Willie Hanson, Mendota

from NewsTribune_Hall of Fame_061122

by Shaw Media

1983 Streator Softball Team

Willie Hanson

MENDOTA

SUBMITTED PHOTOS

Accomplishments

● Three-sport star at MHS with all-state honors in football and basketball ● Started his college career at

New Mexico but transferred to

NIU where he won six letters (basketball 3, baseball 3) ● In 1965-66, led the NIU basketball team in scoring and in 1966 led NIU baseball team in batting average ● Member of the IBCA Hall of

Fame, NIU Hall of Fame and

NIU Basketball All-Century

Team

By Brandon LaChance

In the late 1950s, Mendota was known as a football juggernaut.

Trojans were committing to NCAA Division I football programs and being drafted into the NFL, while the basketball program was forgotten about.

This began to change with the 1960-61 basketball season as new hoops coach Bob Beals and his team featuring star Willie Hanson changed the way MHS played the game. “Mendota was more well known for football than anything when I went to school,” Hanson said. “In 1960, they hired Bob Beals. I was a sophomore that year. It was when we really turned the corner as far as being a basketball school. That was the start of us having pretty good basketball teams. “Prior to Beals, Mendota was decent in basketball but were really, really good in football. Two members of the previous two classes of this Hall of Fame – Bill Brown and Ray Jauch – played for those teams. Basketball was just kind of a thing, not a good thing. Beals NOW WHERE are they came in and changed the climate. We played basketball at a faster tempo and really got things going. I credit Beals for turning Mendota basketball into what it became. I was just fortunate to be a part of it.”

See Hanson Page 42

Beals may have been the director masterminding behind the scenes, but Hanson was the star on the court putting the ball in the hoop and passing to others for his teammates to tally points.

Hanson played basketball all four years of his high school career and racked up 1,712 points to finish atop the Mendota boys basketball all-timescoring list when he graduated in 1963. Don Hamel passed him after the 196869 season with 2,158 points as he is currently No. 1 on the MHS list, and Joe LaShonse passed Hanson for second in 2017 with 1,732 points.

This means Hanson is still No. 3 on the all-time scoring list and has two entries on the single-season list of at least 500 points. He scored 682 points during his junior season, which is tied for second, and 541 during his senior year to make 16th on the list.

Coming into high school, Hanson didn’t know anything about Mendota, but it is where he began the career that places his name as a Class of 2022 inductee for the 2022 NewsTribune’s Illinois Valley Hall of Fame.

“I didn’t even know what the Illinois Valley was,” Hanson said. “When I was a kid, I played all my sports in Compton or Paw Paw. I didn’t have much to do with Mendota until we went into their high school district. The first year eighth grade students from Compton were sent to Mendota was 1955. I was one of the early, early birds that went to Mendota.”

The freshness of Mendota High School didn’t keep him from playing sports.

Hanson joined the football and basketball teams immediately and played baseball his senior year after the program was kicked off by Beals during Hanson’s junior year. Unfortunately, he was out with a surgically repaired injury that also made him miss his senior year of football.

He didn’t, however, miss a single sea-

CONGRATS WILLIE HANSON!

And the rest of the inductees from Black Bros Co. 501 9TH AVE. MENDOTA, IL 61342 815-539-7451

son of basketball and started every game of his last three years at MHS with Beals as coach.

“Coach Beals played a wild, fastbreak game. That was suited for me,” Hanson said. “I felt I could always shoot the ball pretty well and handle the ball pretty well. I was just lucky to have him as a coach to put that style of play into action.

“Also, we had good players. It wasn’t just me. We had Bruce Christman – who played at Iowa Wesleyan University – Jack Jacobs, Kent Carnahan, my brother Ed Hanson, Roger Sheridan (Quincy College), and Bruce Smith (Iowa Wesleyan). We just had good players that got along well and played the game well together.”

After his playing days at Mendota, Hanson signed to play at the University of New Mexico. However, Hanson and Mendota connected again soon.

“Compton was only 300 people. To be that far away, I just got homesick,” Hanson said. “People said it was because of my girlfriend, which is now my wife, Sandy. I was a sophomore, and she was a freshman when we started dating, and we’ve been married 53 years. We have two children, Amy (Adams) and Brian (Hanson, the St. Bede boys basketball coach). I was at New Mexico a month. When I came back home, I started playing AAU basketball all the time because I had to wait to go to another school. I probably played more ball during that time than if I was a freshman playing in college. I lived at home until I started school at NIU during the second semester.

“When I was able to play basketball at Northern the next year, my parents (Wilbur and Jean) were able to come to all my games. It was almost like high school for the home games. They came to all my games, and I loved it. It was one of the best decisions I made. I know that.”

Hanson shined at NIU as he was a big piece to both the Huskies’ baseball and basketball programs.

After his college days were done, he continued to play ball.

“I always grew up playing against the older guys in Compton. There weren’t many kids and we always played ball,” Hanson said. “I think that really was a big thing in how I got better. I just kept pushing myself. When I made the move from high school to college, I played against older, stronger guys all along. I wasn’t intimidated at all. I had the confidence. It didn’t bother me.

“After college, I continued playing baseball on some high-level amateur teams. I was part of the Mendota Dodge Boys for basketball. We got to play at the United Center four different times. We won all four games, and it was all Mendota kids. I had as much fun after college playing sports as I did while I was in college.”

Hanson was a lifelong athlete and became a lifelong teacher as he taught at Rochelle High School for five years before teaching driver’s education at Hononegah High School in Rockton for 27 years from the 1972-73 school year until 1999-2000.