Longtime educator Don McKillip honored by state as driver's ed teacher, wrestling official

The Galesburg High School graduate had coaching success in Chicago Heights, Lockport

by Barry McNamara

Monmouth, Ill. (01/22/2026) — A simple way to describe 1980 Monmouth College graduate Don McKillip is that he's a man for all seasons. And when you count up the many years he coached football, wrestling and track and field - in addition to his participation in a series of related activities - there have been A LOT of seasons. In fact, it's a number approaching 200, and it surpasses that lofty milestone if you could include his days as a young athlete in nearby Galesburg and with the Fighting Scots football team.

Before we dive into all those seasons, a quick word from McKillip, who's still adding to his list, even though he's retired from full-time teaching and coaching.

"My dad was a workaholic. He taught us all how to work," said McKillip from his home Minooka, the first town you come to when you exit suburban Chicago to the southwest. He and his wife of 43 years, Diane, have two adult children, Amanda and Collin, a daughter-in-law, Jackie, and four grandchildren. "My 42 years of teaching, all those years of coaching - just work. It's never about winning. It's about having fun."

Winter

On the weekend of his interview - the same one that saw the Chicago Bears lose an overtime thriller in the snow to the Los Angeles Rams in the NFL playoffs - McKillip had just returned from officiating a wrestling tournament roughly 100 miles west on I-80 in Geneseo. He's a fixture at wrestling meets in the I-80 corridor and suburban Chicago, and the former wrestling coach's reputation is so solid that since 2014 he's annually been assigned to work the IHSA state tournament.

For his contributions in that area, McKillip was inducted into the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame in 2024.

While he was still teaching, he found a way to incorporate officiating into the curriculum at suburban Lockport (a few miles northeast of Minooka), where he worked for 18 years.

"Lockport has a unique P.E. program - it's very diversified," said McKillip. "It's not just rolling out a ball. The thinking is, 'Let's teach kids more.' So they were looking for ideas to teach the kids, and I started providing instruction on officiating," a timely investment as the boom in youth sports has created a need.

The idea caught on, and other schools wanted to implement it.

"Schools would say, 'Let's start an officiating program, but we don't know how to get it started,'" said McKillip. "So they'd reach out, and I'd help them with that."

When McKillip is officiating, he trusts his vast experience in the sport, along with his complete impartiality.

"The biggest thing is, you know the rules," he said. "Most people think they know all the rules, but they don't. So you're one up on everyone else. And with officials, there's a real passion for the sport they do. We don't care who wins, we're just passionate about the sport."

But that doesn't stop fans from yelling from the bleachers, all the same. McKillip takes it in stride.

"You're always under a microscope as a teacher and a coach," he said. "Officiating is no different."

In other words, he's used to the attention, and 200 seasons of it has a way of building a thick skin.

"I truly enjoy officiating," he said. "I would have paychecks sitting in my sock drawer for so long that schools would have to call me to cash them. But I was just having fun - just doing what I love doing."

Prior to officiating, McKillip compiled a stellar record as a wrestling coach. In 16 years, he led Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights to five regional titles and had 20 state qualifiers, five state placers and the school's first-ever state champion in any sport. His Marian teams went 265-145-2.

Spring

There doesn't appear to be much of a stress level in McKillip's current winter role - maybe only driving to and fro in Midwestern weather (more on driving in a minute) - but perhaps his least stressful seasons have come in the spring as he coaches track and field. Results in that sport are objective, not subjective, so when an athlete such as Marian Catholic's Casey Taylor soars 40'3-1/4 to win her third consecutive state triple jump championship, there's not much to debate. Only one competitor came within two feet of her.

Taylor's run from 2003-05 was a high point of McKillip's spring success, with the squad placing as high as 14th among the state's Class AA teams. He's also coached track and field at Dowling Catholic in West Des Moines, Iowa, and in Illinois at Aledo and Lockport.

Summer

Until he took up umpiring, the warmest of all seasons gave McKillip a break from team sports, but he was still hard at work, teaching the next generation of drivers. It's a job he did so well that in 2023, he was named the Teacher of the Year by the Illinois High School & College Driver Education Association.

