Longtime Wheaton College track coach led mission trips
Don Church taught physical education at Wheaton College, where he was head track coach for close to 40 years and an assistant football coach for two decades.
Known as “Bubba,” Church also led numerous mission trips overseas, often with athletes.
“He was probably the greatest encourager I’ve ever met in my life. He brought out the best in people,” said the Rev. Paul Atwater, who ran track and played football at Wheaton College in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “I’m a pastor today and I was probably encouraged more spiritually by Bubba Church and some of the coaches in the track and football programs, and I was discipled to a certain degree by him more than I was by my professors in the biblical studies department.”
Church, 85, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease Jan. 16 at the Auberge memory care community in Naperville, said his son, David. He had been a longtime Wheaton resident.
Donald Lee Church was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and moved with his family to Kansas as a child. He received a bachelor’s degree in botany in 1957 from Wheaton College, where he played on the football team.
After graduating, Church was hired by Wheaton as a coach and began teaching physical education. He soon was promoted to assistant professor.
In 1959, Church became Wheaton’s head track coach. He also started coaching running backs on the football team.
Church left Wheaton for one year to get a master’s degree in education from the University of Northern Colorado in 1970. He returned to the college in 1970 as an associate professor of physical education, and he continued coaching track and football.
“He tried to do a really good job wherever he was, but he wasn’t a person who looked to receive credit for anything he’d done,” former Wheaton basketball coach Dick Helm said.
Amy Sandberg, a member of the women’s track team at Wheaton in the mid-1990s, said that “as much as he loved track, I think he loved the athletes more than the coaching itself.”
“He genuinely cared about you as a person, about your hopes, your dreams, your struggles, your joys,” she said. “He wanted you to reach your potential as an athlete, but he cared more about who you were as a person. Track was just the vehicle through which he got to connect.”
Sandberg said Church related to students by noting his own academic struggles at Wheaton in the 1950s.
“Wheaton was a hard school and he was so humble and encouraging for kids who might be great athletes but for whom the academic part was hard,” Sandberg said. “Also, he was a safe person — whatever your issue, whether it was a family issue or a school issue, you knew you could drop by his office and he would drop everything to talk to you.”
In 1968, Church began bringing track team members overseas to compete against runners from other countries and also to share their Christian faith. Starting with a trip to Mexico, Church brought athletes both from Wheaton and from other colleges to Africa in 1972 and to Eastern European countries in 1978, 1983 and 1986.
“Dad knew all these Division I coaches, because he was always trying to get kids into meets and invitationals,” David Church said. “He’d call Missouri’s coach and say, ‘Do you have any athletes for me? I’m going to Africa this summer.’ And coaches would say something like, “Yes, I have this athlete who’s a really strong Christian and who’s an 18foot pole vaulter.’ It was that kind of thing.”
Church later organized mission trips without an athletic component.
“The mission trips really stemmed from a desire to share the gospel but also his role as a connector — he loved to connect people’s gifts with a problem that needed to be solved,” David Church said.
Church formed Wheaton College’s Faculty Missionary Project in 1983.
Wheaton College Chaplain Emeritus Stephen Kellough recalled seeing Church with a student, faculty member or staff person, “and you could be sure that in such meetings Don would be offering a word of encouragement.”
Church was named Wheaton College’s Alumnus of the Year in 1986.
After retiring from teaching and coaching in 1997, Church continued going on mission trips, mostly to Eastern Europe. He also had a talent for construction — and in fact, built his own house on Wheaton’s north side — and spent time during retirement continuing more than 40 years of volunteering on charitable construction projects undertaken by Chicago’s Lawndale Community Church, including a health center and a recreation center.
“He was there for spiritual guidance, and he didn’t shy away from getting his hands dirty,” said Wayne Gordon, Lawndale Community Church’s pastor. “He built a lot of things. He worked a lot with our Hope House, which is men just getting out of prison and men just getting out of drugs. Don built their kitchen tables, he helped build some of their beds, he helped build their bathrooms.”
Church’s wife of 57 years, Ann, died in 2015. Survivors also include two other sons, Andy and Tom; a sister, Leota Mayer; a brother, Allen; and three grandchildren.
There will a memorial service at 1 p.m. March 21 at College Church, 332 E. Seminary Ave., Wheaton.