Eisele

Cards highlight Eisele's emotional weekend

Mike Trueblood

SPORTS

Monday, October 30, 2006

"As a kid, I had uniforms for both the Cubs and Cardinals," said Eisele, athletic director at Knox College.

"But at a family reunion when I was 4, my family made me decide. They said I couldn't be both.

"I've been a Cardinals fan ever since."

For Eisele, that may have made for a lifetime of enjoyment but contributed to a busy week. He was one of those fans who held tickets to the rained-out Game 4 of the World Series, made the drive to St. Louis last Wednesday to sit in the rain, then made the return trip Friday for the Series-clinching game against the Detroit Tigers.

And he made it back in the wee hours Saturday to supervise two soccer games, a volleyball tournament and an emotional football game with Lake Forest, a team he coached up until two years ago.

"It's my roughest day so far," Eisele said Saturday as he watched the Fire battle the Foresters, six months after he succeeded Dan Calandro as Knox A.D. "But it had nothing to do with the night before."

That's because his experience in St. Louis was almost a dream come true.

Growing up, Eisele said Lou Brock was his favorite player but when he got older, Tommy Herr drew more of his attention.

"I really tried to emulate him," Eisele admitted.

As an athlete at Peoria Richwoods, and later, Knox College, the opportunities to follow his favorite teams into the postseason were nonexistent.

"In 1982 and 1985 I was playing football," he said of Cardinals' World Series trips. "In 1987 I was playing football. In 2004 I was coaching football (at Lake Forest).

"I always wanted to go to a game with my dad, but I never had the opportunity to go," said Eisele.

That changed on the spur of the moment last week.

I got on line and found some game tickets and I called my dad before I pushed the button and asked him if he wanted to go," said Eisele. "He said yes and I pushed the button."

Eisele, his dad, Ron, his brother-in-low, Kirk Hare, and a friend of his dad's, John Cook, made their first trip to St. Louis like thousands of others on Wednesday.

"We sat in the ballpark for four hours until they called the game at 9:22 p.m.," said Eisele. "It was 2:30 a.m. when I pulled in my driveway and I was in the office at 9:30.

"Then we did it all again on Friday."

But this time, they witnessed St. Louis 4-2 victory over Detroit that clinched the Cardinals first world championship since the days Tommy Herr was playing second base.

"We stayed in the ballpark for about an hour afterward and we were still one of the earliest people to leave," said Eisele. "Then we went down to the landing for about an hour.

"I got back home about 4:40 a.m. and I got on the Internet to read about it. Even though I was there, I wanted to see what the experts had to say about it.

After four hours of sleep, he headed down to the Knox campus where he dealt with the emotions of seeing his former team - still dominated by players he recruited - play the Prairie Fire.

"There was no doubt who I was cheering for and who I wanted to win," said Eisele, wearing his Knox hat and purple jacket with pride.

"But I put a lot of emotion into recruiting at Lake Forest and a lot of the kids playing for Lake Forest I put into the position to play there."

By his count, Eisele said over half the players starting for the Foresters were his recruits.

Then he watched Knox suffer its fourth straight hard-luck loss, losing in the final two minutes 19-12.

"I feel for them so much," said Eisele. "They deserve to win. They've done it the right way."

It'll be a weekend he'll always remember and the Cardinals trip will certainly highlight the memories but maybe not for the obvious reasons.

"It was a big memory-builder getting to go to the game with my dad," said Eisele. "To have tickets to Game 4 that got rained out, then to have the Cardinals win so that Firday's game would be the clincher - they don't write stuff like that in Hollywood."