IHSA

Boys Wrestling Grand Marshals — 2007-08

Four grand marshals, who have combined to contribute more than 140 years to the sport of wrestling, will lead the annual Grand March of Finalists Saturday night before the championship bouts of the 71st IHSA Individual Wrestling State Final Tournament.

Named grand marshals for 2008 are:

Gregory Brooks, former coach and 34-year veteran official from Chicago who has worked five state championships in Assembly Hall.
Dan Fulscher of Lincoln, who has worked 15 individual and eight dual team state final tournaments in his 33-year career.
John Gremer of Urbana, who has served as coach, official, and for the past 36 years as a floor official at the IHSA individual state finals.
Pat O’Connor, 37-year head coach at Illini Bluffs High School in Glasford, where he has recorded 512 career wins.

First held 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 and women who participate in it.

The marshals play an important role in the color and pageantry of the event. 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. The annual crowd in excess of 10,000 is witness to a spectacle of high school athletics seen nowhere else in America.

Here is a closer look at the 2008 Grand Marshals.

Gregory Brooks began his wrestling career at Hirsch High School in Chicago, where he qualified for the state tournament in 1963. He spent his collegiate days at Luther College in Iowa where he participated in both football and wrestling. At Luther, he placed in the conference twice, once third and once first.

Greg began his teaching and coaching career at Parker High School, now known as Robeson. He then moved to Hubbard High School and Fenger High School where his teams won three city championships and placed second four times. At Fenger, Greg produced fifty-one state qualifiers and seven place winners and was named Coach of the Year for the City of Chicago. Greg’s teams won nine straight individual and dual conference championships. Upon leaving Fenger, he became a Dean of Students at Sullivan High School and served as the assistant football coach.

In April of 1999, Greg was inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame and April 2004 he was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. Later on that year, Greg was listed in “Who’s Who Among Teachers in America” for his dedication in the Chicago public school system.

Greg retired in June 2005, after working for 37 years. His greatest accomplishments can be seen in the lives of the young men he mentored. During this period Greg's wrestlers earned 57 Division I football scholarships and 14 wrestling scholarships, while more than 200 graduated from college.

Gregory has been a wrestling official for 34 years and officiated in three dual team state finals and five individual state finals.

Dan Fulscher was a four-year wrestler for Lincoln Community High School under Hall of Famer Floyd Bee. He was a Big 12 Conference champion and set several team records.

In 33 years since he became an IHSA licensed official, Dan has worked 30 regionals, 26 sectionals, 15 individual state final tournaments, and eight dual team state final tournaments. He's also worked 16 IESA state finals (serving as Grand Marshal in 2004), two IKWF state finals, five Prairie State Games, six Illinois/Indiana Dual Classics, three Illinois Kid Wrestling National Duals and five years NCAA Division I tournaments.

Dan is an IHSA rules interpreter and head wrestling clinician and has conducted IWCOA wrestling clinics since 1990. He served six years on the IHSA Officials’ Advisory Committee and three years on the IESA Wrestling Advisory Committee. Dan also assigns officials for five conferences consisting of 64 central Illinois schools.

An IWCOA board member since 1990, Dan served as its president in 2000 and 2001. He received the IWCOA Friend of Wrestling award in 1998 and 2001, was inducted into the IWCOA Hall of Fame in 2000, and named IWCOA Man of the Year in 2003. He was honored as IWCOA Official of the Year in 1994 and National Federation Official of the Year for Illinois in 1997 and 2003.

John Gremer began his association with Illinois High School wrestling in 1961 when he was named wrestling coach at Urbana High School. He coached wrestling at Urbana High School from 1961 to 1971, winning the Big 12 Conference championship in 1961 and finishing second in 1962.

John's team won a IHSA district championship in 1961 and placed second in the sectional in 1961 and again in 1964. He sent 14 wrestlers to the state meet during his tenure as wrestling coach with one wrestler earning a third-place medal.

In 1971, after leaving the wrestling coaching ranks at Urbana High School, John started officiating and working the floor at the IHSA individual state tournament. John officiated for 24 years, working 22 IHSA districts, 22 IHSA sectionals, and four IHSA state individual wrestling tournaments. He also worked four IHSA dual team sectionals and one IHSA state dual team tournament.

John has worked the floor area at the IHSA state individual wrestling tournament for 36 years. He started as Head Scorekeeper for the Class A schools until the present team format was initiated. He then became Chairman of the Weigh-in Committee and Special Events Coordinator for the Grand March, a task he still performs today. For his service to the high school wrestling community, John was inducted into the IWCOA Hall of Fame in 2001.

Pat O’Connor began his athletic career at Joliet Catholic High School, where he wrestled and played football for four years. He wrestled on the 1963 Joliet Junior College national championship squad and also played football. Pat finished his collegiate career and wrestled for Western Illinois University where he graduated and obtained his degree in teaching.

Pat started the wrestling program at Illini Bluffs High School in Glasford in 1970. Thirty-seven years later, he's still coaching at Illini Bluffs, having compiled a record of 517-183-2. Pat's wrestling teams have won 15 regional championships, six conference championships, and two sectional titles. His Tigers placed fifth in the state in 1981 and third in the state in 1982, when he was named IHSA Class A Coach of the Year. Through the course of his career Pat has coached 70 state qualifiers, 28 place winners (including his sons Patrick, Shawn, and Casey), and 3 state champions.

Pat started the first kids' wrestling club in central Illinois in 1974 and coached it for the next 22 years. He served as a member of the Central Illinois Coaches Committee for 13 years and was chosen as Central Illinois Outstanding Class A Coach of the Year six times. Pat served the IHSA on its Wrestling Advisory Committee from 1986 to 1988 and has been a regional representative for the IHSA 15 times. He also did service as an IHSA official for three years.

In 1994, Pat he was inducted into the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame. And in 2007, the IWCOA honored Coach O’Connor by presenting him with a special recognition award for winning 500 matches in his career, a feat achieved by only seven other coaches in the history of Illinois high school wrestling.