Bob Foster Is Where God Requires an Honest Heart and a Windbreaker

  

                            Robert W. Foster -Eternal Since 1940

Man, did you feel that wind yesterday?  I was in the parking lot of Meijer’s in Michigan City and saw a blue basket-cart sail past my car with no human hands at the helm.  It was loaded with groceries. The helmsman caught up with it a yards west of the entrance. That was some wind.

When I got home and went back to work on my up-coming final exams, I learned via Facebook messaging from Dan Stecich,  that Bob Foster, Leo Class of 1958, Purdue Boilermaker, History Teacher and Football Coach for Leo, Mount Carmel, Little Flower, and St. Rita high schools, Principal and President of Leo High School had gone home to Christ.

That was no wind.  Bob Foster was leaving.

I worked for Bob Foster. I learned that Leo High School is not made of re-bar and poured concrete, but of bone, blood, muscle and heart.  Bob Foster coordinated those vital elements from all of the men he taught, mentored, or met.    Mr. Foster taught them the fundamentals of commitment and courage and swelled the sidelines of a very winning team.

Leo High School remains a vital organ on 79th & Sangamon Streets, because of Bob Foster.

God is not making any more Bob Fosters, because He did such a damn good job on the original.

You will know Bob Foster, because you will meet Bob Sheehy, Terence Bates, Mike Joyce, Mike Holmes, Dan Stecich  Mark Lee, Gus McNamara, Denzel Tucker, Bill Holland, Amir Hunter, Mike O’Neill, Raheem Williams, Rich Finn and Lonnie Newman.  Bob Foster will be most present wherever Leo Men and good people work to help make this a better world.

The bulk of Bob Foster’s spirit whirl-winded to God’s home field, where it is sunny, dry, the grass is cut just the length to confound the opposition and all a man needs is an orange windbreaker with Leo HS stenciled in bold black on the left breast.

Bob left enough spirit in everyone else to maintain the mission here.

That was some wind.

Obituary for Robert W. Foster

Foster, Robert W.

Beloved Husband of the late Carol (nee Goss).
Loving Father of Jennifer (Dan CFD) McVicker, Michael, and Cathleen (Sean) Huenecke.
Dear Grandfather of Erik, Luke, Peter, Jessica, and Ryan.
Fond Brother of the late Thomas, Donald, Jack, and Jeanne Tighe.
Dear Uncle of many nieces and nephews.
Special appreciation to Bob’s caregiver and friend Al.

Bob retired from Leo High School in 2010 after over 40 years in numerous capacities, Teacher, Head Football Coach, Athletic Director, Principal and President.

Recipient of Leo High School Alumni Association “Man of the Year” in 2008 and Hall of Fame Inductee. Tony Lawless Award winner. 2013 Inductee to the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame and 1983 Chicago Catholic League Hall of Fame Recipient, 1999 Distinguished American Award from the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame (Chicago Metro Chapter), 2006 ISCC Educator of the Year Award. 

Arrangements entrusted to Robert J. Sheehy & Sons Funeral Home


www.sheehyfh.com 708-857-7878

Beverly Review Features -The Leo High School Advantage

Leo High School 1926 ..............Leo 2013 and Pete Doyle is still here!

Leo High School has always been a school of opportunity for young men seeking a Catholic secondary education that prepares them to succeed. Each Catholic school has its own mystique, or as it is known in the Catholic faith, its own charism.

Leo is not another St. Ignatius, or De LaSalle.  Leo High School has a place for every young man who wants to succeed through a Catholic education.

Leo's students have always come from working class neighborhoods and will continue to do so.  The four story brick building dedicated by Cardinal Mundelein in 1926 and opened on September 9th of that year is solid and so is the learning environment.  There are issues like improving the school's plumbing arteries and the fact that the school is land-locked by the proximity of residential properties, bit nearly as much as it had been.  Leo has been expanding the campus work begun by President Emeritus Bob Foster in 1997 and continued by President Dan McGrath with the help of the 17th Ward's Ald. Thomas with land acquisitions from Morgan to Green Street.

