Forty-seven years after the first members of the Hitters Club played at Glenbard West, the school’s football program still uses its unofficial nickname on its practice T-shirts (above) and uniforms. | Buzz Orr~Sun-Times Media.
Of the 58,272 names etched in stone on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall , I am familiar with only one.
His name is Lt. John Bruce Capel. He was killed in 1966, roughly five months after I was born in a hospital in Staten Island, N.Y.
I had never heard of Bruce Capel until I was a junior at Glenbard West, his alma mater, in 1983. I was a member of the school’s Model United Nations club, where each high school represents a country and then there is a giant conference in Washington, D.C. where schools or countries hammer out proposals to be presented to the General Assembly. As I recall, just like the real United Nations, not much got done. As a kid, it was a tough way to find out that no matter what the U.N. wanted to do, the old USSR could always veto it with a no vote. In 1983, Glenbard West represented Venezuela. In 1984, we were Yemen.
Capel (right) was an Illinois teammate with Dick Butkus. One went to Vietnam. The other went to the Hall of Fame. | From uiaa.org.
But one of the highlights to our annual trip to Washington was to see the sites along the Mall. And one traditional stop was at architect Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Wall. In those days, there were a pair of books on each end of the wall that would allow visitors to look up the names of each veteran honored at the Wall. The listing would also include a hometown and a panel number in order to find the name on the Wall.
Our advisor, social studies teacher John Beisner, would give us only one name to look up on the wall. We didn’t know Capel, but just knowing he was a Glenbard West grad who lost his life in Vietnam gave us a connection to the Wall. It brings the impact of the Wall home. He was one of us.
I had to look it up. There are six other fallen Vietnam Vets honored on the Wall from Glen Ellyn: William Walter Dickey, Thomas Benedict Duffy, Ronald Edwin Hagstrom, Robert Francis Morgan, Roger Lee Pierce and John Fellows Scull. But none of them have a permanent honor at Glenbard West’s Biester Gym like Capel (above). Capel was the original Hitter, which became the unofficial nickname for Glenbard West’s football team and is still used today by coach Chad Hetlet and the community. The end zone at Duchon Field does not spell out Hilltoppers or Toppers. It’s Hitters.
When Glenbard West’s season-opening game at Wheaton Warrenville South Aug. 28 was broadcast to a national audience, ESPN2 announcers called them the Hitters instead of the Hilltoppers.
There a 2,841 likes for the Glenbard West Hitters Facebook page.
Before serving in Vietnam, Capel was the starting center for Illinois and played in the 1964 Rose Bowl (Illini 17, Washington 7). In goal line situations, Dick Butkus would replace Capel at center. Capel graduated from Glenbard West in 1961.
Glenbard West coach Bill Duchon (pictured, right) took over the program in 1960, but four years later was looking for a way to motivate his uninspired players. He stole an idea from the University of Wisconsin by awarding Gold helmets to certain deserving players. The first class of Gold helmet winners was Curt Spears, Bill Scaife and Mike Martin in 1964.
“I told the kids, ‘The only guy who puts it on you is me. The only guy to get it on there is you,’” said Duchon, now 83 and still living in Glen Ellyn. Duchon continues to attend Glenbard West home football games at the picturesque field named in his honor.
When Capel died two years later, the Hitters Club was born and the tradition continued until Duchon retired in 1976 after the Class 5A state championship game defeat to St. Laurence. New coach Jim Covert created the 100 Club the following season by awarding Silver helmets. The listing of 100 Club members remains on a plaque in the foyer of Biester Gym.
Here is one way Duchon remembers Capel on the football field.
“We played Riverside-Brookfield and we got a penalty for unnecessary roughness,” Duchon said. “The official told me, ‘That linebacker of yours is punching the hell out of that kid.’ He gave me a number and it was Bruce’s number. I told him, ‘That kid doesn’t play that way.’ The official said, ‘Wait until you see the movies.’ I looked at the film and it was obvious that he took a good shot at the kid. He wasn’t a nasty kid, but a great kid. He was a very good football player.”
Capel’s capsule from the Wall website.
Last summer, I wrote about Glenbard West’s new black football helmets for the 2011 season and recently received an email from the niece of Bruce Capel. She happened to come across the blog entry by Googling: “Glenbard West + Bruce Capel.” Laura (Capel) Claassen of Newton, Kans. was unaware of how the Hitters Club began, but sent the following email:
Sadly, I never knew my Uncle as he was killed in Vietnam three years before I was born. My dad and Bruce were brothers and as you might understand, when I was a child Bruce’s death was still fresh and too painful of a subject to speak openly about. As a consequence, I only knew of him rather than knew about him. As the years progressed, and with the dawn of the Internet, I have been able to learn much about Bruce through a variety of blogs posted in his memory by people young and old, whether they knew him directly or not. It not only thrills me to read the vast heartfelt stories on how he touched the lives of so many but I also swell with pride to think that I am related to such a charismatic individual. A few summers ago, I went with my family to Quantico Marine Academy to attend a ceremony where a memorial was being dedicated to those Marine athletes who died in Vietnam. There were 12 honored, Bruce being one of them. His fellow teammates shared with me a story where after their first practice together, a few teammates pulled Bruce aside and asked who exactly he was and how in the world had they not heard of him before? Bruce’s response was simple and short, I shared a position with Dick Butkus at University of Illinois. The teammates went on to inform me that Bruce and Dick were roommates when the team traveled to away games and how those two personalities could not have been further apart on the spectrum! Even during Bruce’s busy collegiate athletic schedule, he took time to telegram his Glenbard team encouragement and cheer before their games. One Marine described Bruce to be known as the Gentle Giant, a quiet leader. This year, on the day of the Rose Bowl, instead of watching this year’s game, I popped in my DVD of the 1964 Rose Bowl to watch my Uncle snap the ball for the Fighting Illini. I think of myself blessed to have his legacy remain alive in so many ways. I was born and raised in Kansas, graduating a Jayhawker from the University of Kansas, so when I read about the Hilltoppers’ deep seeded tradition of the Hitters Club and that becoming a nickname, I swelled with pride to think my Uncle was a contributor to something that lives strongly and vibrantly today.
Claasen’s parents now live in Virginia and she has a sister in Phoenix. Their connection to Hitters football is fueled today by the Internet.
Duchon’s house was just around the corner from Capel’s and his parents Wally and Lillian.
“I saw the military car in the driveway when I was coming home,” Duchon recalls. “I told my wife (Peggy), ‘We just lost Bruce.”
The entire University of Illinois football team attended his funeral service at First Methodist Church in Glen Ellyn. Capel is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery several blocks away from the football field, where he first achieved fame.
Since 1967, an Illinois football player is given annually the Bruce Capel Award for the “Most Courageous Fighting Illini player.” Past recipients include current Loyola football coach John Holecek (1999), Matt Cushing (1995), Robert Holcombe (1997) and Downers Grove North graduate Kyle Kleckner (2005).
One of Capel’s former classmates in Glen Ellyn, Dick Burton, wrote a tribute to Capel on a website for veterans.
Capel’s headstone at Forest Hill Cemetery in Glen Ellyn. | Courtesy Mike Harrington.
