Jacobs selects 5 for 2022 Hall of Fame class

Jacobs High School has announced its 2022 Hall of Fame inductees: Sue Kolodziej, Dr. Michael Kogan, Conrad Krutwig, Jim Hinkle and Lauren Van Vlierbergen. The induction ceremony is Sept. 2.

Van Vlierbergen was a three-sport athlete and 10-time varsity letter recipient in cross country, basketball and track. She also graduated with a 4.0 GPA as the Class of 2015 salutatorian.

Van Vlierbergen holds five school records, including the 3-mile in cross country and the 800-meter run (2:10.1, 2014 3A state champion). She also holds meet records for the Illinois Indoor Top Times in the 800 and is the McHenry County record holder in the 800. She received national recognition as the Wendy’s High School Heisman Female Athlete of the Year in 2014 from a field of more than 20,000 applicants.

Van Vlierbergen received a scholarship to attend the University of Michigan where she was an All-Academic student-athlete on their cross country and track teams for four years.

She now works in investment banking in New York.

Jim Hinkle (1996-2013)

Hinkle’s 50-year career in education began in 1964 as English teacher, physical education instructor and assistant basketball coach at Onarga High School. His first head basketball coaching stint came in 1969 at Canton High School in Missouri.

That was the first of six head coaching positions over his 39 years. He also held head coaching posts in baseball, softball, cross country, golf, boys tennis and girls tennis.

Hinkle and his wife, Barb, moved to northern Illinois when he accepted the head basketball position at Irving Crown High School in Carpentersville in 1976. When Crown became Dundee-Crown in 1983, he was named the head coach. After the 1984-85 Fox Valley championship season, Hinkle took over as men’s basketball coach at Elgin Community College, where he spent six years.

Hinkle was named head basketball coach at Jacobs in 1996. He was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2010 and retired from coaching in 2013 and from education in 2014.

His overall record was 543-537 as a head coach and 269-215 at Jacobs. He is the only coach in the history of the FVC to have won conference titles at three schools.

Conrad Krutwig (2009)

Krutwig was a four-year varsity starter in basketball. In that span, the program racked up 93 wins, and it won a regional championship in 2008. He was a three-time All-Fox Valley Conference player. In his final season, he had 547 points and 243 rebounds.

Krutwig played Division I basketball at the University of South Dakota for two years. He transferred to Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha, where he was a two-year starter who led the team in rebounds and 3-pointers in 2013.

Krutwig now owns and operates a youth sports company called MAN UP Basketball and runs the Jacobs Junior Eagles program.

Susan J. Kolodziej (1990)

Kolodziej was named the top female athlete her senior year at Jacobs. Despite a knee injury that kept her sidelined during each of her last two season of volleyball and her junior season in track, her athletic prowess carried her to many top performances.

Kolodziej set multiple records on her way to Fox Valley Conference and McHenry County championships in track and field. She holds school records in the discus and long jump. She also excelled in volleyball as team captain all four of seasons, winning MVP during her freshman and sophomore seasons and guiding the team to a conference title in 1988.

An accomplished saxophonist, Kolodiej played with the Golden Eagles concert, symphonic, marching, pep and jazz bands.

She had a successful college career in track and field at Harper College in the heptathlon and hammer throw.

Michael Kogan (contributor)

Dr. Kogan is the football team’s doctor at Jacobs. He has volunteered for 28 years.

Kogan, who grew up in Skokie and graduated from Niles North, received Phi Beta Kappa recognition at Northwestern University before going to medical school at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

Kogan joined Orthopedic & Spine Surgery Associates in 1995. They eventually became Midwest Bone & Joint Institute and in late 2020 merged with Fox Valley Orthopedics.

“I have been proud to be the team physician for Jacobs High School since coming out to practice and am thrilled to be starting my 28th season assisting in the care of our student-athletes,” he said.

https://www.dailyherald.com/sports/20220725/jacobs-selects-5-to-2022-hall-of-fame-class