• Leo is making transportation available to students.
• Leo is making parental participation a path to easing the tuition burden.
• Leo is making news -positive and inspirational news stories - about how Leo students and faculty impact the broader community.  There is a Leo good news story in the Chicago and National media nearly every week.(just from the past month)

The greatest challenge has been enrollment and ever soaring costs of tuition.  To that end, Cardinal George Leo High School's Advisory Board, the Big Shoulders Fund, Archdiocese Superintendent Sr. Mary Paul McCaughey, Leo benefactors and private foundations determined to make a Leo education affordable to working families, while maintaining a rigorous college prep curriculum.
Leo Men: Francis Cardinal George 2012 and Jackie Schaller '43

Today, The Beverly Review announced these steps in a lovely article by Caroline Connors.

School administrators hope the new tuition program will draw in working-class kids from neighborhoods like Beverly/Morgan Park and Mt. Greenwood, in addition to South Side neighborhoods that are not as stable. Over the past couple of years, a handful of white and Hispanic students have enrolled at Leo, and school officials said they would like the school to remain racially integrated.

“There are no metal detectors or cops here—we don’t need them—and no graffiti on the building,” McGrath said. “The Leo name is respected, and we provide a safe, nurturing learning environment where everyone gets along. It’s not so much a school as a family where we love each other and believe in each other.”

With an active alumni association that is thousands strong, Leo provides its students with a network of caring individuals . . .

On Friday, the Leo Alumni Association will induct this years class of Hall of Fame Inductees, honor its Man of the Year, Mark Lee and other Leo Men who keep this great school true to mission.

Leo remains a school of opportunity.  Opportunity must be grabbed.  Visit Leo High School experience the Leo Advantage.

Thank you Caroline Connors and the Beverly Review!

We are All Linked to Boston's Trouble and its Triumph

Leo Boxer and future Captain of Team USA Lamar Fenner Defeated the Chechen Terrorist Tamerlan Tzarnaev in 2009; Boston and Massachusetts 1st Responders defeated Tamerlan and his kid brother who attacked Boston and America in 2013.

The big Russian kid in the photo had the reach, the height and the weight on Lamar Fenner.  Lamar had a Catholic education and coach Mike Joyce.  No contest.

I get to Leo between 4:30-5 AM every morning.  My e-mails contain Alumni updates and dates notices.   In the mix was a note from my friend, Chicago playwright, film maker, actor, journalist and author Mike Houlihan.

Pat=One of the Chechyan (sp?) terrorist brothers fought Lamar Fenner last year in the ring! See Deadspin story.
HouliHouli

I checked it out, the fight was in 2009.  Lamar had not been fighting since 2010 due to an eye injury. I remembered also that Lamar and Mike Houlihan had joined Leo/Celtic Boxing Coach Mike 'Pickle' Joyce for an evening out with Boston-born actor and star of Rescue Me Denis Leary a few years back.

You may recall that Rescue Me concerned 1st Responders -NYFD Firemen - who ran to danger on 9/11 lived with the consequences of that heroism.

Mike Joyce taught Lamar Fenner to "to work inside" -heart matters.

I posted a blurb, or blog about Lamar's defeat of the Chechen kid who repaid American welcome with a couple of pressure cookers he and his little brother had packed with nails, BBs, ball-bearing and explosives set to a timer made from a kid's toy.  Their thank you to Boston and America tore off legs and limbs of scores of strangers and murdered a little boy and two girls.

Boston, despite the mouthings of political know-it-alls, is a great town full of splendid human beings.  You can walk Boston itself in a day on foot which is not a bad idea given the traffic and the parking.  My buddy Mark Manning and his massive family grew up in the projects of Dorchester. Mark became a skilled surgeon, did twenty five years in the Air Force and practices in Del Rio, TX.I have friends in Dorchester and South Boston, as well as some shirt-tail cousins.  My friends the Jordans of Oak Park, once lived in Watertown, where the little brother monster was grabbed.  My daughter Nora worked and lived in Boston for the better part of year, until the marketing company for which she worked tanked.

On one visit in the early 1980's my fiance and I were treated to dinner at Mr. Anthony's by a guy in his late forties we had met in a bar near Fenway Park.  We were introduced to Jimmy, by a mutual friend.  He was fascinated that with Illinois, the Civil War, Camp Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, as well as the fact that Mary and I were high school teachers.

We thought he was pulling our legs, but our friend assured us that Jimmy meant what he said.  The next night, Mary and I were treated like Kennedys at Anthony's Pier 4 and everything had been "paid with cash including a very generous tip for the staff."

Several years later, my wife Mary held up a front page picture of Jimmy touted as Most Wanted Man in America. " This is our pal Jimmy."

Well, He was nice to us.

