For Whalen family, so much good comes from bad experience

Money and gift cards rolled in.

Mounds of clothes, food and toys appeared out of nowhere.

And then there was the pizza.

On a chilly night last fall, a pizzeria in Lake County held a fundraiser for a local family that had just seen its house completely destroyed by a fire. Proceeds from each pizza sold would go to the family.

Within hours, the restaurant ran out of dough.

This is what those of us in the sports world refer to as “stepping up.”

The village of Grayslake stepped up in a major way and rallied around a well-liked and longtime member of its own sports community: Grayslake Central baseball coach Troy Whalen.

For Whalen, baseball season is always the best time of year.

But this year in particular, it’s been a blessing for him, a welcome refuge from some very harsh realities in his life.

It was a tough fall and winter, after all.

“Very tough,” Whalen confirmed. “To stand across the street and see your house on fire ... it’s not something you ever want to go through again.”

Out of bad ...

The morning of November 1, 2010, was a normal morning.

Whalen was working from home in his den, with Mr. B, the family’s three-legged beagle, lounging nearby. His wife, Karen, was out shopping and their three children — 13-year-old Brett, 9-year-old Kelsey and 7-year-old Brendan — were all at school.

Out of nowhere, Mr. B started going nuts. He was jumping and pacing and stuffing his nose under the den door.

When Whalen opened the door, he heard glass breaking and rushed downstairs. Flames were shooting everywhere.

Whalen tried to extinguish the fire with a blanket but was overwhelmed by its size and intensity. He and Mr. B quickly made their way outside and waited for the fire trucks whose sirens were already blaring in the distance.

Help arrived in just three minutes. But by then, the house was already engulfed in flames.

“I stopped by later that day just to give Coach some words of encouragement, to let him know that everybody on the team was pulling for him,” said Grayslake Central senior shortstop Austin Miller, who was among many current and former players to check in with Whalen and offer support. “To see his house ... it was shocking. You never think something like that could happen to someone you know.”

Officials determined that the fire was started by coals that were in the Whalen’s garbage can located outside the garage. The family had built a fire in their fire pit the night before, Halloween night.

Whalen had doused the coals and carefully disposed of them as he had hundreds of times before.

“The fire inspector called the accident one in a million,” Whalen said. “Something just re-lit, re-ignited. It blew a hole in the garbage can and it got in the garage. There was some gasoline in the garage and that fueled it and the fire just worked its way up the side of the house.”

What wasn’t destroyed by the fire was ruined by smoke and water.

A few keepsakes that were stored in the basement, such as Karen’s wedding dress, some scrapbooks and Troy’s baseball memorabilia, were retrieved by firefighters. But essentially, the Whalens lost everything.

“I was missing my toys,” Brendan Whalen said.

None of them survived the fire. Furniture, appliances, electronics, clothing, essentials ... also all destroyed.

“Everything was gone,” Karen Whalen said. “We had the clothes on our backs and that was it. Everything else was lost.”

And yet, amid all that loss, so much would be gained. Far more, in fact, than the Whalen family could have ever imagined in the throes of their darkest hour.

... comes good

The only thing the Whalens are more grateful for than the fact that no one was hurt in the fire is the unimaginable outpouring of support and generosity they received from the community.

From the players Whalen coaches and their parents, to neighbors, friends and even strangers, the family saw so much good come from such an awful experience.

Not only were people reaching out with words of encouragement and support (like the five players who graduated from Whalen’s 2010 team and returned from college the weekend of the fire to visit with him), people were also reaching deep into their pocket books.

“It was shocking,” Kelsey Whalen said. “People were always dropping off stuff to help us. It felt nice.”

Chris Hosford has had two sons play for Whalen — Andrew and Nicolas.

When she heard about the fire, she started e-mailing everyone she could think of, starting with Whalen’s second family: the baseball families.

“(The Whalens) were going to need everything, down to toothbrushes and all that kind of stuff,” Hosford said. “My first thought was, ‘What can we get together quickly?’ I sent out an e-mail to all the baseball families and asked for them to forward it to everyone they knew.

“I was hoping to have some basic items and a few hundred dollars to give to the family, but it turned into something much more than that. I had people stopping by my house constantly with donations, with money, with gift cards, with toys for the kids. There were people I didn’t even know knocking on my door. To see so many people in our town come together like that and rally for Troy and his family was incredible. People just wanted to do something.”

And the people of Grayslake kept doing more and more and more for the Whalens.

In addition to all of the donations that were collected by neighbors and the parents of Whalen’s players, a fundraiser was organized for the family by the Grayslake Central Dugout Club, the fundraising arm of the baseball team.

The Whalens received a portion of the proceeds for every pizza sold at Emil’s restaurant that day.

“Emil’s set a record for pizzas sold in one day,” said Dugout Club president Bill Hamrick, who helped organize the fundraiser. “They sold well over 1,700 pizzas during the fundraiser. They were even getting orders the night before. It was amazing.

“What the Whalens went though was such a tragedy and it was so traumatic, but what came out of it was such a feel-good moment for our community. So many people have been touched by Troy in this community, so many people know him and they rushed to help. This is a great community. People here have great concern for their neighbors.”

The Whalens have nothing but tremendous gratitude and admiration for theirs.

They organized a “Thank You Night” at Emil’s for the community, but they say they’ll never be able to truly thank or repay everyone for their kindness.

“This has been a very humbling experience,” Whalen said. “But no one should feel sorry for us. We are just fine and a lot of that is because we received so much help and support from the people in this community.

“We love living here and are so proud to raise our kids here.”

Up from the ashes

The Whalens will continue to raise their children in Grayslake.

In fact, they’ll be raising them on the same property they were living on before the fire. Their house was demolished in January, and a new house is being built in the same spot, just with a different floor plan.

They’ll be ready to move out of their rental house and into the new house this summer. They’re looking forward to being back in a house with a high ceiling so that they can get an extra-tall Christmas tree again. Just like they did before the fire.

Mostly though, they’re excited to once again be a part of the neighborhood they’ve lived in for 16 years.

“I’m really looking forward to getting back to where all my friends are,” Brett Whalen said.

The Whalens now realize that they had more friends than they even knew.

“We’ve talked about this a lot and we’ve tried to make this a learning experience for our family,” Karen Whalen said. “Through all the bad, we saw a lot of good in people. We realized that what’s important is not the stuff or the things in your life. It’s the people.”

pbabcock@dailyherald.com