Knox in the News

Excerpt from the Register-Mail:

The hiring of Dickerson adds another Galesburg element to the coaching staff. Last week, Purlee hired former Galesburg coach and standout player Barry Swanson as his lead assistant. Former player John Baillie and Bobby Wheet, who was an assistant last season at Hartwick College (N.Y), round out the staff.

But Purlee said it just so happened the latest hires were associated with the city’s proud basketball heritage. First and foremost, he cared that they were gifted basketball minds.

“Make no mistake: We didn’t hire them just because of that. That’s just the icing on the cake,” Purlee said of their associations with the Silver Streaks. “If we wanted to get someone who was a name in Galesburg, we would have hired the mayor or Don Moffitt. These are great basketball people here. We are about winning at basketball.”

When Dickerson interviewed with Purlee, that’s all he needed to hear.

Like Swanson, Dickerson already holds a deal of respect for the Prairie Fire program. But the two of them feel Knox is on the verge of something special. Purlee, a one-man coaching staff at the time, hauled in a respected recruiting class and Memorial Gymnasium, the team’s basketball facility, is undergoing an extensive $500,000 face lift.

Excerpts from the Register-Mail:

Ever since Tim Heimann retired nearly four months ago, Knox College men’s basketball coach Rob Purlee has been a one-man coaching staff…..

Knox reached an agreement Thursday with central Illinois native Bobby Wheet, an assistant at Hartwick College in New York, to join Purlee’s staff as a paid assistant coach. Wheet will serve as the lead assistant on a staff that already includes former Prairie Fire player and fan favorite John Baillie….

Wheet, who coached middle-school basketball while playing football at Central College in Pella, Iowa, said the opportunity to coach in a basketball city such as Galesburg at a college where millions of dollars have been infused in the athletic department in the last half-decade sold him on coming here.

“Obviously, the location is great. Knox is in a great city — Galesburg is a basketball town. I know because when I was growing up I was a Joey Range fan,” said Wheet, who grew up an hour and a half south in Minier. “When I met coach Purlee, when I heard his vision for the program and where it’s going, I knew it was a great opportunity. It just seems like athletics overall is going in the right direction.”

Top recruit Bill Meyer decides that Knox is right for him after all.

Excerpt from the Register-Mail:

If the Prairie Fire are going to make a jump toward the upper echelon of the Midwest Conference, the coaches feel they must diversify the passing attack, which hasn’t been much of an attack.

All that remained was finding a quarterback to make it work.

The Prairie Fire may have done just that.

Former Cary-Grove standout Bill Meyer, an incoming sophomore who was on the wishlist for most Division III teams in the region as a high school star, has transferred to Knox from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

“We got to get better at throwing the ball,” Prairie Fire head coach Andy Gibbons said. “If we can throw as efficiently as he threw the ball in high school, we are going to win a lot of football games.”

At big-school power Cary-Grove High School, Meyer was exactly that — a model of efficiency.

He threw for 1,410 yards with 15 touchdowns and two interceptions as senior running the same double-slot triple option offense Knox employs. As a junior, the throwing numbers were equally impressive with 13 touchdowns to only one pick. The 5-foot-11, 195-pound bullish quarterback — not necessarily fast but crafty, Eisele says — has the ability to run as his 13 rushing touchdowns as a high school senior illustrates.

“As far as throwing the ball, Bill is probably as proficient as anybody we can have in this offense,” Eisele said.

Meyer has tasted winning wherever he has played. With him as its starter for two seasons, Cary-Grove went 22-2 with two Fox Valley Conference titles. At Case Western last fall, where he was the junior varsity starting quarterback, the varsity squad finished 11-1.

Excerpt from the Register-Mail:

Knox officials plan for the Knosher Bowl to be completed by the start of football practice Aug. 18. The renovations, which are being handled primarily by local outfit Gunther Construction, Eisele said, started March 24. The original bowl was built in 1963.

“We have had quite a few people call when they see the bowl,” said Eisele, who will also serve as an assistant on head coach Andy Gibbons’ staff. “That’s the question of the hour: Are we are on track with all the rain we’ve had?”

For now, Eisele said, the answer remains yes.

“I haven’t been told anything different,” Eisele said. “All of us in the Midwest are hopeful that we don’t keep getting these torrential downfalls. If we keep getting them for three or four more weeks, it might cause some issues.”

Excerpt from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

But Jessica Platt couldn’t make it there on Saturday to hear Albright’s message — or to get her diploma.

So on Monday, Knox College President Roger Taylor again donned his purple and black robes and hung the gold presidential medallion around his neck. And he led a much smaller procession, this time down an aisle of a meeting room at the Lutheran Church of the Atonement in Florissant.

“We are here this morning to finish the 163rd commencement of Knox College,” Taylor said to the couple dozen friends and family members of Platt’s who formed a semicircle around him.

Platt, 20, of Hazelwood, sat behind him, biting her lip and shaking her leg with nervous energy.

She was wearing a simple black robe, but no cap because her recently-shaved head was still tender from brain surgery last month.

Also read the story in the Register-Mail, in Inside Higher Ed.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is the latest big-name speaker to deliver the commencement address at Galesburg’s small Knox College.

The past three speakers were former President Bill Clinton, Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert and Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Albright — who served under Clinton — took some jabs at the Bush administration during her speech Saturday.

She questioned why more hasn’t been done to stop genocide in Darfur, to safeguard the environment and to defeat terrorism. She also referred to a “lobotomized leadership.”

Read coverage of Knox’s Commencement in the Register-Mail:

• Madeleine Albright’s Address
  
• Knox’s Commencement Ceremony
• Photo Gallery