Edwardsville’s Collin Gardiner carries the ball during the 1995 Class 5A quarterfinals at East St. Louis.
For The Intelligencer
Edwardsville’s Collin Gardiner on the sidelines during a 1996 home game against Belleville West.
For The Intelligencer
Edwardsville’s Collin Gardiner at the plate during a 1996 game at Busch Stadium.
For The Intelligencer
Collin Gardiner packed a lot of punch into his 5-foot-11, 180-pound frame during his playing days with the Edwardsville football team.
A 1997 graduate of EHS, Gardiner left as the program’s record holder for single-season rushing yards, career rushing yards and career touchdowns. While two of those records have since fallen, the impact Gardiner made during his playing days continues to resonate.
Gardiner will be inducted into the Edwardsville High School Athletic Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025.
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“It’s awesome,” Gardiner said. “I’m really excited that they brought it back for so not only myself but also everybody else you had awesome careers and accomplishments in all of the sports they played.”
Gardiner, along with the rest of the Class of 2025 inductees, will be honored at a boys basketball game on February 7 inside Lucco-Jackson Gymnasium. The banquet will follow the next day at Sunset Hills Country Club in Edwardsville.
Gardiner will be the second player from the 1996 football team inducted into the Hall of Fame. Quarterback Jimmie Dougherty was inducted in 2022. The 1996 team finished 10-1 and won the Southwestern Conference in its first season back in the league after leaving at the start of the 1979 season. Prior to 1996, the last SWC championship was 1975.
“I’m looking forward to being able to reminisce and think about all of the good times with the teams I played with. I played with a great bunch of guys, whether it be football or baseball. It’ll be good to take some time to refocus on what a great time it was in my life,” Gardiner said. “It’s also going to be something that I can celebrate with my family, which is pretty neat.”
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Gardiner and his family currently live in Western Springs, a suburb of Chicago. He is the interim CFO at Alvarez and Marsal.
While Gardiner is crunching numbers now as the interim CFO, he was crunching linebackers during his high school days. He said his children know all about his life as a Tiger.
“As people began to chip away at the records, my name would start to circulate through the publications and I would show them. That kind of spurred showing them the old football yearbook and scrapbook of dad and all of his accomplishments,” Gardiner said. “They are getting to the age where it resonates with them because they are playing their own sports.”
Playing for Hall of Fame coach Tim Dougherty, Gardiner helped EHS to an 11-1 season his junior year in 1995. The team advanced to the Class 5A quarterfinals before losing to East St. Louis.
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Edwardsville went 9-0 for the first undefeated regular season in history before postseasons wins of 28-22 over Bloomington and 40-12 over Cahokia.
During the season, Gardiner went for a then single-game program record 301 rushing yards in a 49-14 win over Mount Vernon. Joe Bevis now holds the single-game record with 305 rushing yards in 1997. Those are the only two 300-yard performances on the ground in program history.
Gardiner finished his junior season with a single-season record 1,927 yards that still stands today. He also had 22 touchdowns.
The Tigers, again, went 9-0 in Gardiner’s senior season in 1996 but injuries began piling up in the latter half of the season. After a 14-13 win over Ottawa in the postseason opener, the Tigers lost 17-14 to Woodstock in the second round.
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In his senior season, Gardiner rushed for 1,416 yards and 25 touchdowns. It was the second-most rushing yards in program history at the time behind his performance in 1995. It now ranks fifth.
Gardiner finished his career with 3,737 rushing yards and 49 career touchdowns. Both were program records at the time. Milan Woodard was the first to top Gardiner’s career rushing yards mark, going for 3,912 yards before graduating in 2003. Justin Johnson Jr. now holds both records with 4,175 rushing yards and 62 rushing touchdowns.
Along with football, Gardiner was also a standout baseball player for the Tigers. He was a pitcher and designated hitter in 1996 and 1997 for coach Tom Pile.
Gardiner had a career 15-1 record on the mound, including 9-1 with a 1.31 ERA in 58.2 innings as a senior and 5-0 as a junior. He went 1-0 in his sophomore season.
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At the plate, Gardiner hit .357 with 26 RBI in his senior season.
Edwardsville won regional championships in both of Gardiner’s final two seasons and went 31-4 in 1996 and 35-4 in 1997.
Following EHS, Gardiner attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He graduated in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Less than two years later, he earned his master’s degree.
The Edwardsville High School Athletic Hall of Fame started in 1982 under the leadership of athletic director Dick Ford with the last class being inducted in 1988.
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Then, with the support of the District 7 school board and administration, in 2021, Edwardsville High School Principal Dr. Steve Stuart, along with former athletic director Alex Fox, reinstated the organization with the formation of the Executive and Selection Committees. The Executive Committee plans the recognition, fundraising and community relations role, while the Selection Committee chooses the inductees.
For more information on the Edwardsville High School Athletic Hall of Fame, visit www.ehshalloffame.org or follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ehshof and Facebook.
Community members can make nominations by visiting the Edwardsville High School athletics website at http://ecusd7.org/ehs/athletics/. The nomination form is done through Google Docs. The link is listed above the sports/schedules section.
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