EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mahomet Daily will feature each of the four new selections for the Mahomet Education Foundation Hall of Fame in upcoming days. Today’s focus, Dirk Handlin.
By FRED KRONER
There was a time when Dirk Handlin was bigger than most of the students in his class.
By the time he graduated from Mahomet-Seymour in 1992, Handlin was no longer the biggest,but was better than all of the students in his class, which for track and field encompassed all of the 1A schools in the state.
As a senior, Handlin was a state champion in both the shot put and the discus. Also a football standout, he received a full scholarship to Purdue, where he was on the team for four years and lettered for two.
For his athletic exploits, he is one of four persons who will be enshrined in the Mahomet-Seymour Schools Foundation Hall of Fame on Friday, Sept. 22.
The ceremony, scheduled to take place prior to a 7 o’clock high school football game that night between the Bulldogs and Taylorville, will also include 1985 graduate Karl Welke as well as 1989 graduate James Heinold and the late Judy Swiger, a long-time English teacher and drama director in the district.
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Handlin’s high school success was not a surprise. As an eighth-grader, he not only won the IESA discus title, but had a state-record throw of 174 feet, 6 inches. He was second in the shot put that year.
There was no letdown once he reached high school. Handlin was a four-time Corn Belt Conference champion in the discus and a two-time conference champion in the shot put.
As a senior, he ran the table, winning both events in every meet that he entered. He was one-half inch off the school record in the discus (throwing 182 feet) at the sectional and set what was then the M-S school record in the shot put to win at state (58 feet, 0 ¾ inches).
More than three decades after he graduated, those marks still rank third on the all-time Bulldogs’ leaders list.
“I am honestly surprised that my marks have held up so well,” Handlin said. “The only reason I can think of as to why they’ve spanned so many years is that what we did – my dad (Bob), Jim Risley and myself – we did together, and we did it with so much pride and effort that it was difficult for others to replicate.”
The workouts took place in an inspiring, yet enjoyable environment.
“There were times when we had so much fun that it didn’t even seem like work and that kept us pushing and improving,” Handlin said.
Of his two track and field events, Handlin always had a preference for the discus.
“My physical build was more beneficial for the discus than the shot put,” he said. “What distance I got out of the shot put was due to technical expertise rather than strength because, as athletic as I was, I was not breaking any weightlifting records as a high school athlete.
“I look back on those records and marks with great pride because they remind me that with hard work and dedication, all things are possible.”
In eighth-grade, Handlin was 6-foot-1, and weighed 160 pounds. By his senior year of high school, he was 6-foot-3, 225 pounds. At Purdue, Handlin’s playing weight was between 235-240 pounds.
Handlin had early schooling in athletics from his father as well as one of his father’s close friends, Frank Dutton.
Dutton was the M-S football head coach and a track coach during Dirk Handlin’s high school years, but he knew the youngster years before he was one of his athletes.
“I saw him grow up before high school,” Dutton said. “He was a stud. He had an intensity and would rise to the occasion.
“When the pressure was on, he performed his best.”
Dirk Handlin understood the importance of doing what was necessary to put himself in a position to do well in competition.
“He played hard, but he also practiced hard,” Dutton said. “He was one of the top athletes when I was coaching. He was very good on both sides of the ball.”
When it came time to settle on a college and a sport, the choice wasn’t that difficult.
Dirk Handlin was selected to the Chicago Sun-Times small-school All-State team as a senior. He was a first-team all-conference pick as both a fullback and as a linebacker.
Track scholarships, at best, offer partial aid. The football scholarship to Purdue covered everything.
Risley said Handlin – who suffered a broken foot as a junior in his second football game – had a tremendous impact on both offense and defense as a senior.
“He could run over you and keep on running,” Risley said, “and he could hit. He was recruited as a linebacker.”
He wound up selecting Purdue over Eastern Illinois, Indiana State and Southern Illinois. A number of schools who had shown interest prior to his injury – including the University of Illinois – backed off after his junior season ended early.
The transition from high school, where he was a ballyhooed athlete, to college, where he was teammates with dozens of ballyhooed high school athletes, was difficult.
“I never struggled until I got to Purdue, where I was surrounded by other people just as good, if not better, than me,” Handlin said. “It was at this time that I was humbled and realized that I had a different part to play on this team, which was something new for me.
“Instead of being the superstar, who had the spotlight on him all the time, I had to realize the importance of playing my part to help the team prepare.”