Today, people are saying the same thing about the Brothers Tsarnaev.  Mike Joyce put things very well in today's Chicago Sun Times article about Lamar's fight with Tamerlan:As for Tsarnaev, 

Joyce said he was stunned by the allegations that he was a terrorist. “It boggles my mind,” he said. “Boxing is an individual sport, a fraternity. It requires a lot of dedication. For a boxer to get involved in something as insane as terrorism, I just don’t know.”

I'll try, Pick.

• Lamar's father was Chicago Fireman - a 1st responder
• Lamar's Mom and Dad chose a Catholic school for him - where he was coached by you, Herman Mills, Eddie Perkins, Luther Rawlings and the great Bob Foster.  
• Lamar learned accountability from his parents, you and teachers like Bob Foster ( who authoritatively and rhetorically tuned-up Lamar on more than one occasion, Brother O'Keefe, Brother Finch, Pete Doyle, Ed Adams and Mike Holmes,
• Lamar knew that 7,000 plus Leo Alums had his back and that he was accountable for his actions and would own the consequences forgetting Christ.
• Lamar saw a crucifix on every wall at Leo and that it was there for more than a decoration

Lamar Fenner won a decision.

Tamerlan Tzarnaev and his little brother decided not to be reminded of anything of real consequence.

They never were taught that we are all linked to Boston.

Francis Rupert Finch, CFC December 16, 1999 -Whose Womb Came This Ice? - Veterans and Above All Our Elderly

Brother F.R. Finch in 1948 at Leo High School.

Job 38:29

Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?

Last Friday, as is our custom, Leo High School honored our Veterans of America's Wars. Scores of heroes who survived Tarawa, The Bulge, Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sahn and Pleiku, Desert Storms I-II, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like most of us who enjoy our way of life, I missed every one of those wars and honor those who serve . . .I like to think that I do. I was lucky. I had a high enough draft lottery number and never was called up at the end of Vietnam.

Note the predominance of the first person singular pronoun in the immediate above? Five "Is" in three short sentences. The Veterans never seem to use that. Service must have erased the use of "I" from their vocabulary. We, They, Him and She dominates their declamations.

Men from the Classes of 50, 51, 52, 61, 65, 66, 67, and 68 came home from Korea Vietnam with gray and even white highlights and some of them without limbs, or tiny steel souvenirs from rockets, grenades or mortar rounds that found a home within their young muscles, stood like heroes.

Men from the classes of 40, 43, 44, 45, 46 47, who served in WWII, Korea and, a very few, both Wars occupied cold folding chairs or leaned on the back of them, but stiffed with pride and remembrance when taps was sounded by Vietnam Veteran Larry Richards.

This week I talked with freshman Raheem, a man-mountain of a child -6'3" and every bit of three hundred pounds, who will be a Division I football prospect in three years about his school. Raheem asked me who was the greatest Leo Man of All Time.

Bob Foster, Jimmy Arenberg, Bill Koloseicke, Bob Hanlon, Ed Ryan, Don Flynn, Chico Driscoll, Doc Driscoll, Bro Farrrell, General Gerrity, Bishop John Gorman, Father Finno, Father Tom Mescall, Tony Parker, Jack Fitzgerald, Tom O'Malley, Dr. Hartnett, Frank Considine . . . flooded through my consciousness.

To me, the greatest Leo Man was Brother Francis Rupert Finch. Brother Finch was a short, muscular, scholarly, and saintly man. He taught Latin, Physics, Chemistry, and Theology, coached the Lightweight ( 5'8" & under) basketball team to the National Championship, served Leo as the athletic director and died while teaching big tough smart kids like Harold Blackman, Jelani Clay, Mario Bullock and Kenny Philpot.

Brother Finch embodied the soul of Leo High School. The school is not as some might believe a Jock-ocracy; rather, it is an incubator for the human heart.

Bro Finch was an orphan raised by the Irish Christian Brothers in Tacoma Washington. From there Frank Finch too his degree and joined the Order at Iona, NY and was posted to Leo High School at the end of the 1930's, just when Leo was emerging as a great sports powerhouse and college preparatory standout.

Brother Finch radiated muscular piety. He was a tough man without a trace of the bully and absent of ego. His students learned from his quiet, courtly, and gentle voice mastery of numbers as the language of God - pure Math. It's applications mean nothing unless they lay a carpet before the throne of God.

He did not hit, nor did Brother Finch lash with irony.

