More than 50 years of Waubonsee Community College baseball was represented Sunday afternoon in the Sugar Grove campus Field House. All three head coaches to have led Waubonsee’s baseball program were on hand for the inaugural Chiefs’ Baseball Alumni Day.
Former coaches Bill Prince and Dave Randall, along with head coach Brad Unger and his 2019 team, greeted a handful of baseball alumni and their families at the reception after the Chiefs’ home doubleheader was rained out. Alumni were given a tour of the Field House complex and renovated Erickson Hall, enjoyed pizza and light refreshments, and received Chiefs’ Alumni key chains.
Prince was the school’s first head baseball coach and Waubonsee’s first athletic director, physical education instructor, and Physical Education Department chairman. He held those positions simultaneously for seven years beginning in 1967. During his tenure Prince led the Chiefs to a pair of Skyway Conference baseball championships.
Randall, who played for Prince in 1972 and 1973, returned to serve as his assistant coach in 1977. Coach Prince handed off the program to Randall who led the Chiefs to 895 victories over the next 37 seasons. When he stepped aside, Randall was just one of two NJCAA Division III baseball coaches with more than 800 victories. His teams won six Skyway Conference championships, five Region championships, and reached the Region IV championship game six other times. Randall’s team was national runner-up in 1996.
Unger played for Randall in 2001 and earned all-Skyway and all-Region IV honors as a catcher. He took over Waubonsee’s program in 2015 as head coach and has averaged 32 victories a season the last three years. His 2016 team won 37 games and advanced to the NJCAA Division III World Series in North Carolina, where they finished in seventh place in the Nation.
— Waubonsee Community College