Ron Dodge grew up in Moline, went to college at Illinois State in Normal and started his teaching and coaching career in Galesburg.
But the place he built his life, before passing away on July 17 at the age of 83, was Manteno.
Ron and his family moved to Manteno in 1967 to teach and coach at the high school. That was the beginning of his contribution to civic life, but far from the end.
Like countless others, I was one of Ron’s students at Manteno High School. He was born to teach, with a commanding presence, a commitment to making his lessons engaging and a knack for connecting with teenagers,
I got to know him outside of the classroom as well as a manager for his wrestling team from 1972-76. He had a commanding presence, too, in the wrestling room. He didn’t have an easy task building a program at a small school with no feeder system and a bunch of kids whose only previous exposure to wrestling likely was with the completely different pro version.
But he took the job seriously. He drilled and drilled and drilled till his athletes learned wrestling’s fundamentals. And he had them run and run and run. He wanted Manteno’s wrestlers to make up in conditioning what they lacked in experience.
Ron Tibbs, my friend and classmate, said he and his teammates “used to joke we were one of the best cross country/wrestling teams in the state.”
Ron also knew firsthand how persuasive his coach could be. “I came out of junior high playing basketball,” he said, “but my brother Doug wrestled in high school and was a two-time conference champion. He stopped me in the hallway one day and said, ‘I’ll see you in practice, we start Nov. 5.'”
Sure enough, Ron was there on that day and spent the next four winters competing for the Panthers.
I should say here that while Ron Dodge held his students and his wrestlers to high standards, he was anything but a grouch. In my mind’s eye, I see him smiling and cracking jokes. While he took his work seriously, he never took himself too seriously.
Ron’s coaching wasn’t limited to his students and his athletes. Ken Klipp, a Manteno graduate who came back to his alma mater to teach right out of college, remembers how Ron mentored him in his early years.
Ron was the head wrestling coach from 1967 to 1985,and the head girls track and field coach from 1985 to 1999. His 1989 track team won the program’s only state trophy, finishing third in Class A, and had the program’s only event state championship in the 800-meter medley relay.
When the Manteno cross country program needed a coach, Ron stepped up because that’s what he did. He also coached volleyball and was a track-and-field official for years.
Ron’s civic contributions went far beyond his teaching and coaching, as widespread as they were. He served two stints on the Manteno Village Board from 1986-94 and 1997-2002, and also was a Kankakee County Board member from 2010-14.
He worked with Special Olympics for more than three decades from the local level to state and even the Minneapolis Special Olympics World Games. Ron and his wife Gail were honored as Volunteers of the Year in 2004.
Three years ago, Ron was named Manteno’s Citizen of the Year, a worthy and — if we’re being honest — probably overdue honor.
Ron is survived by Gail, his daughters Robin and Rebecca, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Now he’s gone, but his legacy — in education, coaching, Special Olympics, civic engagement — won’t be forgotten by those of us lucky enough to have known him.