ETHS Alumni Continue Effort to Rename Baseball Field After Ken McGonagle

EVANSTON, IL - A group of Evanston Township High School alums have moved forward with an effort to rename the school’s baseball field after Ken McGonagle, a longtime baseball and soccer coach at the school.

McGonagle coached baseball at ETHS from 1955 through 1988 and is the program’s all-time winningest coach with 727 victories in his career. He’s also coached more games (1,178) than any varsity coach in school history.

“He really knew the game and always demanded excellence..but never derided anyone,” said Miles Zaremski, who played for McGonagle at ETHS in 1965 and 1966 and is leading the effort to get the school to rename the field, which underwent a modern renovation in 2009. “(Renaming the field) is the right and honorable thing to do and he has a ton of merit.”

Zaremski says no one else has achieved more on the baseball diamond at ETHS than McGonagle.

“No one comes close to matching his body of work," he said.

McGonagle also led the Wildkits to a state soccer championship in 1965. He’s in the ETHS Hall-of-Fame as an individual and as coach of the 1965 team and is also a hall-of-famer in the state's baseball and soccer coaches associations.

Zaremski isn’t alone in urging the school to begin the process of renaming what is simply referred to as the “ETHS Wildkits Baseball Stadium.” Support for the naming includes 132 individuals from 29 states and three foreign countries spanning 49 years.

“Mr. McGonagle is about the fairest guy I ever played for or knew,” said Kit Vernon, an ETHS baseball player from 1959-1963. “Even though I didn’t play much, he treated me just as well as he treated a guy like John Scott, who went on to become a very good college player.”

“He was steady, never screamed at us and always cared about all the kids. It wasn’t just about how many games we won or if you could become a minor league ballplayer.”

Vernon went on to coach baseball and football at high schools in Wisconsin and Michigan and often found himself using a lot of the lessons he learned from McGonagle while coaching himself.

David Scott, who played for McGonagle in the late 1960s, describes McGonagle as a passionate coach who is extremely knowledgeable.

“He knew about baseball and motivating his players,” said Scott. “Every game we went into we thought we could win with him preparing us.”

Scott said McGonagle, now 86, always gave ETHS a mental advantage over other teams and is “an exceptional human being” who has since turned into a family friend.

Don Sutherland, president of the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association (of which McGonagle was a founding member) also supports the ETHS field renaming effort.

In a letter to ETHS officials in 2013, Sutherland called the revamped ETHS field “a great facility,” and that “adding a legend’s name to it would be the right touch.”

“Our association is indebted to what Ken McGonagle and his group started many years ago.”

Zaremski says the effort to rename the baseball field ‘McGonagle Field’ actually goes back a few decades, but increased heavily in recent years once the school began naming other venues after prominent figures in school history.

But the ETHS athletic department and administration has been less than cooperative with not only the effort, but providing an honest answer as to where the school stands with the process.

Zaremski has been dealing with ETHS Athletic Director Chris Livatino over the last three years on the issue, and has seemed to receive a different reason on why the effort is unable to move forward every time.

In the most recent case, Livatino sent Zaremski an email on Sept. 17 with indications that the naming committee would meet the following week and that Zaremski would be updated no later than Sept. 23.

“As with his other promises to get back to me once certain items he had promised were to take place but never did or the events he spoke of never occurred, I am still waiting to hear back from him,” said Zaremski.

“I’ve found this to be a pattern of conduct that develops,” says Zaremski, who has been a lawyer for 43 years. “There is a clear lack of transparency and honesty in this situation, which is what we are looking for from public servants and officials.”

“There’s something going on …. We’ve relied on their word for over three years, but it has been nothing but silence and delays from them. This should be a feel good story about a coaching legend who is now 86 and still has his heart and soul in the community.”

Repeated attempts by Patch to get in touch with Livatino for an update on the effort have been unsuccessful.

McGonagle’s success on the baseball diamond is complimented with his contributions to soccer at the school and in the community. He started the ETHS soccer program in 1959 and is the founder of the Evanston Park District’s soccer program.

Photo provided. Coach McGonagle with wife, Cele, Circa August 2013, upon his induction into the Coaches Wing of the ETHS Athletic Hall of Fame.