On the basketball court, Brother Finch mixed it up while wearing his cassock and one time took an elbow from Bart Murphy '45 that shattered his lower jaw. Brother Finch completed the practice and then went to the doctor's office in Frank's Department Store east of the school and missed no classes, no practices. Brother Finch sat on the bench with his jaws wired shut and his play book in his hands. His boys knew what to do and what was expected of them. They won the upcoming game and went undefeated in 1944-45.

Decades later, after the Irish Christian Brothers withdrew from Leo High School, Brother Francis Rupert Finch, refused to abandon his Leo boys - they were African American now- a-days. Althrough the 1990's, it took Brother Finch more time to climb the stairs to the second floor to get to his Lab, than it did for him to drive the six miles from Brother Rice Monastery to 79th & Sangamon. Brother Finch was never late and only absent when he was hospitalized.

Brother Finch died as a faculty member of Leo High School. He was youthful in his old age, as he was gentle within his toughness. Brother Finch was Christ Resurrected and Triumphant. He was Our Lady's little boy wearing fingerless wool gloves in the Lab that always seemed too cold for him as he spooned Campbell's soups heated over his Bunsen burners.


Brother Finch was a veteran of God's many wars. His silver hair stayed with him like the frost on the flagpole behind Leo's War Memorial.

Francis Rupert Finch, CFC died December 16, 1999*, just before our new century. His spirit is Leo High School and the best that can be found in any man or woman.


*Brother Francis Finch, 87, Coach
December 19, 1999|By Virginia Groark, Tribune Staff Writer.

Brother Francis R. Finch was an award-winning high school basketball coach, leading Leo Catholic High School to two Catholic League basketball titles, two Fenwick lightweight basketball championships and two all-city trophies in the 1930s and '40s.

Despite his accomplishments, the Catholic League Coaches' Hall of Fame coach was "tremendously embarrassed" when the school named its gym after him, said school President Bob Foster."He was very, very modest," Foster said. "He just didn't want any publicity or anything. He was a very modest, a very humble man."

Brother Finch rarely missed a day of school, so Foster sensed something might be wrong when he failed to show up about three weeks ago. His instincts proved correct. Brother Finch, 87, died Thursday, Dec. 16, in Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn after a brief illness.

For Brother Finch, the most important thing was his students. For more than 60 years, he taught math and science and never missed an opportunity to encourage troubled students, according to those who knew him.

At Leo Catholic, where he taught intermittently for six decades--including his most recent stint beginning in 1982-- Brother Finch arrived at school by 7:15 a.m. every day, beating many of his younger colleagues to work.

"He was always on time, even in a snowstorm," Foster said. "He had a hip operation . . . and we thought he might be down . . . and may retire. But he didn't. He came back and he was stronger than ever."

Born in 1912, Brother Finch graduated from Briscoe Memorial in Kent, Wash., and joined the Congregation of Christian Brothers of Ireland, of which he was a member for 72 years.

Brother Finch taught at several other schools, including Vancouver College in Canada, Lewis University and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Romeoville. But his closest ties were to Leo, Foster said.

Brother Finch also made a lasting impact as a teacher, according to school officials. Many of the school's alumni called him the "most brilliant teacher that they ever had," Foster said.

Though he was modest, Brother Finch's work did not go unrecognized. This year, the National Association of Religious Brothers chose him as its first honoree

for the Recognition of Brotherhood Award.

He was to receive the honor in January.

Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Brother Rice High School Chapel, 10001 S. Pulaski Rd., with a prayer service at 7:30 p.m.

Mass will be said at 2 p.m. Monday at Queen of Martyrs Church, 103rd and Central Park.

Don Flynn Way is not just an Honorary Street - It is the Heart of Catholic Giving and the Blood and Soul of Leo High School

On Monday, Columbus Day, Leo President Dan McGrath and I took a group of Leo students to the Parade. We were marching with The Big Shoulders Fund, a private charity that supports inner city Catholic schools and eases the financial strain on families who want their sons and daughters to receive the best education in Chicago.

Catholic schools provide the best education, not because of dollars, but because of Faith. Faith is the spine of good living. Along with our brothers and sisters of St. Rita, Mount Carmel, St. Francis De Sales, Maria, Mother McCauley, Gordon Tech, Queen of Peace, St. Benedict, Our Lady of Tepeyac and St. Gregory high schools, we celebrated the accomplishments and contributions of Italian Americans.