For Handlin, that meant spending many practices on the Scout Team, helping to prepare the Boilermakers first-team offense.
“I’ll be honest, I did not love it,” he said. “Football in college wasn’t the fun that it was in high school. It was basically a full-time job where I got my ass kicked regularly.”
He stuck with it because he recognized the value of the education he was receiving in the classroom.
“After my sophomore year, I accepted this reality and my parents helped me to realize that even if I wasn’t likely to make it to the NFL, I was still getting my college education completely paid for, and that was a HUGE win for our family and my future.
“The thing that kept me most from getting discouraged is that I knew I had a lot of friends and family who were proud of me, and I didn’t want to ever let them down.”
Bob ‘Moose’ Handlin had numerous catch-phrases which his son took to heart.
“My dad had many sayings, but the one that stuck with me the most is, ‘There are no shortcuts to success. Only through hard work is success possible,’ and that sticks with me to this very day,” Dirk Handlin said.
“I feel that winning those individual state titles was more about goal achievement than it was about winning or losing.”
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During his moments of frustration while at Purdue, Handlin remembered his first job. As a ninth-grader, he helped the custodial staff at Mahomet-Seymour Junior High during the summer.
“I scraped gum off the bottom of bleachers, cleaned out lockers, moved furniture and so on,” Handlin said. “After my first week, my dad asked how I liked it, to which I replied, ‘I don’t.’
“He said then that I should focus on getting an education, but never forget that janitors are just as important as anyone else, and never look down on anyone.
“Later in life, when I started my first job, he often advised me to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO. That’s a lesson I remember to this day.”
His parents, Bob and Sherry Handlin, emphasized another point that has stayed with Dirk Handlin.
“They taught me the difference between success and excellence, with the latter being more important,” Dirk Handlin said. “Success is measured externally, against others and is not always within our control.
“Excellence grows within, is within our controls and its meaning lasts. They taught me to focus on excellence, not success.”
Having a father who coached – Hall-of-Famer Moose Handlin was involved with football, wrestling and track and field at M-S – meant plenty of opportunities to be at athletic events.
Dirk Handlin said he didn’t always take full advantage of watching.
“One of my dad’s pet peeves when I was in elementary school was that during most of the Friday night high school football games, rather than watching and learning, I was playing an unsanctioned game of tackle football with the other fifth-graders behind the bleachers.
“There were some real battles out there. I think, like any child, I was interested in sports because my dad was so passionate about them, and his student-athletes.”
Eventually, young Handlin soaked in the information others were willing to impart.
“He was intelligent and learned from anyone he was around,” Risley said. “What I remember most is him saying the number of people from the community who influenced him, from teachers, coaches, fans and parents.”
The list is not a short one.
“My opinion is that the key to success for me in high school was heavily dependent on what happened before high school,” Dirk Handlin said. “I was going to M-S football camps as early as fourth- or fifth-grade and was heavily involved in team sports (including Little League, GRAY-Y football, and others).
“Frank (Dutton) was definitely a huge part of my development. He helped me to always remember that attitude in life is everything. He really helped develop me not only as an athlete, but as a person. Tom Shallenberger was my linebacker/defensive coach in high school and helped develop me into an All-State linebacker by pushing me to not accept mediocrity.
“Randy Sallade was my basketball coach from sixth-grade on. He made a big difference in pushing me to improve and reminded me that no matter how good I may be as an individual, the team is more important. John Weimer was another coach who coached a couple of different sports (football and basketball) that I participated in from junior high through high school and was a great influence on all of us.
“John King was my track coach and while he may not have been the person who taught me the skills to be a good thrower, he helped find other events I could take part in to help the team score more points. He coached us to a third-place (team) trophy at state in 1992, which is one of my proudest moments.”
“Jim Risley was, and still is to this day, a great influence on me. He was instrumental as he helped me develop a strength and conditioning program so that I could build muscle, but still retain speed and flexibility.”
Most impactful were the two people who lived with him and who celebrated their wedding anniversary every year on Dirk Handlin’s birthday.
He calls his parents, “the two most important people in my life who had the most influence on who I was, who I am and who I always will be.
“They supported me and made me their priority their entire life – what a sacrifice. That, more than anything, is why I am where I am today and the main reason that I am being honored with this Hall of Fame nomination.
“I have seen so many people with athletic talent and no guidance nowhere in life that it really makes me appreciate what I had at home.”
