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The physical location for the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame has yet to take shape, but after last weekend, the inaugural class for the latest hall of fame in the state has officially been inducted.
Hundreds of players, coaches and other athletics-oriented people were honored with the hall’s first induction ceremony that took place at the Bank of Springfield Convention Center in Springfield, one that included inductions for the hall’s 2024 and 2025 classes.
Six of those members are either area natives or have local ties – retired Bishop McNamara football coach Rich Zinanni, the late former Bishop McNamara and Kankakee Community College coach Irish O’Reilly, who went on to a decades-long tenure at Lewis University, Beecher Muskies manager Fred LeSage, Winchert native and NBA champion Jack Sikma, former Olivet Nazarene University star and World Series champion Ben Zobrist and Olympic women’s volleyball gold medalist Michelle Bartsch-Hackley, whose husband, Corbin Hackley, is a Bradley native.
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Zinanni and his family attended the June 13 VIP party and Saturday’s induction ceremony. LeSage wasn’t able to stay for Saturday’s ceremony because of the Muskies having a game, but did make it down for the previous day’s party.
“It really was well done,” Zinanni said. “It was two nights of just being around a lot of new people, meeting them, telling stories.”
Some of the inductees were asked to speak over the weekend, with Zinanni and LeSage praising the speeches given by a pair of former professional stars who were inducted, 18-year NBA veteran Terry Cummings and 16-year NFL quarterback Ken Anderson, with LeSage calling Cummings’ speech “mind-boggling” and Zinanni calling Anderson’s “really, really good.”
The hall is unique in that it honors athletes, coaches and more involved in Illinois sports at all levels, ranging from high school and college to semipro and professional. It’s one of, if not the only place, where LeSage could find himself on equal footing with all-time athletic greats such as Frank Thomas, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus.
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“I got to meet all these people, like, ‘What am I doing here with these people?’” LeSage said. “It’s a thing where sports transcends a lot of things. When you look at the people inducted, it’s a lot of great high school coaches, great pros, great college players and great high school athletes. There are so many different aspects of sports represented in that group.
“That part of it was kind of shocking for me, yet I can see how it ends up being that way,” he said. “There are a lot of different ways that people experience sports, and I think the hall of fame is trying to encapsulate that.”
Zinanni, no stranger to hall-of-fame treatment as a member of the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame and Chicago Catholic League Hall of Fame, said that with the sheer volume of inductees and people present, he didn’t get to meet nearly as many people as he had hoped. But at an event where he and his family were showered with love and praise in a room full of people whose lives have been dedicated to athletics, he felt right at home while also feeling surreal in rare air.
“The people we met, everyone was really nice,” Zinanni said. “It was an experience where I get a little bit of that when I go back to CCL Hall of Fame banquet and see friends every year. But this was totally different. It was all big names.”