In the late 1980s, Joel Herter and Bob Goldsborough, who had been classmates and baseball teammates at York High School more than 30 years earlier, started a tradition of going to several Elmhurst College Bluejay basketball games each year following dinner at a local restaurant.

The pair began inviting friends and relatives to the dinner-basketball evenings, and the group gradually grew in its early years to more than 30, some but not all alumni of the college. Calling themselves the Bluejay Backers Bunch, they now have a roster of over 100, about 50 of them active members. They back both the men' s and women's basketball squads with post-game pizza dinners with the teams and coaches, a banquet at the end of the season, and attend chalk-talks with the coaches.

For many years, Herter was coordinator of the group. An All-Conference basketball star at Elmhurst in the late ' 50s and founding partner of Oak Brook-based financial services firm Wolf & Co., he loves the environment at EC games, " where you can watch up-close some of the best small college players and teams in the nation."

Goldsborough agrees, adding that Division 3-level sports, which prohibit athletic scholarships, " are the last bastion of the true scholar-athlete."

Rich Reichert, current coordinator of the Bluejay Backers Bunch and President & CEO of Community Bank of Elmhurst, adds that the group encourages local fans to attend the games. Quoting Joel Herter' s maxim that the group is primarily a "friend-raising group, not a fund-raising group," Reichert adds that " win or lose, we are always behind Elmhurst' s men' s and women' s teams. We are not fair-weather fans."

"We welcome community members–men, women, children," Herter adds. " It' s a great way to support our teams at the games and have a good time in the process. Why not join us?"

For information on becoming one of the Bluejay Backers Bunch, call Rich Reichert at 630-782-1234 or email him at bluejays@communityelmhurst.com.