James Rexilius (April 23, 1932 – June 25, 2003) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

coach. He was one of the more prominent and successful coaches in the Chicago area during his career. In 1992, he was inducted into the Illinois High School Football Coaches ''Hall of Fame''.

Coaching career

High school

Rexilius spent most of his career as the coach at

Wheaton North High School Wheaton North High School (WNHS), locally referred to as "North" is a public four-year high school in Wheaton, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. It is one of two high schools that are part of Community Unit School District 200, the other ...

where he coached

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...

and other sports.Michael Kates
"James `Jim' Rexilius, 71, longtime Wheaton N. coach,"
''Chicago Tribune'', June 26, 2003. Retrieved April 11, 2013. In his 27-year coaching career, Rexilius twice led his high-school teams to state championships—first in 1979 and again in 1986 after returning to the secondary-school level. When he retired as head coach, his overall high school record was 177 wins and 77 losses. It was at Wheaton North that he mentored a young

Chuck Long Charles Franklin Long Jr. (born February 18, 1963) is a former American football player and coach who is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Dallas Renegades of the XFL. He played quarterback in college at Iowa for Hayden F ...

toward a career in coaching.

Wheaton

Rexilius was head football coach at Wheaton College in

Wheaton, Illinois Wheaton is a suburban city in Milton and Winfield Townships and is the county seat of DuPage County, Illinois. It is located approximately west of Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 52,894, which was estimated ...

for the 1981 season, compiling a record of 2–7.

References

1932 births 2003 deaths Wheaton Thunder football coaches High school football coaches in Illinois {{1980s-collegefootball-coach-stub