DeKalb | You could say alumnus Jerry Rich is the godfather of NIU golf.

Rich is the owner of Rich Harvest Farms, 7S771 Dugan Road in Sugar Grove, the home course for the men’s and women’s golf teams, and he has tried to make all the players feel at home.

The first talks to make Rich Harvest Farms the home of NIU golf took place 10 years ago when Rich brought up the change at a fundraising event at the university’s then-home course in Woodstock with then-NIU President John Peters.

“I came back and I called Dr. Peters,” Rich said. “I told him I’m not going to have the girls or boys use that as their home golf course anymore, you are going to be at Rich Harvest Farms. So that’s what started it.”

Rich Harvest Farms is a Golf Digest Top 100-rated course and will host the 2014 NCAA Div. I men’s regionals.

Rich has developed a strong relationship with the NIU golf family, and especially men’s coach Tom Porten, over the three years it has been the home course.

“Very good,” Rich said. “I like to mentor young people, and most coaches — I don’t care whether it is golf or any other sports — are not great business people. I have had the opportunity to work very closely with Tom over the last four years … almost five years now; he is a very astute individual… He worked under some good mentors himself, but they were all basically coaches.

“I had a real opportunity to teach him the business side. Because there are a lot of things that a coach has to know: buying special software for his team or buying special equipment or working with various manufacturers of golf equipment or apparel or whatever it may be, so I had an opportunity to work with them on that, and he has learned well.”

Before each season Rich introduces every Huskie recruit to the facility.

“I have an opportunity to meet with the parents and the recruits … to go over all the things I think are important,” Rich said. “… Give the parents, whether it be a girl or boy recruit, the good feeling that their son or daughter will be properly taken care of, have a great place to practice, and they have good people that will be working with them.”

Rich Harvest Farms also gives NIU golfers a chance to work over the summer.

“We make it available to all of them,” Rich said. “…If they want to work here, they would have to work in either golf operations or the Kid’s Golf Foundation as an intern, and of course if they want to practice at night they have their indoor practice facility.”

The Kid’s Golf Foundation has been a form of mentoring and teaching children basic golf skills. Members of both NIU programs contribute to this each year.

“When Tom [Porten] was hired we wanted to do some local clinics for some of the elementary schools in DeKalb and Sycamore,” Rich said. “So I got the student athletes to get involved with that. It is very important… The Kids Golf Foundation gives a lot of the inner-city kids or a lot of other kids, where maybe their parents do not play golf, an opportunity to learn the game.”

The last three seasons Rich Harvest Farms has been home of the men’s golf season opener, the Northern Intercollegiate. Rich’s goal is to make this tournament one of the top five invitationals in the country.

Rich added how his thoughts on how both programs are doing so far this season.

“I think we’ve recruited some really good talent,” Rich said. “…It was a little overbearing for some of these younger players to see the quality that Div. I has. They just have to settle down; they just have to play a few more tournaments.”

Rich was introduced to golf at 9 years old when he caddied at a local course in his home town of Villa Park.

“I never really forgot that experience,” Rich said. “The thing I never forgot is that whoever this individual was that brought the pull cart out and gave me the instructions, he could have said, ‘Hey kid, get out of here,’ cause I didn’t know anything about it, so he gave me my first introduction into golf.”

Rich said that experience is the main reason he set up his Kids Golf Foundation and wants to teach kids who didn’t have the same experiences in life that he had.

Rich is a ’61 NIU graduate. He majored in mathematics.