Longtime southwest IL coach and principal remembered as a ‘larger-than-life’ mentor

As an educator, Dennis Grimmer left an indelible mark — not just on the students at O’Fallon Township High School and then St. Teresa Catholic School in Belleville, but on his colleagues.

Described as magnetic, charismatic and “larger than life in the very, very best way,” future principals, coaches, athletic directors and candidates for alderman counted Grimmer as a friend and a mentor.

Grimmer died at his home in O’Fallon Wednesday night. He was 71.

Grimmer began teaching and coaching at OTHS in 1973. After more than 20 years, he became the principal in 1994.

“Dennis was a tremendous mentor to me personally,” OTHS Principal Rich Bickel said. When Bickel was hired as a teacher in the district nearly 30 years ago, Grimmer was the chair of the social studies department.

During the 1990s, the city of O’Fallon and its corresponding high school grew dramatically; at one point, space was so tight that Bickel and Grimmer were sharing a classroom.

“He showed so many people the way forward and the way to be a difference maker in education and in everybody’s lives,” Bickel said. “He was that example. He lived that example. It was something that was impressed upon me from a very young age, just by watching him.”

By the time former Panthers football coach Brandon Joggerst was hired in O’Fallon in 1995, Grimmer was the newly-minted principal and “very excited for what O’Fallon was becoming.”

Grimmer had just wrapped up his coaching career and took Joggerst under his wing. Joggerst, who was an assistant coach and then head coach for a total of 24 years, recalled a time when the two were walking through the halls and Grimmer picked up a scrap of paper that was on the floor to throw away.

“He said ‘Remember this — no job is ever too small,’” Joggerst said. “ … He really raised me and guided me during those first few years of coaching.”

In 2004, Grimmer retired from O’Fallon, only to pick back up the mantle of principal at St. Teresa Catholic School in Belleville, where he’d work another 10 years. Every day, he’d welcome students as they walked through the door.

“He still had plenty of energy and needed something to do,” said Connie Crawford, parish secretary for St. Teresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church.

Crawford knew Grimmer not only through her job at the parish, but as her kids’ principal.

“I think he adopted every kid as his kid,” she said. “They all became part of his family.”

While the bulk of his career was spent working with high school students, Msgr. David Darin said Grimmer was “highly adaptable” when he moved to leading a PreK–8 school.

“The little kids loved him. He was like a grandfather to them,” said Darin, pastor at St. Teresa’s.

Todd Hackney decided to send his children to St. Teresa’s specifically so Grimmer would be their principal.

Hackney met Grimmer as a freshman at O’Fallon Township High School in 1983 when Grimmer was a teacher and a coach.

As a teenager and family friend, Hackney saw Grimmer as a great guy, but he said he didn’t really know Grimmer until he was an adult.

“He was the shepherd, so to speak,” Hackney said. “The little kids loved him, and the big kids respected him.”

While Grimmer worked at St. Teresa, his home parish was Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Shiloh. Still, he would come to events at St. Teresa’s to see his former students and colleagues.

Darin said Grimmer had his own following at the parish — the pastor included.

Service wasn’t relegated to the schools for Grimmer. In addition to working as a field supervisor for McKendree University’s department of education, he was a former alderman — Hackney is running for his old seat — and president of the O’Fallon Library Board.

“He just represented all of the very best qualities we strive for, not only as educators, but as people,” Bickel said. “ … I was fortunate enough to be in the front row of that inspiration.”

Grimmer’s visitation will be held on Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Schildknecht Funeral Home, 301 S. Lincoln Ave. in O’Fallon.