Bill Quinby has been Cedar Rapids’ torchbearer, helping light many lives

ROBINS — Tell Bill Quinby he did something good for someone, or everyone, in Cedar Rapids and he stops you in your tracks with a denial.

“I didn’t do anything for the community!” he blurted recently when given a compliment.

His claim may be the easiest thing in the world to disprove. Receiving credit for anything makes him cringe. When Quinby does say something that would be the definition of a humble brag, he immediately follows it with, “that’s off the record.” Or, “Don’t print that.”

It’s comical since much of what he has done in his life is common knowledge, documented and treasured. In fact, what he has helped accomplish in the Cedar Rapids area is part of the Congressional Record, courtesy of U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in 2008.

Harkin’s tribute included part of the long list of local causes and charities Quinby spent countless hours promoting and serving. Such as:

The Cedar Rapids Recreation Commission. The Hawkeye Area Boy Scouts. Habitat for Humanity. …

But two sentences from Harkin pretty much told the bigger story:

“Bill's life continues to be a model of ideal citizenship and embodies what it means to be an Iowan. Bill has spent his life living by a simple mantra: work hard and give back.”

Quinby is 91. He has lived at assisted senior living community Emery Place in Robins for the last eight years. He moved there to stay close to his wife of 62 years, Janis, and stayed after she died in 2018. They had four children.

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He remains lucid. He warmly welcomed guests recently for a two-and-a-half hour visit in which he shared moments from his life. Most were about his childhood in Cedar Rapids. In doing so, he may have inadvertently tipped off why he has done so much for the city as an adult — not that it was a mystery.

Namely, he has always loved it.

Quinby grew up in northeast Cedar Rapids, between the Daniels Park baseball field and Coe College. “Our backyard had a little part of the National Oats building,” he recalled.

Coincidentally — or not — that ballpark on Oakland Road NE is now named for him, and he was a recipient of Coe’s Distinguished Service Award though he wasn’t a student there.

As a boy, he said, “We got into trouble. Mount Mercy, they had a beautiful grotto. … It was probably 8 feet high with a pond. We’re third-graders. We wandered. We adventured. We saw this grotto and it had sparkling glass in it. And a little bit of fool’s gold.

“We were dummies. Somebody had a little hammer and a chisel. We started chipping out some of the fool’s gold because it was really shiny. Well, the nuns have always walked around their campus.

“They can hear us. And boy, they came over, and this is exactly what they said: ‘You naughty boy! You won’t go to heaven. God doesn’t want boys stealing from the grotto.’ ”

Such a criminal. When the National Football League was doing a background check on Quinby before hiring him for what would be a 17-year career as a game official, he told The Gazette’s Gus Schrader the following:

"I wonder if they’ll be disturbed to find out I got picked up for setting off firecrackers when I was an early teenager.“

Such a scofflaw. But not enough of one to be stopped from becoming a teacher, athletics director and a principal in the Cedar Rapids school district for over 20 years, or the director of career counseling and the athletics director at Coe, or an official in major-college football and later the NFL.

He began his officiating career by offering to work junior high games for half of the going rate of $7.50 per game, just to be connected to athletics and the people in them. It ended up taking him to a Super Bowl.

With most people, having a significant role in the nation’s most-watched event of the year would be their signature moment. With Quinby, it’s one of many things he did in life. If you’ve lived in Cedar Rapids, you’ve almost surely been affected by one or another of his pet projects.

Like Veterans Memorial Stadium. Would Cedar Rapids have a professional baseball team today were it not for the tireless efforts of Quinby and Sarah Else, who co-chaired the Citizens for the Stadium committee? As the turn of the century neared, the community-owned Cedar Rapids Kernels baseball franchise had a great need for a new stadium.

“You’ve seen what’s happened in pro baseball with its requirements for continued upgrades,” said Ron Corbett, the former Cedar Rapids mayor who was chief executive officer of the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce during the time the new stadium went from a goal to something that opened for business in 2002.

Clinton and Burlington have lost their pro teams, and “we would have been on the shortlist,” Corbett said.

Cedar Rapids voters were faced with a choice of whether to accept a tax of 30 cents per $1,000 of taxable valuation in a special election. It was believed the vote would be close but Quinby’s team won big. The measure passed, 59 to 41 percent, with 10,504 votes in favor.

Many people were involved in the campaign, but Quinby and Else led the way. Together, they went all over the city to try to convince people of the merits of a new stadium. Yet when you ask Else and Corbett what they first think of when it comes to Quinby, it isn’t his persuasiveness or determination.

“He’s such a steadfast, loyal friend,” said Else, who was new in town when she started as the executive director of Cedar Rapids Downtown District and began her quest with Quinby.

“I remember he would come downtown every week to the alternative school down there, kids with special needs.”

“He’s one of the greatest men I’ve ever known in my life,” Corbett said. “He was a great mentor to me, though Bill would probably disagree with that. He looks at others as his mentors.”

Quinby had credibility to go with likability. A quarter-century ago, he led a Cedar Rapids Recreation Commission subcommittee to get new outdoor basketball hoops at parks and playgrounds around the city.

“That was Quinby,” said his longtime friend, Cedar Rapids City Council member Dale Todd. “We put him in charge and he built 13 basketball courts.”

Speaking to Quinby recently, Todd said “All of us that were hawking projects, we had to get the Quinby seal of approval. Because that was legitimacy if he was on board. But there’s not many things that you weren’t on board with around here.”

The Cedar Rapids Jaycees. The Special Olympics. The Cedar Rapids Community Theater. …

Sports was always Quinby’s passion and pastime, from the Daniels Park playground to NFL coliseums.

