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Four Grand Marshals, each with special contributions to the sport for more than a combined 100 years, will lead the annual Grand March of Finalists Saturday night (Feb. 20) before the championship bouts of the 62nd Illinois High School Association (IHSA) State Final Individual Wrestling Tournament. Named Grand Marshals for 1999 are: Begun in 1975, the annual March of Finalists is conducted at the State Tournament by the IHSA in conjunction with the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association (IWCOA) and the Assembly Hall. Each year the grand marshals are honored for their contributions to the sport and to the young men who participate in it. The marshals play an important role in the color and pageantry of the event as they lead the 56 individual finalists and their coaches in a foot-stomping, strobe flash popping, breathtaking Grand March around the Assembly Hall arena floor just prior to the championship bouts. With spotlights shining on Old Glory, students from Jacksonville (Illinois School for the Deaf) lead the audience in the playing, singing and signing of the National Anthem. The annual crowd in excess of 10,000 witness a spectacle of high school athletics seen nowhere else in America. Here is a closer look at the 1999 Grand Marshals:
Brad Glass was an all-state wrestler and football player at Winnetka (New Trier), winning two heavyweight individual titles. He was an NCAA wrestling champion at Princeton University, then served in the Navy and practiced law in Chicago for many years. He served several years in both the Illinois House and Senate, and still practices law in Wisconsin.Rick Mann has been a teacher and coach since 1969 and for the past 26 years has been head coach at Arlington Hts. (Hersey), where he has produced 43 state qualifiers and 13 place winners. A former president of the IWCOA, Mann has been a state final bench official and has served as head freestyle coach for the Illinois Wrestling Federation Junior National team. Rick was named IWCOA Man of the Year in 1987. Tom Flanigan's career in teaching, coaching and officiating wrestling has spanned nearly 35 years. During that time he's done much for the sport at the IHSA and college levels. For 30 years he was an official, in IHSA working 25 regionals and 18 sectionals, and in the Big Ten and at the Illinois Open for 20 years. In 32 years of service at the State Tournament, he was a bench official for 5 years, assistant manager for 2 and as manager of the state final for the past 25. In nearly 30 years of teaching at the college level, including the last 20 at the University of Illinois-Chicago, he taught wrestling and wrote extensively on it. Don Robinson, retiring IHSA associate executive director, has been involved with wrestling as a coach, official and rules writer. He coached wrestling and football at Savanna and had four state qualifiers under the old one-class system his first year there. After Savanna, Don was head football coach at Ottawa (Marquette) and then Bradley-Bourbonnais and officiated both wrestling and basketball at the same time during those years. In wrestling, he worked seven regionals and in basketball he was scheduled to work the State Tournament when IHSA hired him to its administrative staff in 1978. He was in charge of wrestling from 1978-92 and was a member of the National Federation Wrestling Rules Committee from 1988-94, serving as its chairman in 1990. |
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