McKillip has served as president, president-elect and Region 3 director with the IHSCDEA, focusing on advancing driver education through technology and innovative teaching. He's been recognized for creating engaging driver's ed environments, using platforms such as NearPod, EdPuzzles and Google Classroom, and addressing modern challenges like cellphone use (there's no word on whether he created the state's current "Texting while driving? Oh, cell no" signage).

Asked to provide a one-minute driver's ed lesson, McKillip reduced his years of teaching even further to just one word: "Patience."

"And don't just think about yourself. You're out there to protect everyone else. So a big mistake I see is tunnel vision. What's in front of you is important, but what's to your right? To your left? Behind you? Those things are just as important. And always expect the unexpected."

In doing that instruction, McKillip took on a role that many parents don't have the - well - patience for.

"Parents will say to me, 'Bless you. I don't know how you do it,'" he said. "I tell them, 'I've got the fastest left hand in the west,'" able to redirect the car, if need be, from his passenger seat on the right, which is equipped with a foot brake, which he's had to use "not too often."

McKillip said he's seen a shift throughout the years, from his own days as young driver in the 1970s, when he and his peers couldn't wait for the freedom to be behind the wheel, to a reluctance of some of today's youth to start the process. He cited omnipresent ride share companies such as Uber as one reason for the shift.

Fall

Which brings us to autumn and football - a sport that's been an important one in his life and the lives of some of his nine siblings, including Monmouth alum Dale McKillip '80 and Dean McKillip, who was a starting fullback on Coach Hayden Fry's first Iowa Hawkeyes football team in 1979.

Don McKillip played three seasons on the gridiron for the Fighting Scots, all of them coached by the legendary Bill "Moose" Reichow.

"Coach Reichow had a hard shell on the outside, but he had a heart of gold," said McKillip. "He would do anything for you. I remember the first time I went to the Catholic church in town, and he was giving communion. You learn that religion is important. Family is important. He had a larger-than-life presence."

At the time, Monmouth's enrollment was between peaks, but McKillip - who joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity - made the best of it.

"On a small campus, you know people," he said. "That's always been important to me - that closeness of community. Even though it was a small setting, we were competitive. I still tell people that two-thirds of the campus were athletes when I was in school."

As a physical education major, McKillip remembers another coaching legend, Terry Glasgow, being "a great guy who you could always talk to," and he also recalled a class assignment that asked students for their input on an important campus topic.

"We were asked whether we should keep the old (Waid) gym or destroy it," he said. "You had to decide, and then design something based on your answer. I was in the group that said 'Let's keep the old one,' and that's what they did."

A renovated version of it still stands today, behind its original outer columns, although the new Glennie Gymnasium was completed in 1983 and the Huff Athletic Center was built 20 years later.

"The campus has changed so much," marvels McKillip. "I just think about what we did with a minimal amount of stuff back then compared to what kids have today."

With his Monmouth diploma in hand, McKillip needed a first job. He said he found one based on the principle, "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

"I started my coaching career my senior year of college, coaching the football team at Costa Catholic School (in Galesburg)," where his brother, Darren, was on the team. "There was a man in Des Moines who had my dad as a teacher when he was in Fort Madison (Iowa). He was president of the Catholic grade school football league. And Dean was playing at the University of Iowa. He reached out to my dad about my brother, and Dad said, 'He's not looking to get into education, but Donald is, and he's looking for a teaching job.' I'd never been there in my entire life, but I was off to Des Moines," where he taught and coached four years at Dowling Catholic and picked up additional teaching credentials at Iowa State University.

Then came four years at Aledo, where the big rivalry game was going up against Alexis High School and their coaching legend, John Elder. Then came the 18 years apiece at Marian Catholic and Lockport. In addition to all his years as a varsity head coach and assistant, his fall "seasons" have also included his time as a cross country coach and a volleyball official.

Looking back, McKillip might not have been able to predict the accolades that would come his way later in his career, but he definitely forecast the career, itself.

"You can check my high school yearbook," he said. "It says I'm going to be a teacher and a coach. We never grow up - coaches are kids at heart. It keeps you young. You touch so many young lives, then you watch them grow up and become great people. It's been a pleasure."

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