When old-timers talk Northern Illinois University football and the kicking game, the conversation started and ended with Tom Wittum. The same opinion prevailed for Huskie baseball buffs. Nearly four decades after the fact, the Wittum legacy, name and reputation resides among the finest in the all-time NIU athletics tribunal.
“Tom Wittum was one of the finest athletes that I ever worked with here. Top 10 all-time? Yes, I would put him there,” said former NIU head athletic trainer Al Kranz, a Hall of Famer himself with ties to the Cardinal and Black dating to the mid-1940s and that particular 1968-72 time frame.
Two-sport college star, two-time NIU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, an All-Century Team selection during the Huskie football Centennial celebration in 1999, a two-time National Football League Pro Bowl punter, plus a long-time teacher and coach at Grayslake Central High, the 60-year-old Wittum lost a valiant 1 1/2-year battle with cancer and died this past Friday. Memorial services were conducted Tuesday.
For me, the ultimate perk of my old Northern Illinois sports information gig were personal relationships with high-profile student-athletes such as Tom Wittum and Billy “The Kid” Harris. Contemporaries in school, I thought Wittum and Harris epitomized the “new era” Huskies in the early major-college years of this institution. And, now in the same month, both, tragically, are gone. Ironically, in looking back, “The Kid” and Tom were polar opposite personalities. Where “The Kid” was outspoken, passionate and brash, Tom was quiet, reserved and humble.
“You walked into his home and you would never know that Tom was an All-Pro or a Hall of Famer,” said former Huskies baseball coach Dave Mason. “With all of the (sports) accolades and awards, he was a very humble man.”
Said former NIU halfback and 1971 football team quad-captain Steve Goehl: “Tom was just a fabulous athlete and a great guy. He was quiet and I never heard him bragging about himself. Never.”
Former Huskies football coach Jerry Ippoliti characterized Wittum as "the common guy with uncommon talent” and as a Joe Average-type who had the unique opportunity to play either Major League Baseball or in the NFL.
“That was the popular discussion in the locker room by other athletes, coaches and staff at the time,” remembered Kranz. "Where was Tom going to go – (pro football or pro baseball)?”
For an athlete, punting is gridiron solitaire. Kick by yourself. Chase down the football and repeat the sequence.
“I remember watching Tom at practice,” Kranz said. “Kick, kick, and kick again. I told him he was going to wear out his leg – and he had a great one. If Tom was lucky, he’d get some kid to field his punts. Otherwise, Tom had to retrieve the balls himself and start kicking again. I was always impressed with his hard work, attitude and dedication.”
Ippoliti – later an NFL scout – called Wittum “a student of the punting game” who even taught him a few pointers.
“In those days, we didn’t have a kicking coach, but Tom was the best punter I’ve seen and few could place the ball inside the 10-yard line as well as he could,” Ippoliti recalled. “I’ll never forget that Tom was always asking coach, 'How can I help the team?’'"
Added Mason: "(Originally,) Tom asked me if he could help and punt for the football team."
Wittum graduated with a carload of Northern Illinois punting and placekicking records when the Huskies made the difficult transition to Division I and faced upgraded opposition such as Wisconsin, San Diego State, Long Beach State, Boston College and the Mid-American Conference schools. At times, this quantum leap was a struggle. No NIU punter ever has kicked the ball more in back-to-back-to-back seasons. With 113 career kick-scoring points, Wittum was no slouch in that department either. In the day, a young, unnamed assistant SID nicknamed him “The Toe” as one of the few remaining conventional kickers.
“Tom was unique,” NIU teammate and Hall of Fame fullback John Lalonde said. “He was a gifted kicker, a great athlete with a fantastic leg, and the ability to always be smiling. In practice, we’d put a big rush on the punter. In those situations, he never backed down and would always come out of that pile with a big smile. That was Tom."
Since World War II, the Huskies have trotted out some great punters – Little All-America quarterbacks Bob Heimerdinger (1949-51) and George Bork (1961-63), Jim Hannula (1977-79), Todd Van Keppel (1981-84) and Kent Baker (1996-99) come to mind – but, in my opinion, nobody can touch the 6-foot, 185-pound Wittum at that position.
One must also remember that Northern Illinois was competing in football as a major independent, which, at the time, limited the individual publicity opportunities. In a 2010 world and the same stats, Wittum would have been up for First-Team All-MAC, MAC Special Teams Player of the Year, and gleaned other regional and national honors that always help current-day All-America crusades.
In the NFL, Wittum might have been the fabled Ray Guy before Ray Guy. Drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the eighth round in 1972, Wittum entered the league the year before his Bay Area rival with the Oakland-Los Angeles Raiders. With all due respect to Guy – a seven-time Pro Bowler who played on 10 playoff teams and in three Super Bowls (1976, 1980, 1983), plus made the 75th Anniversary All-NFL squad as the league’s consummate punter, Wittum played five years for a so-so 49ers franchise and still won Pro Bowl honors (1973-74) twice before a career-ending injury. In the off-season, a cement truck ran a stop sign and hit Wittum’s pick-up in the (then) rural Grayslake area. His left hip was crushed and later Wittum could not pass the physical with the Detroit Lions to end his NFL career.
Wittum retired from teaching in June, 2008, and then was diagnosed with cancer that August. Typically, Tom told few people about his situation. Knowing him, he didn't want the fuss, the attention – others were fighting the same battle. It was that "I'm Tom Wittum and no different than anyone else" type mentality. At the same time, Tom felt the obligation to fell his ex-NIU baseball teammates who found out via a personal letter. The news shocked us all. Thankfully, Tom made a final Hall of Fame appearance this past fall. He was, as ever, optimistic but things looked bad for him.
Truth be told, Wittum came to NIU on a partial baseball scholarship. Picked in the fifth-round by the Chicago White Sox in the 1968 MLB draft out of Round Lake High, Wittum would letter four years at Northern Illinois as a slugging third baseman. As a senior, Wittum led the Huskies to a 24-8 record and the program’s first NCAA tournament berth. With a .377 batting average, seven home runs and 33 RBIs in 1972, Wittum repeated as a First-Team All-Midwestern Conference pick, finished 13th in NCAA slugging percentage and won First-Team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors.
“Tom was one of the best clutch hitters I’ve seen in my time,” said Mason, who played and coached baseball at Ohio State. “Recently, I was reminiscing with Lee Hansen, who pitched on that 1972 team and played in some collegiate summer leagues. Lee told me the only hitter in the league he saw that was better than Tom was a future baseball Hall of Famer named Mike Schmidt.”
In 2008, that 1972 Northern Illinois baseball team was enshrined into our Hall of Fame. As the selection committee chair, it was always my fun duty to call the new inductees with the good news. I had not seen Tom since a 2002 reunion of that NCAA baseball team. I heard the “hello” on the line and said: “Is this the guy nicknamed ‘The Toe?’” I could hear the smile on the other end of the line. “This has to be Mike Korcek,” Wittum replied with a laugh. That is my all-time Tom Wittum memory.
• Mike Korcek is a former Northern Illinois University sports information director. His historical perspective on NIU athletics appears periodically in the Daily Chronicle.
