WHEREAS, Rick Panek was born in Chicago and lived on the southwest side until he was 33 years old. He has been living in Lemont, Illinois with his wife, Jody, son, Erik, and daughter, Lauren since 1989; and,
WHEREAS, Rick Panek is of polish decent and was the youngest of his family born to Stella and John Panek. He had an older brother, John, who lost his battle with cancer at the young age of 28. His older sister, Rosemarie, lives nearby with her husband, Tom, and daughter, Amanda; and,
WHEREAS, Rick attended St. Turibius Catholic School, Quigley South and the
University of Illinois at Chicago where he earned his bachelor's degree in physical education.
He played on the baseball team and had an undefeated season as the team's pitcher during his
senior year. Rick's goal was to teach physical education but he took a different direction and
started working for Household Finance. He managed many HFC offices and has recently
retired from HSBC, the company that bought out HFC. Rick worked for the
company for 35 years; and,
WHEREAS, Rick started coaching his son Erik's little league team in Lemont when Erik was 7 years old. As some of the players developed and honed their skills under Rick's direction, he realized he had quite a talented group. He started and organized the first travel baseball team in Lemont, the Lemont Indians Traveling Baseball Club. The club still exists for 8-16 year old boys. Rick has been the pitching coach for the Lemont High School varsity team for the past 13 years. He is also a pitching coach for the Lombard Lightning 18U travel baseball team; and,
WHEREAS, Rick didn't ignore the talents of his daughter, Lauren. He taught her how to shoot 3 pointers and guided her travel basketball team to multiple championships. He enjoyed watching both of his children play at the collegiate level, both earning college scholarships playing baseball and Softball. Rick organizes the Les Miller Memorial Golf Outing with his college teammates from UIC and hopes t...
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