Bureau County Sports Hall of Fame: Frank Colmone’s name synonymous with Hall High School athletics

Frank Colmone greets a visitor at his house wearing a hat emblazoned with “Hall High School Athletics, Established 1914.”

He also carries Hall High School and its athletic programs deep in his heart.

Jokingly, the visitor asks Colmone if he was there in 1914 as the hat suggests. It just seems as if he’s been there a long time.

For 24 years, from 1970-94, he served as Hall’s Athletic Director, a period which saw the building of the former Red Devil Gymnasium and Hall’s first cinder track. Along the way, Colmone instituted girls athletics in 1975, the former Hall Shootout and the ongoing Hall basketball tournament, now named in his honor.

He said it’s hard to put it in words what Hall High School and Red Devils sports means to him.

“I was there for 30 years. Enjoyed it. Had a lot of fun. I had some great people to work with,” said Colmone, who started his teaching and coaching career at Tiskilwa.

Colmone is the next Bureau County Sports Hall of Fame inductee for the class of 2025.

“He’s a great person. If you know his family, that’s a tribute to him and Barb and the kind of family they raised and the kind of family their kids have raised,” Hall AD Eric Bryant said. “They’re just great people. Well respected and loved and admired by a lot of people.”

A Colmone Classic

Colmone, 87, is best known for the Hall basketball tournament he started in 1974, which was renamed as the Colmone Classic in 1994, a year after he retired.

“(Superintendent) Vance Hamann was the one who told me, ‘let’s get this done.’ I organized the tournament while the gym was being built,” he said.

Along with the tournament bearing his name, Colmone has become the face of the event over the years. Hall proudly celebrated “50 years of Frank” at least year’s tournament marking its 50th anniversary.

“At the time, I didn’t know about it (renaming the tournament). It even means more now than it did then as time goes on,” he said.

Every one who walks into the gym, from coaches, officials, players and fans alike, knows they have a fast friend in Frank at the Colmone Classic.

He was once invited into the team huddle for the Ottawa Marquette F/S. Steve Kuhn, the Marquette coach, had each player thank Colmone after their team prayer and later sent a package of letters to him from players expressing their gratitude and two autographed team photos for having the tournament.

“That means more to me than if they stuck $200 in my pocket and said, ‘go get a steak dinner,’” Frank said.

It’s been a family affair for the Colmones. Son Doug and daughter-in-law Teresa have been fixtures at the Colmone Classic at the scorer’s table. Barb’s helped out with concessions and done a lot of work behind the scenes in support of Frank.

“My wife was the big help in more than only at the games,” Frank said. “She put up, without ever complaining, about the late suppers she had to prepare, the great amount of time I was gone, and she hosted a super party after the final game of every tournament and shootout from 1970-94 for all those who worked the events, some visiting coaches and the officials who worked the last game.”

It’s the people he’s met along the way, who he said he’ll never forget.

Colmone praised Bryant for his direction of the tournament to getting it to where it is today with 12 varsity teams and 12 F/S teams, utilizing the auxiliary gym at the new school.

“Eric has done a great job. It was his idea to add the F/S tournament when we got the new school,” Colmone said.

Bryant deeply enjoys how his relationship has evolved with Colmone from hanging out as a little kid coming his dad’s practices and games at Hall to working side by side.

“It’s been a new relationship that I didn’t think I was going to have,” he said. “It’s turned into something I really treasure as an athletic director to have someone around that’s been there and done that and been a great face for our school.”

Hall Shootout

Along with the Hall tournament, Colmone brought some big-time basketball to Hall for the Hall Shootout, which he ran from 1992 until 1998, one of his most fun endeavors.

It brought an array of future Div. 1 and professional talent to old Red Devil Gymnasium in a pair of 7-footers in Rashard Griffin and Thomas Hamilton of Chicago King, Antoine Walker and Donovan McNabb of Chicago Carmel, who went on to NBA and NFL fame, and the Peoria Manual Rams in the midst of their four-year run as Class AA state champions.

The most interesting person Colmone has ever come across “by far” was the legendary Landon “Sonny” Cox. The late King coach came in the front door for the Hall Shootout rather than the normal back team entrance with his “entourage,” telling the ticker taker “Mr. Frank said it was OK.”

Cox later invited Colmone to sit on the team bench at the state tournament when the King coach saw him at the Assembly Hall, but he declined.

King turned out to be a one-year participant at the Shootout when Cox had some demands that Colmone couldn’t meet.

Bearing down

When it came to sports, Colmone was quite the salesman. He also headed up a charity event for the American Heart Fund in the 1970s at the request of Princeton athletic director Lyle King, bringing the Chicago Bears traveling basketball team to play an exhibition game in the offseason to Hall.

With everyone from the game officials to concession workers and other game personnel donating their time along with an impromptu “coin pitch” at halftime, Colmone russled up $10,000 for the Heart Fund.

“Lyle couldn’t believe it,” Colmone said.

Colmone made lasting friendships with many Bears players, including Doug Plank and Jim Osborne. He’s once had Walter Payton come to his house much to the belief of his neighbors.

Overcoming sorrow

Frank and Barb Colmone have had their share of grief. They lost their son, Greg, a much beloved banker at Spring Valley City Bank at the age of 53 to heart failure in 2013, and their grandson, Jake, 22, Ken’s son, two years later, in an auto accident.

It was discovered later that both had Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), which doctors believe claimed Jake rather than any injuries sustained in the accident. Other family members have since been found to carry the trait.

“It’s hard. You never forget it. I think of them every day and pray for them every day,” Frank said. “But that’s life. Things happen and you don’t like to see those but you’ve got to have faith that that’s what happens and for a reason, I guess. Maybe it’s made us a better person.

“We’ve had good faith all of our lives. It was very stressful and emotional, but you never forget it and think of them every day.”