Although he was born in St. Louis and insists on remaining a Cardinals fan, Jim Newport has been a fixture in Aurora education and athletics since 1969.
That was the year that he arrived in town to teach and coach at Marmion Academy, retiring last spring at the end of the school year.
While just a youngster, he moved with his family to Chicago and again to Chicago Heights, where he attended Marian Catholic High School.
Newport graduated from Quincy University, got married to wife Cindy, and began his teaching and coaching career in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, followed by a stop in Galesburg, Illinois.
While teaching primarily American history, he coached lower-level teams at Marmion until becoming head varsity basketball coach in 1971.
The 1970s are considered by many to be the most exciting decade for Aurora high school basketball, and Newport’s Marmion teams were in the thick of that excitement. The Cadets made a trip to the state finals in 1976, and by the time he left the school in 1981, Newport had become the second winningest basketball coach in the school’s history.
He then left the education field, but returned to Marmion as a teacher in 2001, finishing with his recent retirement.
But Newport’s dedication to the school community continues and has even grown as he puts in many hours a week searching the school’s archives as Marmion’s unofficial historian.
He said he needs your help, especially if you are a Marmion alumnus (or family member of one) from long ago.
“Father Joel Rippinger, a Marmion monk, started working on the archives a long time ago, and he ‘rescued’ a lot of things,” Newport said. “Nobody was taking care of them.”
During the past summer, Rippinger and Newport went into the tunnels under the school and rescued many boxes of pictures.
“Those boxes are probably not 20 percent of the photos we have,” he said. “At my current rate of scanning and filing, I can have a job for at least the next 75 years.”
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Newport’s immediate goal is to have something ready for a Marmion Veterans Day celebration. His focus is on former Marmion students who died in or served in World War II. He said that he is still inspired by the gold stars displayed on the pillars of the church of his childhood — each representing a service person killed in the war.
“I want to investigate and name Marmion people who participated in World War II.” he said. “We have many who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
“In 1942, our yearbook listed about 150 to 200 kids who were in the service — and that was early in the war. Marmion’s classes were smaller then, so the servicemen made up a big portion of those classes. I’d like to get pictures and stories about who did what, and try to dig up more information on everyone.
“We would like to know how many kids we had participating, from which class, and what happened to them,” he said.
Newport established a website, cadetsports.com, which contains a folder called “Cadets Past.” The gallery contains primarily athletic team and individual photos, but many are from the early years of the school which began under the name of Marmion in 1933. More importantly, many of those young men went to the service. He continues to try to identify individuals, and to find photos from years that are missing.
“We’re constantly trying to update information and find pictures,” he said.
Any kinds of pictures people have would be appreciated, he said.
“We are also interested in old uniforms and other types of Marmion memorabilia,” he said.
Newport is hoping to hear from as many people as possible. His email address is [email protected]
“Any information on World War II veterans is especially appreciated,” he said. “We can’t give too much honor to those people.”
Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News