Mike Riley named Athletic Director
By Holli L. Rapp
Having the opportunity to take over as director of admissions and implement some of his programs into the athletic program and move from a private school to a community college are what drew Mike Riley to IVCC.
Riley was hired for the position of Athletic Director, Admissions Coordinator and Head Men’s Basketball coach at the August 19th board meeting. Riley assumes the position of AD and Head Men’s Basketball coach after Gerry Thornton resigned. Thornton resigned from the basketball coaching position on July 17, 1998 a month after he resigned from the athletic director position.
Thornton, 51, sported a 34-53 record in three years as the head coach. When Thornton resigned from the position he said that he wanted to spend his time as a regional training director for a communications company.
Riley, 46, was associate athletic director, basketball coach, academic advisor and golf coach at Lincoln College. He also served from 1985 to 1995 at Lincoln, as director of admissions and as an assistant basketball coach.
During his entire 13-year stay at Lincoln, he was the associate athletic director and golf coach. Prior to Lincoln, he coached basketball at Illinois Central College in East Peoria (1976-1982), and was an admissions officer, basketball, and golf coach at Spoon River Community College in Canton from 1983 to 1985.
The new athletic director has one main goal -- recruiting from in-district.
"We try to recruit from district first, give in-district students the opportunity to take whatever activity that they would like to be involved in and then second go outside the district to find what we couldn’t get in the district," said Riley.
To make his basketball program more visible to in-district players and local fans, he has several ideas.
"We are going to have a camp for junior high (players and coaches) to come in October and tell them the fundamentals and use some of our players, and then have them watch us practice. They (junior high players) are going to be more prone to coming to our games and seeing what is going on," said Riley
"I would like to try to get some junior high bands for game nights. Eventually, get a high school tournament. There is a number of things that I think the college can do to be more aware to the community."
Responding to a question about the recruiting problems the women’s tennis and basketball teams have had, Riley said men’s basketball did well.
"In men’s basketball, we put up signs and are very fortunate that some really good athletes decided to attend here. We’ve got some young men from Hall (High School), DePue, Putnam County, Princeton, Streator, Mendota, right on down,"
Riley said fans can expect his teams to work hard, listen, give everything they’ve got and go for loose balls.
"We are lacking size, we are not very big but we are going to have to rebound by committee."
So far, Riley said that he has had a lot of fun but he hasn’t put as much into admissions as he would like to.
Riley hopes to offer many and diverse programs for people to participate in.
Riley is married and has two children, a 19 year old daughter who is a freshman at Heartland in Bloomington, and a son who is a freshman at Lincoln High. His wife has worked at Heartland in administration since Heartland was founded. He hopes to relocate after his son is finished with varsity golf.
Sept 17, 1998 the Apache