(Auburndale, FL.) – Collegiate student-athletes spend countless hours with teammates and coaches during their playing days. Through the plethora of shared experiences life-long friendships are forged, fond memories are created, and enduring allegiances are produced. For many, like Aurora, Illinois, native Gary Oros, those bonds are never broken. Oros recently proved that firsthand, epitomizing the mantra of 'Once a Chief, always a Chief.'
On Monday, March 11, the Waubonsee Community College Hall of Famer made a surprise visit to the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex in central Florida to watch his old team in action, 50 years after his playing days. The 1972 Aurora West High School graduate made the three-hour, one-way drive from his home is Naples to watch the current group of Chiefs take on nationally ranked Niagara County Community College from New York. The former left-handed pitcher still holds nine Waubonsee records from his time in a Chiefs uniform in 1973 and 1974. Most of those marks including innings pitched, strikeouts, walks and complete games, will likely never be broken due to the changes in the game since then and the condensed schedule nowadays.
After Waubonsee's doubleheader against Niagara County, Oros chatted with the team and regaled the present-day players with stories from the early days of the Chiefs' baseball program. Oros even got a little emotional reminiscing about his former teammates and legendary head coach, the late Bill Prince who was the program's founder in 1968 and is a fellow Waubonsee Hall of Famer. "It was a really special moment," said Chiefs' head coach Rodney Lopez. "He is a Chiefs super fan and follows us on Twitter and watches our games on (the) GameChanger (app)."
Dave Randall, who was a teammate of Oros' in 1973 and took over as head coach from Prince in 1978 said of the phenomenal south paw "he (Oros) was amazing, he had so much run on his fastball and had a wipeout curveball." The Chiefs' centerfielder at the time jokingly described how "it was almost boring when he pitched. He struck out so many batters I got half as many balls hit to me in the outfield as I did the year before as a freshman." Oros led the nation with 173 strikeouts over 118 innings on the way to winning 12 games and compiling a 1.61 earned-run-average (ERA) in 1973. He followed that up by striking out 155 in 108 innings while winning seven more games and posting a 1.65 ERA in 1974. However, an injury at Northern Illinois University derailed further baseball success for Oros, who went on to have a successful Law Enforcement career in California for nearly three decades before retiring and moving to Florida.
Lopez' crew is nearly halfway through their annual Spring Break trip with a 3-2 record after splitting their twin bill on Monday with the NJCAA's Division III third-ranked Thunderwolves (8-4), falling 7-2 in the opener before taking game two 6-3. The unranked non-scholarship Division III Chiefs continue their 9-day, 11-game southern swing at the 2024 RussMatt Baseball Invitational on Wednesday, March 13, at Northeast Regional Park in Davenport taking on the NJCAA's 11th ranked Division II team Kirkwoood (IA) Community College (17-3) at 11:00 a.m. (EDT) and Webster (MO) University's Junior Varsity starting at 3:30 p.m. (EDT). Following two more games on Thursday, Waubonsee wraps up their time in Florida on Friday, March 15, with a doubleheader against perennial NJCAA Division I power and top-25 ranked Delgado (LA) Community College. The Chiefs (5-2) and Dolphins (15-6) are set to play at Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports Stadium, the former Spring Training home of the Atlanta Braves, beginning at 2:30 p.m. (EDT). Waubonsee returns home to host Sauk Valley Community College in a doubleheader on Thursday, March 21, with the first pitch set for 2:00 p.m. (CDT).
