Just more than 10 years after his passing, a longstanding coaching record was surpassed at the University of Illinois. 

Dan Hartleb became Illinois baseball’s all-time winningest head coach Sunday evening with an 11-1 win over Michigan. Hartleb – who has been head coach since 2006 – earned his 519th win, passing Waterloo native Lee Eilbracht in the process.

Eilbracht, who died in January 2013 at the age of 88, had held the record for most coaching wins for Illinois baseball since his retirement in 1978. 

“My dad, knowing the classy guy he was, would have been the first in line to congratulate Dan Hartleb,” Lee’s son Kurt Eilbracht told the Champaign News-Gazette.

A 1942 graduate of Waterloo High School, Eilbracht went on to become a baseball playing and coaching legend at the University of Illinois and beyond. 

After lettering as a player in 1943, Eilbracht put his college days on hold to serve in World War II, where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge as a tank driver and interpreter. 

Upon his return to U of I, Eilbracht was the Big Ten Conference batting champion in 1946 with a .484 average. Eilbracht also won All-American honors in 1947.

After playing and managing professionally, Eilbracht became one of the youngest head coaches in Big Ten history, coaching Illinois from 1952 to 1978. His teams won Big Ten championships outright in back-to-back seasons (1962-1963).

He coached the U.S. Olympic baseball team in 1964, and served as the first Executive Director of the American Baseball Coaches Association. 

Fourteen of Eilbracht’s players went on to play in the majors.

Eilbracht later worked as a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He also worked as a technical director and had a small part in the popular 1992 baseball film  “A League of Their Own.” 

He served as an adviser for the movie, tutoring such actresses as Madonna and Geena Davis on baseball skills.