George Dergo to retire as head of Morris High School athletics

MORRIS – If there’s a Mount Rushmore of people who define Morris Community High School athletics, George Dergo has to be one of the faces. Arguments can be made about the other three. Not so for Dergo.

At the end of June, Dergo, who has served as athletic director at his alma mater since 2006, will retire after 33 years as an educator, the last 31 spent in Morris.

Dergo attended Morris schools as a youth and graduated from Morris Community High School in 1977. After spending a year each at Illinois State University and Joliet Junior College, he finished his undergraduate work and got his bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University, the alma mater of his late father, Gehrig. He obtained his master’s degree in administration in 1993 from Governor’s State University.

Upon graduation from Western, he spent the first two years of his career at Plainfield High School, back when there was only one Plainfield High School.

So why did a Morris lifer begin his career in the den of what had become one of his hometown’s biggest rivals?

“I was young and dumb,” Dergo said. “They [Morris] weren’t offering the exact job I wanted, so I thought, ‘I’ll show them.’ But I always wanted to be in Morris, so I came back after a couple of years.”

After spending the years of 1983-84 and 1984-85 in Plainfield, he started in Morris in 1985-86, when he began his work with the Grundy County Special Ed Co-Op in addition to coaching wrestling and football at MCHS.

“When I started there [at the Co-Op], there was no elementary level or junior high level,” he said. “I started the elementary and junior high programs and built that up. That was a very rewarding experience.”

Dergo has had plenty of rewarding experiences in his career at MCHS, including winning a state football championship with an undefeated team in his first year as head football coach, 2005, and being the head wrestling coach for both years that his son, John, won an individual state title.

He has been on hand to witness the high school baseball careers of future major-leaguers Scott Spiezio, Kelly Dransfeldt and Billy Petrick. He also recalled that his first job at MCHS was as a cameraman for the 1978 football team and he filmed the junior season of future NFL player Ed Brady.

With all of that to look back on, it’s difficult for him to pick out a few individual moments that stand out. Instead, he has a broader view of what he remembers most.

“What stands out most in my career is the change,” he said. “Change in society, how we teach, how we interpret things. Technology has changed tremendously, obviously. The way you deal with kids. I am kind of out on the edge of being old-school in the way I teach and coach.”

When asked what he will miss the most when he retires, he didn’t hesitate before he responded.

“The kids,” he said immediately. “I will miss seeing and being around the kids. And not just the students. I think of the coaches that worked for me as my kids, too.

“I’ll miss the camaraderie with the coaches. You lose a little of that when you are ‘the boss’ as athletic director. You still want to be just ‘coach,’ but you’re the boss and it’s a little different, whether you want it to be or not. But I always wanted to do whatever I could to help my coaches and players be successful, on and off the field.”

His enthusiasm for Morris Community High School and its students is always evident, and so genuine that it can’t be faked.

“I have been fortunate enough to work in two major sports – baseball and basketball - with Mr. Dergo,” Morris baseball coach Todd Kein said. “If you want someone that is pro-Morris, then you don’t have to look any further than George. He is always there for support. As a coach, you feel that from him. He will make sure that we as coaches have everything we need. He is someone who has just always been part of the school, from going to school here to teaching and coaching here to being the athletic director here. It’s in his blood.

“I have been here 17 years, and he’s been here the entire time. I am not from here originally, but I feel like I am fully converted, and a lot of that is because of George. He wants Morris to succeed at anything they do, and it’s infectious. His enthusiasm for the school and the kids definitely wears off on you. We are certainly going to miss him. But not too much. I have a feeling he will have a hard time not being around, even after he retires.”

As with many people so closely related to one place, Dergo is asked quite often what he wants his legacy to be.

But, he has never been one to worry about that. He had a job to do.

“To me, a legacy isn’t something you work toward,” he said. “It’s just who you are when your job is done. If you did the job as well as you could for as long as you did it. There are some success I am proud of, sure, but there are also some things where I look back and wish I had a do-over for.

“You just hope that when you are done, there are kids or teachers that you came across that you had some influence on. I just hope I was able to help a few out a little bit. When I hear from former students, I hear a lot that I was always about the kids, and that makes me feel good because to me, that’s what it’s about. Our whole system here at Morris is for these kids. That’s something I know I got from my dad because he was all about the kids. A lot of my career really parallels my dad. I learned a lot from watching him.”