He continued:
“As much as all of those (other) people played a major role in my development, my mom and dad played the biggest role,” Dirk Handlin said. “They never missed my sporting events, and I was in a lot.
“I traveled all over the country during the summer months between sixth- and 11th-grade, and went to football camps, competed in summer track competitions, including nationals in Lincoln, Neb.
“They sat in rain, snow and 100-degree weather, cheering for me. They got up early and took me to 6 a.m. basketball practices. They waited outside the locker room at 11 p.m. after we returned from away football games.”
Handlin said he was surrounded by a good group of friends and athletes during his teen-aged years in Mahomet as well. They, too, had an impact.
“I want to give shoutouts to some of my high school buddies who helped make this possible,” he said, “Gale Clark, Jeff Wilms, Jeff Martin, Derek Short – who if he had not placed eighth at state, we would not have gotten that third-place trophy – Bryan Clark, Todd Hatfield and Ben Herriott, just to name a few.”
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Since 2021, Handlin has been the vice-president of operations at Vickers Engineering, Inc., in the South Bend and Mishawaka areas of Indiana.
He had worked at the company from 2012-19 and was an engineering manager for two years and the operation manager for five years.
His hobby is one he wishes he had more time to pursue, but one which is currently in the retirement phase.
“I did standup for about seven years, mostly unpaid local shows in the South Bend area at Laugh Comedy Club in Mishawaka and later at the Drop Comedy Club in South Bend,” Handlin said. “I did travel a handful of times to Kalamazoo (Mich.), Kokomo (ind.), and did a few charity shows that included a classmate from Mahomet who had cancer in the 2014-15 timeframe (Gina Hearn Cripe).”
Handlin was also involved with the management of a comedy club in Elkhart, Ind.
“A friend of mine and I opened a comedy club inside a local bar in Elkhart, Ind., for about a year called the 5-star Comedy Bar and hosted some awesome shows including Donnell Rawlings from the Chappelle Show and Jimmy JJ Walker from Good Times,” Handlin said. “It was a great experience, and I had a lot of fun with it.”
Handlin’s former high school football coach, Frank Dutton, appreciated that side of his player.
“He was a great athlete, and was an outgoing person who kept us loose,” Dutton said. “He had a good sense of humor, which I appreciated.”
Unlike Dutton, who for years submitted material for some late-night talk show hosts, Handlin didn’t pursue that avenue.
“I never really submitted any jokes to the late-night shows like Frank Dutton did,” Handlin said, “but I can’t deny that his joke-writing and submissions to those shows helped me see that it was just regular people writing a lot of that material and it inspired me to do the same for stage material.”
Handlin hasn’t remained an avid sports fan as his other ventures controlled much of his free time.
“Honestly, I don’t follow sports much these days,” he said. “I’ve always been a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, but I barely even follow them or Purdue football as up until 2019, I was spending a lot of time writing stand-up comedy material and performing at local clubs and bars.
“I eventually had to step away because I couldn’t dedicate the time to it, even though it was a passion of mine – and still is – to make people laugh.
“I still write jokes and make a lot of memes for Facebook, but haven’t performed since last hitting the stage in 2019, opening up for WWE legend Jake (The Snake) Roberts, where I dressed up like Hulk Hogan and did 10 minutes of pro wrestling jokes.
“Stand-up was so much fun, but like everything else in life, it takes a lot of work, and I just didn’t have the time to commit.”
Handlin and his wife, Angie, will celebrate their 13th wedding anniversary this month. They live in South Bend with their 3-year-old German Shepherd (Bishop) and 4-year-old cat (Boris).
“We love to spend time hiking in the woods with Bishop, taking cruises to the Caribbean, and contributing in different ways to the Boys and Girls Club of Benton Harbor,” Dirk Handlin said.
The September Hall of Fame ceremony will be a chance for Handlin to get reacquainted with his former hometown, but he hopes to share the recognition.
“I want to reiterate that the only reason I was able to accomplish any of these achievements is because my parents, friends, family, and the community believed in me and supported me.
“This is a great honor to be inducted, and what I hope people learn from this isn’t that I was a good athlete or won some games for the Bulldogs, but that I was able to do these things because others invested in my future and sacrificed their time and energy and because they did, I am able to receive this great honor.
“I would not be where I am today if not for them. I accept this Hall of Fame nomination not necessarily on my behalf, but on theirs.”
