“He was one of the most high-energy, enthusiastic persons I’ve ever known,” said Donald Offermann, former District 200 superintendent and OPRF track coach, speaking of Roy Gummerson, track and cross-country guru, who died Jan. 14, 2005 at West Suburban Hospital.
Gummerson was born on Aug. 8, 1914 in Peoria, and he played well there, setting records in cross-country and track at Bradley University. He had already established himself as a coaching legend at Woodruff High School in Peoria before joining the Oak Park and River Forest High School faculty as a business teacher and, of course, running coach. He remained at OPRF from 1955 until he retired in 1977.
“Students loved working with him. He had a real magnetism that drew kids out,” said Offermann, who took over the track team when he arrived in the 1960s, allowing Gummerson to focus on cross-country.
Don Vogel met him when he was a student and state track tournament official at Eastern Illinois University. Two years later Vogel was teaching at OPRF and found Gummerson on the faculty there.
“Anyone in the state who had track questions asked him,” Vogel said. “He knew it all.” Gummerson was the chairman of the IHSA state track and field meet for 24 years until he gave it up in 1990, the 50th state track meet he worked on.
Two years earlier, hundreds of the people he had influenced over the years raised $11,500 so he could travel to the Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea.
“He was a fantastic coach,” said Richard Brooks of River Forest, one of his former runners and captain of the 1970 and ’71 OPRF cross-country teams. Gummerson would bus them to Miller Meadow three times a week for workouts, then treat the whole team to non-carbonated orange drinks at McDonald’s?#34;out of his own pocket.
In Brooks’ junior year, they won the Mattoon Invitational, which at that time was the biggest high school cross-country meet in the country. On the way home, Gummerson stopped off at the University of Illinois campus and told Brooks, “This is your future.” Brooks went on to become an All-American runner for U. of I. and met his wife there.
“He was the most generous man I’ve ever known, and I learned more about life from him,” Brooks said.
In the last few years, Brooks was able to come “full circle with Gummy,” driving him to state and Big 10 meets, for which Brooks serves as announcer. He also worked with him at an insurance company in the Loop.
Gummerson led by example, Brooks said, and he characterized that example as “tireless.”
Offermann said he motivated by making tough workouts fun. “He made a game of it and distracted kids from the hard work and pain.”
During the summers, he managed the River Forest Tennis Club, influencing many kids who never crossed his cross-country paths.
In later years, he became an equally tireless volunteer at West Suburban Hospital, where he delivered newspapers to patients’ rooms, Offermann said. “Who knows how much of an impact he had on patients’ psyches,” he said. “He gave them a fresh, happy face.”
Honors came in bunches. In addition to a slew of inductions into halls of fame, he was presented the Carl Winters Community Service Award from the Rotary Club. And at a high school that almost never names anything after anyone, the annual OPRF cross-country meet is known as the Roy Gummerson Invitational.
Roy is survived by his son, Ron (Sheila); and his grandchildren, Kelly (Robbie) Higgins, Molly, Kevin (Tammy), Brendan, Sheila, James, and Kathleen Gummerson.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 22 at First Baptist Church of Oak Park, 820 Ontario St. Memorials may be sent to the Roy Gummerson Scholarship Fund, OPRF High School, 201 N. Scoville, Oak Park 60302.