Goss: Raspolich replacing Torkelson as Plainfield East athletic director

Paul Raspolich is a product of District 202.

He attended Plainfield High School and has been teaching and coach in the district for 24 years.

But an athletic director? Who saw that coming?

"I don't know what they're thinking," Raspolich laughed Tuesday when asked about filling the athletic director's chair at Plainfield East.

Raspolich will take over in the upcoming school year for Tim Torkelson, who is returning to the classroom at East so he can spend more time with his young family.

"Seriously, my kids are older now," said Raspolich, whose son Drew will be a senior at East in the fall. "I know the craziness that happens when your young kids are always on the go. Tim is getting into that now."

Raspolich was the head girls golf coach and an assistant baseball coach on my neighbor Adam O'Reel's staff. We shared a chuckle about how he now becomes O'Reel's boss and should take full advantage of that.

"I got old fast," Raspolich, who will turn 48 soon, said as he pondered completing his 24th year as a teacher and coach. "I look at this move as bittersweet. I say that because the hard part is giving up some of the interactions with students. I always hoped that I made a difference in their lives somewhere along the line and I do not want to lose that. Working with the students is why we're in this in the first place."

Torkelson helped build the Bengals' athletic program into a competitive entity. Former boys basketball coach Branden Adkins, who left East after last school year to become athletic director at Neuqua Valley, had been Torkelson's assistant A.D. Bengals girls basketball coach Tony Waznonis recently was named assistant A.D. and will be in that role under Raspolich.

"I've been at East for eight years, since it opened," Raspolich said. "We are where we are because we have had two principals, Tony Manville and Joe O'Brien, who are outstanding leaders. We have hired good people, that's where it all starts.

"We have some veteran coaches and some newer coaches on staff. The bottom line, though, is they are all good people."

One big project early on Raspolich's watch will be the completion of the turf on the football field.

"I am being told it will be finished on time [for the first home game of the fall]," he said. "They're installing it now. As long as the weather is good, we should be OK."

Raspolich has been the division chair for the Plainfield East drivers education/physical education/health department. A 1987 Plainfield graduate, he began his education career in 1993 as a physical education teacher at Grand Prairie Elementary School – "I was hired there by John Harper" – and an assistant baseball coach at Plainfield.

He helped open Timber Ridge Middle School as a physical education teacher and athletic coordinator while also serving as assistant baseball and assistant basketball coach at Plainfield for three years.

Raspolich then helped open Plainfield South in 2001 and was head baseball coach and girls golf coach for six years and four years, respectively. He also served as South dean of students for two years before becoming the department chair of physical education/health/driver education.

"When I graduated from Plainfield High School, there were maybe 1,000 students there," he said. "Now there are four high schools and I don't know how many students."

Raspolich's sister Marie is married to Joliet major league umpire Mark Carlson, who worked last week's All-Star Game in Miami. Carlson arranged to have Raspolich, his wife Janine and their daughter Emma at the game.

"Mark and my sister were very gracious in getting us to Miami," Raspolich said. "We get to do some things a lot of people do not get to do because of them."

Now, he will tackle something not many teachers and coaches get to do – become an athletic director. If his report card emulates Torkelson's, it will be a job well done.

• Dick Goss can be reached at dgoss@shawmedia.com.