Don Devine

Class of 2012

Crystal Lake

Don Devine attended Bloomington High School where wrestled for IWCOA Hall of Fame Member and National Hall of Fame and Museum-Illinois Chapter Lifetime Service Award Winner Jim Bowers. Since Bloomington did not have a junior high wrestling program at the time, he didn’t begin wrestling until his sophomore year. He wrestled varsity for two years and was a district and sectional champion. He is a 1961 graduate of Bloomington High School.

He attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale to wrestle for another IWCOA Hall of Famer, Jim Wilkinson. He earned a scholarship after he made the varsity lineup as a freshman. While he was at Southern, the school competed as an independent. Southern finished 6th and 4th in the NCAA Division I finals and during Don’s final year of competition he was team captain, most valuable wrestler and was an NCAA tournament quarter-finalist.

Don received his bachelors and masters degree at Southern Illinois. His doctorate in statistics and measurement and post doctorate certification in accounting are from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

While working towards his Masters, Don served as an assistant coach at SIU where he recruited and coached several NCAA Division I All Americans and one Olympian. In 1972 he went to Cary-Grove High School, a school without a feeder program. He was head coach for seven years, had five state qualifiers, 2 junior national All Americans and one junior World Champion. Two of his wrestlers went on to place 2nd in the NCAA Division II finals. At that time this qualified those wrestlers for the Division I finals. Cary-Grove won their first Northwest Suburban Conference championship during his coaching tenure. In 1979 Don became athletic director at Cary-Grove and relinquished his coaching duties.

In 1989 Don went into private insurance business.

Don was a registered IHSA wrestling official for many years. He helped organize, run and officiate many of the early federation (later IKWF) freestyle tournaments in Illinois.

From 2003 to the present Don has served as a committee member of the National Hall of Fame and Museum-Illinois Chapter. He is a member of Rotary International and was president of Crystal Lake Dawnbreakers Rotary.