Many people see Tom Dillivan as a substitute teacher or a basketball coach as he walks through the halls of Kaneland High School. They don’t see the captivating stories he has hidden underneath his Kaneland basketball merch and his cheerful smile. They know little about his life stories, adventures and past.
“Life has a lot of twists and turns to it,” Dillivan said. “My life has had a lot of twists and turns.”
Dillivan, 79, was born in Carroll, Iowa. Shortly after being born, he and his family moved to Spencer, Iowa. He grew up there with his five siblings.
Growing up, life wasn’t always easy for his family. His parents dropped out of high school because of the Great Depression, leaving it hard for them to make an income. His dad was an alcoholic struggling to keep a job, and his mother worked herself to death.
Due to constantly not being able to pay for rent, Dillivan and his family had to move homes frequently. Once he would get settled into one home, he had to move.
His family stayed in Spencer for 13 years, and Dillivan estimates they moved around 13 times from his kindergarten to senior year. Dillivan described himself as a timid kid. Constantly moving elementary schools was hard for him, but eventually, he got used to it.
“[Moving a lot] was a different experience than most kids had,” Dillivan said. “But it taught me to be resilient.”
Dillivan and his siblings wore hand-me-down clothes, and grooming and eating healthy was a challenge because of his family’s income. However, growing up in a small town was very helpful for Dillivan. People would notice his family’s struggles and support them.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for a librarian named Charlotte Tate,” Dillivan said.
Dillivan spent a lot of time at the library with his nose in a book. He loved reading, but he also used it as a place to go to get a break from his home life.
Tate, the librarian, noticed Dillivan at the library a lot. She knew about his home life and took him under her wing. Charlotte had two sons who accepted Dillivan like a brother.
“She became like a second mother to me,” Dillivan said. “She helped me get through high school and college. She really was the difference in the way I turned out.”
Dillivan’s brother was sent to a reform school. His older sister got pregnant and dropped out of high school, and one of his younger sisters also dropped out. He said that because of Mrs. Tate, he didn’t go that same route and continued through school.
Dillivan fell in love with music growing up. He was encouraged by his music teacher to sing a song in his sixth-grade talent show. He loved the applause and the attention he got. Dillivan grinned at all the applause and decided he would continue in music for the rest of his life.
Dillivan’s dad would take him to the bar and stand him up on the counter, where he would sing along with the jukebox. He tapped his feet along with the beat and belted out the lyrics. He knew all the songs by heart after listening to his mom sing around the house. Everyone at the bar adored him. The people at the bar loved the entertainment. They loved seeing a cute little boy singing along with the jukebox while they enjoyed a drink. They would slip him some cash and applaud. This brought a smile to young Dillivan’s face. He kept singing to make more money. He dreamed of all the things he could buy, like some candy or toys. However, his dad would take the money and then go buy another beer. His dad loved this idea of making money and would continue to bring Dillivan along. Dillivan spent time singing at the bar and grew to accept his dad would take all the money.
Music was a huge part of his life, but growing up, Dillivan was also involved in archery, baseball, basketball, football, tennis and track at his high school.
“The combination of athletics and music was a huge part of my life in high school,” Dillivan said.
Dillivan survived his high school years with the help of Mrs. Tate, music, athletics and his determination.
Dillivan was the first one in all of his extended family to attend college. He didn’t have anyone to pave the path for him. As a young man, he had to figure out how the whole college thing works on his own. Dillivan worked hard to change the status quo of his family.
With help from Mrs. Tate, working three jobs, a few scholarships and athletics, Dillivan could pay for junior college.
He attended Estherville Junior College in Estherville, Iowa, where he played basketball and baseball and performed in musicals.
He had no idea what he wanted to do with his adult life until he met a teacher who changed everything. He had never even thought about teaching until Mr. Demoney, his social studies teacher, saw potential in him. Mr. Demoney mentored him and helped him take the right classes on the path to becoming a teacher.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life,” Dillivan said. “He kind of planted that [teaching] seed.”
Once he graduated from junior college, Dillivan attended Northwest Missouri State University, where he got his degree in education. He also kept busy by performing in nightclubs with a small band he formed.
Right after graduating in 1968, he got drafted into the army. Fortunately, he never had to go overseas.
“It was Vietnam,” Dillivan said. “I had assumed I was going to probably get killed.”
After he served in the army, he had various teaching jobs. He was a substitute teacher for a while and transitioned into a social studies and physical education teacher. Everywhere he taught, he also coached sports. His main sport was basketball, though he coached other sports too.
