ASHBURN — Longtime St. Rita football coach Jim Angsten died on Tuesday afternoon after a three-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Angsten, 68, served as the defensive coordinator for the Mustangs' football team for 20 years.
Along the way he taught countless young men at the Catholic high school at 7740 S. Western Ave. in Ashburn the value of being tough, said his daughter, Jamie Baltazar.
"He was never down, and he fought all the way until the end," she said Wednesday afternoon.
Angsten also coached football at Montini Catholic High School in suburban Lombard, Homewood-Flossmoor High School and at Joliet Junior College.
Despite living with an incurable disease, Baltazar said her father's death came as a shock. The Chicago Catholic League Hall of Fame coach seemed to have bounced back from a respiratory infection just days earlier.
Still, Angsten, a resident of south suburban Tinley Park, had been unable to walk for about a year because of the paralyzing disease that inhibits the brain's ability to control muscle movement.
Just ahead of his illness taking hold, Baltazar organized a benefit at St. Rita on March 8, 2014. Proceeds went to help pay for Angsten's future medical expenses.
Many of Angsten's former players and students arrived to celebrate with the no-nonsense coach who remained on staff at the all-male high school as a gym teacher until his illness forced him to retire that June.
"He was all about working hard and being tough," said Baltazar, adding that her father's message seemed to resonate with countless former students.
One example came in a letter Baltazar received prior to the benefit from Nick Kallenbach, a hockey player who graduated from St. Rita in 1984.
Kallenbach described himself as a scrawny player with "more will than skill." He said the only way he felt he could contribute to the team was by being aggressive. But this also made him a fixture in the penalty box.
The hockey coach sent the often-penalized player to Angsten. Kallenbach described his struggles to the football coach, confessing to being "too aggressive."
"What's the problem with that?" Kallenbach recalled as Angsten's surprising response.
Rather than teach him to quell his hostility, Angsten encouraged him to focus. For Kallenbach, this culminated on the ice when a rival player punched him in the back of the head several times trying to draw him into a fight.
Instead, the once-troublesome player waited until the next faceoff. He then legally smashed his rival into the boards, eliciting a roar of the crowd rather than a referee's whistle.
"When you started coming to our hockey games, I found that I was trying to make you proud," Kallenbach wrote to Angsten.
Visitation services for Angsten will be held from 3-8 p.m. Thursday in the chapel at St. Rita. A funeral Mass is set for 9 a.m. Friday at the South Side high school.
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