Bill Finn has always been fearless.

Like the time when he was in his early 20s, grabbed a rotary phone and dialed the head groundskeeper at Comiskey Park, the since-demolished former home of the Chicago White Sox.

Finn was at the beginning of what would amount to a four-decade career as the director of athletics from 1983 to 2023 at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, as well as a longtime successful men’s basketball, and men’s tennis and women’s tennis coach, when he called Roger Bossard, aka The Sodfather.

“The field looked so (crappy) back then so I knew I had to fix the field, so I called the White Sox and Roger Bossard. Someone put him on the phone and I said, ‘I’m the new AD at Moraine Valley and we’ve got a (crappy) field) so could you come and look at it?’

He said, ‘Bill, I’m coming home soon. I live in Flossmoor and I’ll come by. It’s no big deal.”

A lot of what Finn did at Moraine Valley, like improving the baseball field, was a big deal.

He was inducted into its Athletics Hall of Fame on Feb. 6 along with three-sport star Renee Strasser — a three sport star from 1983 to 1985, and Mary Ann Lessner, the school’s athletics secretary from 1982 to 2010.“Mary Ann was and is an unbelievable woman — 93 years old and so smart,” Finn said. “She was just awesome. She made it easy to do my things, getting excellent players for all sports and getting the best coaches and not being recognized as a silly community college. I hated people calling it Moron Valley. I haven’t heard that in 40 years.”

Communication technology was a whole different ball game in the ‘80s.

“I made cold calls,” Finn said. “There’s a picture of (former White Sox great) Minnie Minoso, who showed up at one of our sports luncheons and there’s another of (DePaul coaching legend) Ray Meyer. So I was just cold calling, crazy stuff. (Former White Sox manager) Jerry Manuel came out and (TV sports anchor) Tim Weigel. I found a card from (Weigel) right before he died. He was such a good friend. I was just trying to do a good job.”

Finn was the men’s head basketball coach for the Cyclones for 22 years, from 1981 to 2004. His teams won 20 or more games in all but two seasons and he finished with a 506-210 record.

His teams appeared in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II national tournament four times.

“They key was getting good talented players,” he said. “I knew I would be a good coach. I was cocky and confident that I’d do a good job. I’m sure my name helped me when I was getting started. I would go to a lot of games and talk to coaches and the players. It helped that they knew me as a top player in high school who was all over the newspapers.”

As women’s tennis coach from 2004 to 2012 and men’s tennis coach from 2005 to 2013, Finn’s teams made 14 national tournament appearances.

Finn was named Coach of the Year 27 times. That is not a typo. Now 66, he has been inducted into seven halls of fame. Finn, who was just the second AD in school history, started just a year after the school had chosen Marauders as a team name. After a campus-wide renaming effort in 1997, the Marauders became the Cyclones in 1998.

“We’ve had some great players, like Richaun Holmes with the Washington Wizards and Bobby Madtrisch with the Seattle Mariners,” Finn said. “And we used to have football. We built a football stadium on campus and had six players in the NFL during the (1987) strike as Spare Bears. We had great people around like Mary Ann Lessner and Geoff Davis, our trainer, and he’s still there. I was ambitious and it just worked out. It was a great ride.”

Lessner was hired in 1982 by the college’s original athletic director, Doug Gierke.

In a year where some began calling 867-5309 because of the popularity of a Tommy Tutone hit song, she frequently spent time on the phone scheduling games, assigning transportation to road games, finding and scheduling officials for home contests, ordering team supplies and more.

“Everything was old school,” she said. “We were just a tiny little department off in the corner. Nobody knew much of what we were doing. We had just expanded intercollegiate athletics at the time. My desk, typewriter and one file cabinet. Everything was by phone. No cell phones at that time. It was mainly being in the office and taking care of everything. It was kind of like taking care of family at home, and I was raising children at home and kind of continued that.”

Lessner’s background was accounting, although she also regularly kept the scorebook while her husband coached their sons in Little League.

“It was a big combination of everything, kind of a jack-of-all trades,” she said. “I had to schedule games, be sure teams had their transportation. We had three vans at the school so we had to make sure we scheduled home games and away games so everyone wasn’t traveling at the same time. We had to make sure there was meal money, officials for the different sports, order uniforms and equipment and make sure it arrived before their particular season. But it was great. The type of people who work in education are marvelous, doing their best for the students. It was a wonderful atmosphere where you could see the sacrifices all the coaches made to do the best job for the students.”

