Ed Mathey ’86 did not intentionally set out to pursue a career in coaching, but his tenure as a baseball student-athlete at North Central College seemed destined to push him in that direction.
After transferring to North Central and recovering from an injury his first year on campus, he enjoyed the opportunity to team up with fellow students of the game and competitive success soon followed, as the Cardinals won three College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) regular-season championships and two CCIW Tournament titles during Mathey’s time in uniform.
“I had an opportunity at another place and unfortunately tore up my knee and had to have surgery,” he said. “That changed the trajectory of a lot of stuff. Coach (Tom) Purcell ’74 was the coach, and he was from the south suburbs of Chicago just like I am. I had two older brothers who’d had the chance to play some professional baseball and Coach Purcell knew of them, so it made the transition easier for me.”
Mathey earned First Team All-CCIW honors as a pitcher in his junior season of 1985, and as a senior, got another nudge in the direction of a coaching career during what would be a comeback victory against Carroll University.
“Coach Purcell had been thrown out of the game,” Mathey said. “Kirby Cannon was our pitching coach and was also the third-base coach, but he had to return to the dugout, and he sent me out to take his place as third-base coach as a senior. I guess that might have been where it all started.”
After four years as an assistant coach, Mathey took over as North Central’s head coach prior to the start of the 1994 season and led the Cardinals to CCIW regular-season and tournament titles that spring. The program also swept both championships in 1996 and 1998 and won 205 games in nine years before Mathey departed to take over as head coach at Northern Illinois University after the 2002 campaign.
Since his return to Naperville prior to the 2015 season, North Central has won six consecutive CCIW regular-season titles and three conference tournament championships, advancing to the semifinals of the NCAA Division III College World Series in 2017, the program’s highest national finish to date.
More than anything, Mathey has found the North Central campus to be an ideal home environment for himself, wife Colleen and children Patrick, Mickey ’21 and Juliet ’22, and considers it an easy sell for prospective students seeking the same.
“We’ve got a wonderful academic institution that is continuing to achieve great things at the regional and national levels,” he said. “Within athletics, we’ve got tremendous facilities where young people can continue to develop and grow at what they love to do, and a beautiful campus in a great neighborhood. It’s such a remarkable combination of things that I don’t think is matched in a lot of places.”
