Gordie Gillespie

Baseball

National Baseball Coach Hall of Famer Gordie Gillespie led the Red Hawks as head baseball coach from 1996-2005.

He was the father of former Ripon College coach Robert Gillespie.

With 2,402 career victories in baseball, football and basketball over a 59-year career, Gordie Gillespie was one of the top college baseball coaches of all time. The bulk of his career was spent in Illinois.

At Ripon, he compiled 239 victories, at that time the college baseball record for any level. At the time of his death in 2011, Gillespie still ranked second in program history for career wins, while holding the school record for career winning percentage (.648). He coached Ripon to four of their top six single-season win totals in school history, and is the only coach in program history to win at least 30 games in more than one season, accomplishing that feat in 2001 and 2003.

He led Ripon to six conference championships and six NCAA Regional appearances. He also was named MWC Coach of the Year six times, while becoming the first and only coach in MWC history to receive that honor in three consecutive seasons (2001-03).

He was inducted into 18 halls of fame and received numerous coach of the year and coach of the decade honors, and was declared NAIA Coach of the Century in 1998. He was inducted into the Ripon College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008. The new baseball coach’s office in Willmore Center was named in his honor.

The biography “Gordie Gillespie: Coach the Kid at the End of the Bench,” is by Raymond Coughlin.

Gillespie died Feb. 28, 2015, at the age of 88.