Lessner’s five kids ranged in school from first grade to college when she started working. She truly created a home-like environment in the athletics office, a secondary home for countless student-athletes who were adapting to life away from high school, adjusting to young adulthood.

“It felt so comfortable,” she said. “It was a safe place for them to come and be relaxed. I think the influence that the athletes received from the coaches was one of the big things Bill (Finn) and our department were able to create. It felt like a homey atmosphere. So many of them would come back later for a game or just to visit to see how we were doing and they went on to do good things.”

That would include Stasser who was one of the school’s finest athletes when Finn and Lessner were just getting started. After a tremendous athletic career where she starred in three sports, Stasser moved on to a successful career in law enforcement, spending almost 30 years with the La Grange Police Department, including a stint as its chief.

“Playing sports I was engaging with others out there so I knew I didn’t want to sit behind a desk,” she said. “I’m a go go go person. My twin brother was on his way home from LaGrange (one day) and said they were hiring. I was at Indiana State (University) debating what I was doing and he grabbed the application and I spent 28 wonderful years working with amazing people. Sports taught me leadership, cultural awareness, discipline and time management. I had no idea how important time management would be until that job.”

Losing teammate Renee Saban in an automobile accident in 1985 provided an early life lesson that stuck with Strasser.

“You don’t expect those things at such a young age,” she said. “Life from that point took on a new meaning. I wanted to win for her and when you add all the emotion of being an athlete, I walked away much more grown up. Life from that point forward had a new sense of urgency. I didn’t put things off tomorrow that could be done today and that’s a mantra for me today.’

Softball has always been Strasser’s favorite sport, but she was a stud on the volleyball court and basketball hardwood, too.

“Back in those days there was nothing else to do other than sports,” she said. “There were no video games. The worst thing was being told you can’t go outside.”

Strasser helped the volleyball team win the NJCAA Region IV State Volleyball Tournament in 1983 and to third place a year later. She helped basketball earn an NJCAA sectional championship her freshman season and then helped the team go 31-2 to place second in the NJCAA Region IV State Championship her sophomore year. Strasser also helped the softball team place third in state and seventh nationally as a freshman and to second place at state a year later.

Her freshman year, she was named to the N4C All-Conference second team for volleyball. For softball, she earned N4C All-Conference first team honors both seasons and earned NJCAA Region IV All-Tournament first team as well as Moraine Valley Best Offensive Player and Most Valuable Player her sophomore year as a shortstop/outfielder.

She also was named Moraine Valley Woman Athlete of the Year both seasons and earned the prestigious NJCAA Division II All-America first team designation in 1985.

“Moraine served as the foundation for success in life I didn’t realize at the time,” she said. “Sports helped my time management skills. Each team I played on, whether it was volleyball, basketball or softball, there was a distinct set of behaviors and values. They weren’t all the same so I learned a sense of cultural awareness. With three different coaches, they had their own rules and helped develop discipline. We learned there was no quit. That was the culture, down to the last point, the last out. That was our identity.”

These days, all three new Hall of Famers remain busy.

Strasser, who retired in 2017, got a knee replaced and enjoys cycling and helping others.

“I’m enjoying life,” she said. “I’m very blessed.”

Finn is a volunteer varsity boys basketball coach at Lincoln-Way West ,where his daughter, Molly, is a junior two-sport standout. She just helped the girls basketball team win a regional. Now she’s gearing up for her main sport, softball. She’s already committed to play at Valparaiso.

“Since retiring I’ve spent the past four seasons with the boys varsity basketball team as a volunteer assistant, so I don’t have the pressure of a head coach, but I can’t make any calls,” he said. “My daughter is 16 and plays softball and basketball so getting to see her play was the main reason I retired.”

And then there’s Lessner who cannot wait for the dog days of summer to arrive. Accompanying those hot, sultry days, is her first great grandchild.

“Only one of the (eight) grandchildren is married, and they got married two years ago and are expecting a baby (boy) on Aug. 1,” she said.

“So that will be our first great grandchild so we’re all looking forward to that. We’ve got some big golfers in the family so they’re excited to be getting another golfer. It’s been wonderful. I’ve been very lucky to still be healthy and to be around our children. It’s all kind of come full circle. We all started together and got inducted at the same time. It means a lot to me.”

C.R. Walker is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.