Leo High School is largely African American as a student demographic though there are now a few white and Hispanic students returned to the Miracle on 79th Street.

After the parade, we fed the Lions at Schallers Pump one of Chicago's oldest family restaurants, owned by Leo Hall of Fame basketball legend, Jackie Schaller ( Leo '43).
Along with the great feed, the young gents were schooled by a real Lion. Jackie Schaller played for the great Leo Basketball teams that won consecutive National Basketball Titles in the early 1940's. Most importantly, the life-long tough guy commanded, " Stick to your business. Learn as much as you can. Don't be smart-asses. Stay in Leo." Nothing passive agressive in those imperatives.

I drove three of the guys to their homes in South Holland, Brainerd and Ashburn. The second drop-off was between 87th and 88th & May Streets - the very block that was home to arguably the most successful graduate of the Leo High School Class of 1957- Donald F. Flynn ( 1939-2011).

I drove my last charge home and headed home myself. The minute I got in the door, I received a phone call from Mr. Bill Plunkett, who had worked with Don Flynn at Waster Management. " I have some very sad news; Don Flynn passed away in sleep last night,"

Mr. Plunkett and I talked for some time. I related the stories that I heard about Don Flynn from the great Bob Foster '58, the man who kept Leo open by dint of his heroic presence alone.

Bob told the story of a game against Gordon Tech. Helmet face guards were new to football and very few Catholic League teams sported them. The Rams had a few. Leo had none. Don Flynn, a guy that Bob Foster said, 'transformed from a studious and sweet guy into the Incredible Hulk the minute he stepped into the locker room' had a broken arm and was wearing plaster cast.

Flynn was a lineman and great field goal kicker. At some point in the game, the guy over whom Don Flynn was lined up, begged the referee to do something about the madman Flynn. " He is going to kill me!!! He said, so; ' I am going to kill you.'

The referee, probably the immortal Frank Strochia replied, "This is the Catholic League Kid. Kill him back."

A few plays later, the same referee stopped the action and signalled the sideline to take the kid out. He noticed that in fact, the young man's brand new face guard was not only in serious disrepair, but it was caked and crusted with not only young man's blood and field turf & sod, but plaster - lots of plaster.

The Leo Alumni reproduced every yearbook going back to 1931. I have posted Don Flynn's page. Note his high school accomplishments and his stated ambition in 1957 Click that yearbook photo, please and get a good look.


Don Flynn -Top row;second from leftDon Flynn and Bob Foster played on the 1956 City Championship team together. That was last time Leo won what is now called the Prep Bowl.

Don Flynn # 91 top row extreme right; Bob Foster #56 Front Row second from the left. Coached by the legendary Jimmy Arneberg & Bob Hanlon.Flynn went on college; played football and a knee-injury ended his playing days. He transferred to Marquette University and then lit the business world afire.

Bob Foster, a year later, went on to play for Purdue and returned to Leo as a history teacher and coach.

Thirty years later, when the Irish Christian Brothers departed, Bob Foster took the helm of his beloved school. Leo High School needed a great deal of help.

Don Flynn, along with Frank Considine '39 and Andy McKenna '47 buckled up the monetary and moral chin-straps.

Don Flynn made payrolls, pumped in tuition support, funded capital improvements, because he had made what many consider to be a fortune. That was only money.

Don Flynn's fortune was made between 87th & 88th and May Streets, at St. Kilians, in the classrooms of Leo, and on the broken beer bottle and cinder strewn grounds that were Leo High School's Shewbridge Field.

I had the privilege to meet Don Flynn a few times. Like every Leo Man I have ever met he was sweet-natured, witty, uncompromisingly generous and suffered no fools gladly.

Bob Foster, like Don Flynn and all Leo Men, looks for no tributes; therefore, it is always important to give tribute to the team. Foster petitioned the Alderman of 17th Ward Terry Peterson to have 79th & Sangamon designated 'Don Flynn Way.'

Don Flynn's way is followed by every person with a Heart and a Hand.

Heavenly Harps are plucking the Leo Fight Song!

Leo Fight Song
Oh, when those Leo men fall into line,
And their colors black and orange
are Unfurled,
You see those Brawny stalwarts wait
The sign,
And then their might against the foe
Is hurled
For then the foe shall feel the lions might,
And spirit of our team’s attack,
For with every heart and hand,
We will fight as one strong band,
For the honor of the orange and black!
RAH! RAH! RAH!