D'Wayne Bates, CAA

Many in Illinois still remember Bates as a standout wide receiver — a Northwestern Wildcats Hall of Famer whose school records for career receptions and receiving yardage still stand, a member of the 1995 Rose Bowl team and back-to-back Big Ten championship teams, and a third-round draft pick who spent three seasons with the Chicago Bears and two with the Minnesota Vikings.

But the experience that shaped his career had nothing to do with Saturdays or Sundays. While he was in college, an internship working with preschoolers and middle school students showed him what his life's work would be.

"This profession affords me an opportunity to save lives by way of educating, motivating, and coaching," Bates said.

He began that work in 2005, teaching U.S. and World History and coaching at Evanston Township High School, where he later moved into the athletic office as an assistant athletic director. He served at Marshall High School in Chicago, then took his first head athletic director role at LaSalle-Peru Township High School, where his coaches bought into a philosophy he still repeats: students first, winning will happen.

In 2015 he moved to Glenbard East High School in Lombard as assistant principal for athletics, a position he held for a decade. There he oversaw more than 30 sports programs and roughly 2,000 student-athletes, and built a reputation across the state as an administrator who could grow a program without losing sight of the individual kids inside it.

That reputation is what brought him to Stevenson.

When Stevenson's athletic director retired after two decades of service, the district's board unanimously approved Bates as her successor. He stepped into one of the largest athletic programs in Illinois at a moment when student participation was at a high-water mark — and he stepped in with a stated goal of stewardship rather than reinvention.

Bates' influence extends well beyond any one district.

He serves as an at-large member of the Illinois High School Association Board of Directors, and in 2024 he was selected for a four-year term on the National Federation of State High School Associations Board of Directors, representing athletic administrators at the national level. A Certified Athletic Administrator, he has spent years advocating for the profession, strengthening standards and making the case for education-based athletics in rooms where policy actually gets set.

Those roles matter because they are unglamorous. Board service means long meetings, difficult votes and decisions that affect schools an administrator will never visit. Bates has consistently chosen that work.

His career has also come full circle in ways that are hard to script. In August 2026, Bates welcomed the Chicago Bears to Stevenson for a walk-through practice — an idea he had first pursued years earlier at Glenbard East. It landed on his staff's first day back for the school year, and he spent it reconnecting with the organization he once played for while standing on a field he now runs.

The most influential athletic administrators understand that the job is bigger than schedules, facilities and event management. They build places where students feel seen. They give coaches the tools and the confidence to lead well. They set standards that outlast their own tenure, and they serve the profession that will serve the next generation of administrators.

D'Wayne Bates has done all of it — as a teacher, a coach, a mentor, a board member and an AD in three very different communities.

For his student-first leadership at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, his decade of service at Glenbard East, his advocacy at the state and national levels, and his lasting commitment to the young people in his care, Bound proudly recognizes D'Wayne Bates, CAA, as the Bound Athletic Director of Influence for Illinois.