He was a catcher on Franklin High School’s 1949 state-championship baseball team and played baseball at the University of Iowa. He was on the Hawkeyes’ football team as a freshman, but had three surgeries on one knee in his senior year of high school and one on the other knee early in his days at Iowa.

He was invited to report for football before his sophomore year, but the team physician put a quick halt to that. Yet Quinby became part of Hawkeye football lore when he was a team student-manager. Head coach Forest Evashevski eventually put Quinby in charge of a six-man staff of student-managers.

“Evy took a liking to me,” said Quinby, who drove Evashevski from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids and back on late Sunday nights to do an in-season television show.

Evashevski took even more of a liking to Quinby after a 1952 game at Minnesota. Temporary bleachers were set up directly behind the Iowa sideline for the game, but the fans using them were upset they couldn’t see over the Hawkeye players and coaches. The Iowa team and the Gophers fans traded harsh words.

A stocky Minnesotan charged Evashevski. “I was cocked to throw a punch,” Evashevski said after the game, “but couldn’t do it because someone was holding my arm.”

No one held Quinby back. He intercepted the fan before he got to Evashevski.

“I just stepped between them,” Quinby said 71 years later. “I biffed the guy right in the belly. He went, ‘Foof!’ He didn’t go down, but he was wobbly. From then on, my nickname with Evy was ‘Punchy.’ ”

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Now, 99.99 percent of Quinby’s all-time public persona was that of a friend to all. But even that moment of fisticuffs in Minneapolis was inspired by a sense of loyalty and team that he always kept.

Current Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz laughed last week when he was reminded of that story. “Can you imagine all the attorneys jumping in if that happened today?” he asked.

Ferentz has enjoyed Quinby’s stories over the years. Their friendship dates to Ferentz’ days as an NFL assistant coach in Cleveland in the mid-1990s. Ferentz’ father-in-law, the late Gerry Hart, officiated in the NFL at the same time Quinby did, and the two were friends.

“He was very kind to my father-in-law when he kind of showed him the ropes in the NFL a little bit,” Ferentz said.

“My in-laws came to town (in Iowa City) once and basically we were looking for someone to babysit my father-in-law to get him out of my wife’s and mother-in-law’s hair for a little while. So Bill was kind enough to come down, they had lunch, and so forth.”

Hart died in 2014, but Ferentz and his wife, Mary, have remained close to Quinby. The morning after the Hawkeyes lost at home and were denied the Big Ten West title, Ferentz drove to Robins with his mother-in-law and his 9-year-old granddaughter to visit Quinby.

“We didn’t talk about football,” Quinby said, getting emotional for a moment as he is wont to do these days. “How many coaches, the day after losing that game …”

“Bill’s just a really kind, genuine human being who has demonstrated through his actions that he really cares about other people,” Ferentz said. “He cares about young people, and is just a truly caring, giving person.”

The Cedar Rapids Board of Ethics in Government. The Cedar Rapids Civil Service Commission. The Arc of East Central Iowa.

A trick to getting Quinby talking about things he helped do for Cedar Rapids is to talk about Cedar Rapids itself and let him inadvertently mention some of his involvement.

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Asked what he would tell a new resident in the city, he replied, “I would say you’re coming to a city that has very likable, trustworthy people, and try to give to their causes. I don’t mean money, money. But volunteer. Be a good volunteer. We’ve got a lot of good volunteers in our community that serve on boards and just make the total picture better.

“Jan and I made a pledge to ourselves. (If) we heard somebody needed a little extra money or we found a way to get it to them without embarrassing them — stuff like that.”

Then there have been the countless citizens who have used the basketball hoops, a skateboard park, the city’s ice arena and other recreation facilities he supported. There have been all those who have continued to enjoy pro baseball here in a spectator-friendly stadium. There have been the thousands who have needed the Community Health Free Clinic, for which he was a dogged fundraiser.

Dr. William Galbraith, who helped found the clinic, was Quinby’s neighbor. One winter day, Galbraith came out of his house and found Quinby sitting on the front porch, smoking what he called his “50-cent cigars.” With a grin on his face, Quinby said “Good morning, Doctor.” He had just shoveled the snow off Galbraith’s pavement.

Why? Just to be a good neighbor. A good neighbor who insisted Galbraith let him donate money and time to the Free Clinic before the concept had even been green-lighted.

“I’ve seen a lot of people in my career,” Galbraith said. “I’ve never met a nicer person or better human being.”

The Free Clinic? “That was beautiful,” Quinby said.

Coe College? “I loved it.”

The Special Olympics? “The pride of my life.”

In 2013, citizens of Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha, Fairfax and Robins overwhelmingly voted in favor of extending a local-option sales tax for 10 years, with Cedar Rapids to use 100 percent of its share of the revenue to fix its streets.

“I asked Bill if he would help with the campaign, give his endorsement,” Corbett said. “He did a postcard for us in his old referee outfit. It said, ‘I’m Bill Quinby and I’ve made a lot of calls in my lifetime. This is a good call to support the local option tax for streets.’

“I’ve chided Bill that we were down in the polls until that postcard hit. He was proud of being involved with that. Once he called me. He was on Oakland Road and he said, ‘It sure feels good to be driving on a smooth road.’ ”

Today Quinby stays put at Emery. He remains in touch with friends. He watches Chicago Cubs games on television, sitting in a new chair he loves. “It’s like driving a Cadillac,” he said.

After he carried the flame for so long in Cedar Rapids for those who needed a torchbearer, it’s time for others to pick it up.

“I’m allowed two cocktails,” he said, “and — this is not for print — they’re locked up in the cabinet there. Only the staff can pour me a cocktail.”

The Cedar Rapids Sports Club. Camp Courageous. Cerebral Palsy Association …

One person can make a difference. Cheers, Bill Quinby.

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Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com