Opportunity knocked, Borgini answered

GILLESPIE — The tug on Don Borgini’s heart was a strong one. That’s why the former Gillespie High football player decided to return home and become the Miners’ new head coach.

“I’m really excited about,” Borgini, the Carlinville Cavaliers head coach the past eight seasons, said Tuesday. “There have been a lot of emotions because Carlinville is a tremendous school district. But Gillespie has a lot of great things to offer.

“Sometimes when the opportunity knocks, you have to take a look at it,” the 48-year-old Borgini said.

Gillespie principal Joe Tieman made sure the Miners knocked loudly on Borgini’s door. They got the guys they wanted.

“I don’t want to speak for Don, but he told me he wanted to end his career where he started it,” Tieman said after Borgini officially took the coaching reins Monday night.

The Gillespie School Board accepted him to replace Casey Sholtis, thus reuniting Borgini with his former school. The 1977 Gillespie High graduate was a successful coach at Virden and Carlinville, yet sought an opportunity to come home.

“We’re thrilled,” Tieman said. “His record is that he will gets kids out to play football. And more important that football, as far as I’m concerned, is that we’ll have him on board as a physical education and driver’s education teacher.

“He will have positive influence with all of our students,” Tieman said.

Borgini’s leaving a football program that won the South Central Conference West last season and stepping into one that has struggled the past two years.

Gillespie, which was 15-32 under Casey Sholtis, the Miners coach the past five seasons, went 2-7 last season after going 0-9 in 2006. However, just three years ago, Gilelspie went 8-3 and finished first — at 5-0 — in the West.

“Don will get the program rolling (again),” said Gillespie school board member Don Dobrino, the head coach at Mount Olive and Borgini’s former quarterback with the Miners. Borgini, a 1977 graduate, served as quarterback for the 1976 team that finished second in the 2A state finals.

The Miners were 163-99-1 during Dobrino’s 27-year tenure that began in 1970. The 1990 team compiled a 12-2 record and finished second in the 2A finals. From 1995-2004, Gillespie couldn’t produce a winning season, which included Dobrno’s last two years, six under Jack Burns and Sholtis’ first two seasons.

Gillespie is competing in the SCC one more year before hooking up with the revised Prairie State Conference in 2009-10. Staunton is also making the switch. The Miners have been a part of the SCC since the 1920s.

“The Prairie State is a good move for us,” Tieman said. “The South Central was great for us, but we had to make a choice to move forward.”

Borgini said Gillespie’s decision to switch conferences didn’t figure into his decision to leave Carlinville.

“It had no impact on it at all,” he said. “It was an opportunity to go back home and where my dad (the late Emil) was for 35-36 years.”