After a while, he had an opportunity to travel with a show band, and he took it in a heartbeat. He left teaching for a couple of years and played with his band, Easy Money. They had to change the name to Easy after they found out there was another show band using that name. He was so glad he took this opportunity to perform and travel with his friends.
“Sometimes people get hit with an opportunity, and they don’t see the opportunity,” Dillivan said. “It just hits them in the face, and they were like, ‘What was that?’”
He eventually met a girl named Karol, at a club, and they fell in love. Once they got married, they decided that they needed to find a place to settle in instead of constantly being on the road.
Dillivan went back to teaching and coaching at a school in Iowa for eight years. After teaching for a while, he got burned out. He decided he needed to take a step back, so he stayed home with his two little kids as a stay-at-home dad while his wife worked as a registered nurse. Later, they moved to the Chicago area, where his wife is from.
Dillivan went back to work after a while and joined sales for twenty years. He still stayed involved in coaching by coaching his kids’ sports teams. While being involved in these sports teams, he met many people, and a lot of them were in education. They kept dragging on about how he should go back to being a teacher.
He wasn’t sure until Sept. 11, 2001: the day the entire world froze and collectively contemplated life. After 9/11, Dillivan reassessed his life and decided he wanted to go back to teaching. Because he had been out for a while, he eased back into it by substitute teaching.
After many years out of the education world, he needed to go back to recertify. He attended Northern Illinois University (NIU) where he took some graduate courses.
He taught for a year at a school in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. However, they had a referendum that failed, leaving 120 teachers, Dillivan included, without a job. It wasn’t long after that setback that he got the devastating news that he had cancer. His world crumbled in a matter of months.
To make matters worse, in the spring of 2005, his house was gutted with fire, leaving him and his family with no home or job.
Fortunately, he could get an operation done quickly to get rid of his cancer. His surgeon said if he had waited even two more weeks for the surgery, the cancer would’ve spread. He feels so fortunate they didn’t wait any longer.
While he was recovering, he got a call from a school he’d never heard of, Kaneland High School. They were looking for teachers and spotted his application online. He decided he would just use Kaneland as a practice interview for his other interviews. He eventually got the job and taught at Kaneland.
“I thought, ‘Well, it’s a long drive, but I’ll do it for a year,’” Dillivan said. “It turned into 11 years. I liked the kids, the people I was working with, my colleagues, and I got used to the drive (from Schaumburg).”
Dillivan was instantly respected and loved by the teachers and coaching staff at Kaneland.
“[He is] loyal and extremely passionate about his students, extremely passionate about his family and extremely passionate about his friends,” Kaneland boys varsity basketball coach Ernie Colombe said. “He’s just an overall good guy and somebody who wants to see everyone succeed.”
Dillivan has been a part of both the girls and boys basketball programs and continues to inspire the athletes and coaches.
“[He is] very fundamentally sound,” physical education teacher and girls basketball coach Jenna Thorp said. “He is knowledgeable in a lot of topics. He is goofy and fun to be around. He is quite the character.”
He eventually retired from coaching and teaching in 2015, but Coluombe kept asking him to come back to the basketball program.
“He’s a good coach and we wanted him to keep having a positive impact on our players,” Colombe said.
As of this past season, Dillivan continued to coach and support the boys basketball program. He is a big inspiration to his players on and off the court.
“He’s a great guy,” said Freddy Hassan, a senior on this year’s basketball team who also had Dillivan as an assistant coach when Hassan was a freshman. “[He is] always trying to get us better in practice and as people.”
He goes into coaching every day with enthusiasm, passion and determination, making him a great coach.
“Nothing great is accomplished without enthusiasm,” Dillivan said. “Going into everything with enthusiasm, whether it’s your work, play, relationships or coaching, you have to be enthusiastic about stuff. You have to really get into it and enjoy it. Otherwise, it’s work.”
Currently, Dillivan enjoys spending time with his wife, two kids and four grandchildren. He also enjoys traveling, reading, golfing and continuing to coach the boys varsity basketball team at Kaneland. He is also a soloist in his church choir. Now and then he also subs at Kaneland, but most of his sub jobs are in Schaumburg, where he lives.
A lot of extraordinary things have happened in Dillivan’s life, which makes him feel like a lucky guy. Dillivan has a lifetime’s worth of stories, a positive outlook on life and a life full of hardships and blessings.
