With the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country with the Declaration of Independence, history is in vogue in 2026.
This is the third of The State Journal-Register’s five-part series of some of the best athletes and/or sports figures of all time from its coverage area. Though it’s subjective and compiled by sports reporter Ryan Mahan, feel free to email sports@sj-r.com with your own thoughts and share to social media to foster additional feedback.
Not every single community in The State Journal-Register’s coverage area will be listed, but we think this list will be comprehensive for most of the area’s best all-time athletes or sports figures.
Part three is Macoupin and Morgan counties, headlined by two-time Olympian Kelsey Card and heavyweight boxing champion Ken Norton.
MACOUPIN COUNTY
CARLINVILLE
Kelsey Card
The two-time Olympian discus thrower from Carlinville (and three-sport standout in volleyball and basketball) recently was inducted into the University of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. In high school, Card swept the Class A/1A girls state track and field meet’s discus and shot put gold medals all four years (2008-11) and still holds the overall Illinois High School Association girls’ state record for discus with a throw of 167-feet, 4-inches (51.0032 meters) at the 2010 state meet at O’Brien Field in Charleston. She went on to star for the Badgers, where she was a four-time Big Ten Indoor Track and Field champion in weighted throw and shot put (2015-16), won three Big Ten Outdoor titles (shot put in 2015, shot put and discus in 2016), and won the 2016 NCAA Division I Women’s Outdoor Track and Field title in discus at 208-4¾. In 2016, she qualified for the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in discus and finished 25th. In the one-year-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she qualified in discus yet again and finished 28th. The 33-year-old is currently a marriage and family therapist in Madison, Wisconsin.
For all her success in throwing, her beginning in the sport didn’t seem to foreshadow her pinnacle. Her dad, Tom, took Brittany to the local park to work on throwing. He nudged Kelsey into giving it a try, and at first, she wasn’t having it.
“He decided to use the discus as a life lesson to teach me that if you work hard at something, you’re going to get better at it,” Card told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2016. “You may not be the best, you may not win, but you will get better at it. You know — work hard, work smart, all that.
“And so every Sunday I was dragged out there with my sister to throw the stupid discus. I hated it.”
MOUNT OLIVE
Mike Kreevich
If not for his coal mine closing, Kreevich may never have been able to display his knack for hitting baseballs. Born June 10, 1908 in Mount Olive, he dropped out of school at 16 to work in one of the local mines in the area. A hard, dirty and dangerous job, it helped him add strength and muscle. Bill Gleason wrote in a 1999 edition of the South Bend Tribune of the Mount Olive center fielder, “Kreevich was 5-foot-7 and husky. He charged across the grass on stumpy legs, pursuing a long drive with the persistence of the coal miner he had been.”
Kreevich spent 12 seasons in the big leagues, playing for the Chicago Cubs (five games in 1931), Chicago White Sox (1935-41), the 1942 Philadelphia Athletics, the St. Louis Browns from 1943-45, including on the 1944 team that faced the crosstown Cardinals in the “Streetcar” World Series. He wrapped up his career in 1945 with the Washington Nationals. He batted .283 over his career, including four seasons over .300, led the team in triples with 16 in 1937, drove in 514 runs and hit 45 homers. In the 1944 World Series, he battled against another central Illinois product: Lincoln’s Emil Verban.
He died in 1994 at 85 and is buried at the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, the burial site of famed union and labor activist Mother Jones.
STAUNTON
Barry Deist
A knee injury caused by a hit from all-American center and linebacker Dick Butkus at a University of Illinois football practice during the Illini’s 1963 Big Ten Champion and Rose Bowl-winning team might’ve derailed Deist’s college football career a bit, but he transferred to Truman State and ended as a two-sport athlete playing both baseball and football. With the Illini, the sophomore Deist was a left halfback. Before college, he left quite the mark with the Bulldogs. He was first-team all-South Central Conference from 1958-61 in football, was an all-state honorable mention in 1960, a two-time all-state honorable mention in 1961 and was a Champaign News-Gazette first-team all-state in 1961 and listed as an All-American honorable mention by Sporting News. In 1960, he rushed for 1,259 yards and added on 1,045 his senior season.
He also starred in track, where he was a Macoupin County champion in the 1961 200-meter dash, qualified for the state meet in the same event that year and won the conference 800-meter relay title in 1962. After his playing career ended, he returned to Staunton, where he was a teacher and athletic director and coached its baseball and football teams. In 15 seasons at the helm of the Bulldogs’ football program, Staunton went 75-61, qualified for the playoffs in 1977 and, under modern playoff qualifying scenarios, his team won five or more games nine times. He was inducted into the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2018. In 22 seasons guiding the Staunton baseball team, he went 176-156.
He died in 2020 at the age of 76.
MORGAN COUNTY
JACKSONVILLE
Ken Norton
The man who broke the jaw of Muhammad Ali isn’t the greatest athletic product in Jacksonville history, but one of the best heavyweight boxers of all time. Before the 1961 Jacksonville graduate beat Ali in a split decision, he was taking down opponents across track and field. According to a 2002 story in The State Journal-Register, Norton was entered into eight events in a dual meet against Decatur Eisenhower and won seven. The Illinois High School Association established a rule limiting athletes to four events in a meet. It’s still known as the ‘Norton Rule.’
“I’ll always remember what a great natural athlete he was,” the late Buford Green, a longtime sportswriter and editor for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier and later for The State Journal-Register, said. “He admitted he never lifted a weight. He was just a natural athlete. He was talented in a lot of fields. And he was proud of Jacksonville.”
In 1960, he helped the Crimsons’ football team finish 9-0, and he also excelled in basketball. Norton left college to join the Marines, where he took up boxing. He turned pro in 1967. Norton broke Ali’s jaw in a split-decision win in 1973. Six months later, the two squared off again, and this time, Ali won a split decision. A third meeting happened at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 28, 1976, where Ali narrowly won to keep his heavyweight title. “There was a lot of controversy,” said Green, who was in attendance. “They polled the media there, and the media said Ken had won decisively.”
Norton came back the next year to win a heavyweight title elimination bout and then was declared champion by the World Boxing Council after the champion at the time, Leon Spinks, declined to fight Norton and chose a more lucrative rematch with Ali instead. On June 9, 1978, Norton lost a 15-round fight against Larry Holmes. Norton finished with a record of 42-7-1 and 33 knockouts. Norton died in 2013 at 70.
Norton never forgot from where he came and often returned to Jacksonville. In 2009, a statue of Norton was unveiled at Pathway Services Unlimited Inc., in Jacksonville Community Park. “Ken always liked Jacksonville,” Green said. “He still has a lot of family here, a lot of cousins. He always made it known where his hometown was.”
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Card, Norton shine among Macoupin, Morgan stars | Best local athletes
Reporting by Ryan Mahan, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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By Ryan Mahan, Springfield State Journal-Register | USA TODAY Network
