my high school education. Out of the 11 freshman, only three remained to graduate in 1976. They were Donald Howard, Henry Clarke and Wilbur Parker.

In the early 1970s, racial tension ran high in schools across America, from Virginia to Illinois. Oak Park and Fenwick were no exceptions.

Since leaving Fenwick in 1973, I realized that I should have remained and completed my education there. I have voiced that opinion to other members of the Fenwick 11 whom I remain in contact with. They agree. But, why did nearly all of us leave? Fenwick is one of the greatest educational experiences any student could have, especially a “ghetto” kid from Chicago’s West Side. The ridicules, the snickers, the violence afflicted, the racial slurs that I suffered made me a stronger individual.

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Forever Friars: The Dobber

Fenwick High School periodically profiles people affiliated with our community who have since passed on …

Dan O’Brien ’34 (1917-2003)

Remembering DOB, “the Dobber:” a coaching/training legend affiliated with Fenwick for seven decades.

By Mark Vruno

In the basement of Fenwick High School sets the Dan O’Brien Natatorium. Our swimming Friars will host the 30th Annual Dan O’Brien Relays this coming January. Younger alumni and present-day students may wonder: Who was this O’Brien guy and why is he a such a legend at Fenwick?

DanOBrien_plaque

Dan O’Brien was more than a stellar swim/dive guru; he was versatile. DOB was a FHS student (Class of 1934) who then served as a physical education teacher at his alma mater. “Dan’s first Fenwick paycheck predated the Social Security system and had no social security withholding,” deadpans Jerry Lordan, PhD., who teaches social studies at Fenwick and wrote the preface for O’Brien’s oral history, a hardcover book entitled Fenwick Over the Years.

In 1937 Football Coach Tony Lawless hired O’Brien to lead his freshman team. Football was O’Brien’s first love in sports. In the fall of 1930, seven years earlier, Fenwick was only one year old. Dan was a scrawny, 128-pound freshman who showed up for tryouts at the new school, only to be snickered at by burly classmates and upper-classmen. “Sorry, son,” said Lawless, according to a 1972 Oak Leaves article. “I can’t use you. You’ve come out for the wrong team.”

O’Brien, however, was determined and refused to give up easily. Here’s how reporter Ted Londos recounted the story 42 years later:

“The kid faced the wise, young coach and replied firmly, ‘Mr. Lawless, I’ve come out for the team. You’ve asked for candidates. Here I am. You’ve got to give me a chance to show you what I can do.’ And so, to get rid of that reckless kid, Tony put him into a scrimmage – just for laughs. But on the first play, Coach Lawless’s eyes popped when he saw the tiny freshman bring a varsity giant down with a devastating tackle. Again he tried him out, and another regular bit the dust. Young Lawless shrugged his shoulders and decided to let the gutsy little guy hang around. ‘What’s your name?’ asked the coach.”

But the feisty O’Brien’s gridiron career with the Fighting Friars was short-lived. As a sophomore he suffered severe medical complications from the surgical removal of a kidney, which kept 15-year-old Daniel out of school for an extended period of time in 1931-32. “His surgeon warned him that the procedure may either fail and/or kill him,” Lordan later learned. “Dan outlived the surgeon and saw the surgeon’s grandchildren (twin boys) attend Fenwick.”

DanOBrien_1954_cropped

Dan O’Brien circa 1954.

 

Fast-forward 45 years, to when two of his former swimmers-turned-doctors came to O’Brien’s aid. “I had come back to Chicago in 1977,” recalls Leonard Vertuno ’57, M.D., a Loyola-educated nephrologist (kidney specialist), “and Pete Geis knocked on my door.” Dr. Peter Geis ’60 was a transplant surgeon and an All-State swimmer three years ahead of Vertuno at Fenwick. “Pete said, ‘Dan needs a doctor, and you’re it.’”

So began a reuniting of player and coach – and an adult friendship that would span more than a quarter-century. It was Dr. Vertuno who would give the eulogy at Dan O’Brien’s funeral in 2003. “He was an amazing man,” the retired doc said in early November from Sarasota, FL. “Dan was renowned nationally and internationally. He chose to stay at Fenwick and work with Tony [Lawless].”

From field to pool

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