PHS Sportsman Club roasts Wally

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Teacher.

Coach.

Wally.

P-Dub.

And now — friend.

These are all the titles members of the Princeton High School Sportsman Club affectionately have called Lee Wahlgren, the founding father of the club, throughout the years.

Over Homestead Festival weekend, many past members of the sportsman club returned to honor him for his 35 years as the club sponsor.

They gave him a ride down Main Street in the parade, perched atop a place he feels most at home — a fishing boat.

Later in the evening, they saluted their mentor with a roast and toast. It was dubbed as the “P-Dub Rub.”

Brian Brutcher, a member of the first Sportsman’s Club formed in 1974, was the mastermind of the Wally Roast. He came from California armed with a Power Point presentation of images chronicling Wahlgren’s life from infancy, his athletic and scholastic days at Pittsfield High School, his college days at Bradley University and then to Princeton in 1964.

Brutcher also relayed the Wally committee raised $10,000 for the Lee Wahlgren scholarship fund and presented the coach with an additional $8,350 gift fund.

Wally watched the presentation with his wife, Trusie, his brother, Ron, and his beloved mother, 101-year-young Naomi from Pittsfield. He was most humbled by the adoration he received.

To his former students, he said, “We went from a teacher-student relationship to friends for life. How could I be so lucky? It has been a tremendous pleasure.”

Brutcher called Wahlgren a small-town hero with a big-giving heart, who has spent his life giving to his family and friends.

“Michael Jordan went into the (basketball) Hall of Fame this week. We have our own guy here to put into the Hall of Fame,” said Brutcher, who wrestled for Wahlgren at PHS.

Sportsman Club alumnus, Bill Kaiser Jr. noted how Wally said he was blessed by the wonderful people in his life.

“Well, coach Wahlgren, as we all know is truly one of those great people, and our lives in turn are blessed for knowing him,” Kaiser said.

There were was more adoration, but this was a roast, after all, and it took Wally’s good friend and former Bradley University football teammate Larry “Yog” Kirgan to get the party started.

“Everything’s been serious so far. That’s going to stop right now,” Kirgan said.

He said the first time he laid eyes on Wally, “he was wearing a red T-shirt, red shorts with his blonde hair and had no legs, and he was from Pittsfield, Ill.”

Kirgan told a story when Wally went turkey hunting with PHS grad Denny Michael, who was a warden at the time, and had Wally all set up for the big shot.

“Denny told him, ‘Wally, get your gun up, get your gun up,’” he said. “Wally didn’t do anything. Then he said, ‘I forgot to buy my hunting license.’”

He also told how Wally would pour coffee over his boots to keep his feet warm on a cold day and ask Kirgan to pee on them if that didn’t work.

Brutcher showed an inscription from Wally’s senior yearbook at Pittsfield that stated, “Work fascinates me. I could sit and watch it for hours.”

It was said how whenever Wally gives directions, it seems he always ties in a restaurant, “like go to McDonald’s and turn left, or it’s a block past KFC.”

Patting his own belly, Brutcher said he always wanted to be just like his mentor, Wally.

Kevin Hieronymus is sports editor at the BCR. E-mail him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com.