Geneva High Announces Sports Hall Of Fame Inductees

From Geneva Schools: The Class of 2018 inductees into the Geneva Community High School Athletic Hall of Fame include a hall-of-fame coach, his daughter and her high school and college teammate, the latter two of whom earned a national college basketball championship. They are, respectively, Bill Koehn (1970), Lindsey Koehn Huettemann (2002) and Joanna Connor Gutkowski (2002). All will be honored during the 17th annual Geneva Community High School Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Feb. 17, 2018, at Geneva High School main contest gymnasium, during halftime of the Geneva-versus-Quincy boys’ varsity basketball game. The night’s competition begins with a sophomore matchup at 4:30 p.m. followed by the boys varsity game set to tip off at approximately 6 p.m. After the Saturday-night basketball games, all are invited to meet the hall-of-fame inductees during a coffee-and-cookies reception in their honor in the north balcony of Geneva High’s contest gymnasium. Here are some details on this year’s Hall of Fame inductees, chosen by a committee of former Geneva sports journalists, Viking athletic alumni and coaches:

Bill Koehn — Class of 1970

Bill Koehn was a first-rate high school and college athlete who went on to become a Geneva High baseball coach, assistant athletic director and an Illinois Hall of Fame golf coach. During high school, Koehn played varsity basketball and was starting shortstop on the Viking baseball team coached by the late GHS Hall of Famer Jim Newbill. His college baseball credentials are impressive, including two full seasons at downstate Lincoln College, where he played first base for two seasons without a single error in more than 400 chances. Koehn went on to Aurora University, where in 1973 he played first base and left field, batting .330 and earning a place as a first-team all-leaguer in the Northern Illinois Intercollegiate Conference. He sat out a year due to injury but came back in 1975, serving as AU team captain. In 1981, he returned to his alma mater of Geneva High School as an industrial arts teacher and, in the springs of 1982 and ’83, he served as an assistant coach in Newbill’s baseball program. For eight seasons, from 1984 through 1991, he took the helm as the Vikings’ head baseball coach. He served as assistant Geneva athletic director from the mid-1990s to 1998. But his claim to fame is as the most successful golf coach in Geneva High School history. For 30 years, from fall 1984 through fall 2013, he was Geneva High’s boys’ golf coach. During four of those years, beginning in 1989, he served as the school’s first-ever girls’ golf coach as well. During his 30 seasons, Viking golfers posted a dual-meet record of 239 wins against 86 losses – a winning percentage of .735. Over that stretch, his teams won 10 conference championships and finished second 10 more times. Koehn made 16 trips to the state finals with individual Viking competitors – coaching two Vikings to second-place state finishes: Kevin Kros in 1986 and Mike Vegeler in 1989. His ’89 team finished fifth in the state. In 2005, Koehn was inducted into the Illinois Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame in Bloomington.

Lindsey Koehn Huettemann (2002)

Lindsey Koehn Huettemann, the daughter of Bill Koehn, was a Geneva High School standout who went on to win a collegiate basketball national championship. At GHS, Koehn Huettemann played soccer in the spring, making the all-conference and all-area teams as a senior and leading the Vikings to a third-place state finish as a senior in 2002 She was a Viking varsity basketball starter for her freshman through senior years. She made the all-area and all-conference teams her sophomore through senior seasons, and was the Daily Herald’s All-Area Team captain as a senior – the same year she was named the Suburban Prairie Conference co-MVP. Koehn Huettemann graduated in 2002 as an Illinois State Scholar, and Millikin University was happy to accept her on a basketball scholarship. In Decatur over the next four years, she amassed 1,079 points and 555 rebounds — placing her 19th and 16th all-time at the school, respectively. Where she really stood out was as the Millikin program’s iron woman: She started 104 of 108 possible games over the course of her four years – and that is first all-time at the school. On Millikin’s national-champion team in 2005, she started all 31 games — also the highest all-time for a season. Koehn Hutteman graduated magna cum laude from Millikin in 2006. She earned a master’s degree from St. Xavier in 2008, and teaches seventh grade mathematics at Kaneland Middle School. Since 2011 she’s been an assistant basketball coach at her alma mater of Geneva High, under head coach Sarah Meadows. During the first six seasons, the Vikings have notched a .780 winning percentage with a won-loss record of 146-40 and have won the conference championship all six seasons – in addition to winning the 4A Illinois state championship this past March.

Joanna Connor Gutkowski — Class of 2002

Joanna Connor Gutkowski, Koehn Huettemann’s teammate in both high school and college, was a three-sport star at Geneva High School and Final Four Outstanding Player of the Year at Millikin. Connor Gutkowski, a member of the Geneva High Class of 2002, was a true phenom — a four-year varsity letter-winner in golf, a three-year letter-winner in softball and a four-year starter on the basketball team. She was an all-conference selection and MVP as a sophomore on the golf team, and she earned all-conference honors as a senior softball player, but it was on the basketball court that her star shined the brightest. In basketball, she averaged 7.2 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, was named to the all-conference team as a senior and earned a basketball scholarship to Millikin University in Decatur. After four years at Millikin, Connor Gutkowski ended up as the school’s 15th all-time leading scorer and its fourth all-time leading rebounder. Her stellar season was as a junior in 2005, when she was a third-team All-American. Millikin won the Division III national title that year, and was voted the Final Four Outstanding Player. She earned her degree in 2006 and soon signed on as an assistant college basketball coach – first at Manchester College and University of St. Francis, then, since 2011, back at her alma mater of Millikin.

GHS Athletics Hall of Fame Inductees

2017 Inductees

• Gregg Nelson
• Zac Scaffidi
• Team: GHS Girls Cross County State Champions 2007, 2008

2016 Inductees

• Gina Nolan
• Tom Rogers
• Taylor Whitley-Fieser

2015 Inductees

• Joe Herrera
• Nick Herrera
• Mack Olson

2014 Inductees

• Jeff Ainsworth
• Jim Klein
• Jackie Santacaterina

2013 Inductees

• Team: 1963 Boys Basketball Team
• Ray Soto

2012 Inductees

• Katy Lindenmuth-Green
• Derek Swanson
• Kurt Wehrmeister

2011 Inductees

• John Barton
• Julie Koivula
• Jerry Vitton

2010 Inductees

• Ron Johnson
• Sarah Landau
• Todd Searcy

2009 Inductees

• Dave Shaver
• Jill Odenthal-Sracic
• Allan Tison

2008 Inductees

• Charles Hokonson
• John LeFeber
• Peter Temple

2007 Inductees

• Karen Bauer
• Jim Newbill
• Mark Schick

2006 Inductees

• Doug Reese
• Mark Searcy
• Mike Van Deveer

2005 Inductees

• Jim Conterato
• Rebecca Mitchell
• Richard Temple

2004 Inductees

• Bob Peterson
• Bob Schick
• Joan Wallner

2003 Inductees

• Gary Birch
• John/Ann Burns
• Howard Smith, Jr

2002 Inductees

• Jeff Cesarone
• Annica Cooper
• Bob Johansen
• Allen Mead
• Tilden Meyers

2001 Inductees

• Jerry Auchstetter
• Jenny Birkner-Gallagher
• Frank Burgess
• Mel Johnson
• Carl Nelson
• Al Stark
• Haskell Tison, Jr.

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