Dr. Jim Stankiewicz, a Leo Hall of Famer and graduate with the Class of 1966, is the recipient of the 2024 Andy McKenna Leo Lions Legacy Award.
Jim will be honored at Leo’s ninth annual Scholarship Benefit on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at the Four Seasons Downtown. The evening begins with a cocktail reception, followed by dinner and program. Anchor/reporter Lourdes Duarte of WGN-Channel 9 will serve as MC, and the world-renowned Leo Choir will perform.
All proceeds benefit the Leo High School Scholarship Fund.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Jim said when notified of the honor. “Leo has played a very important role in my life. I’m very proud to support the work that’s being done at Leo today, and I’ll help in any way I can.”
Jim joins the late Andy McKenna ’47, Bill Conlon ’63, the late Tom Owens ’54, Bob Sheehy ’71, Mike Holmes ’76, Gen. William Walker ’75, Joe Power ’70 and Ray Siegel ’65 as McKenna Legacy Award honorees. Mr. McKenna, the first recipient, passed away in 2022, and the award was named in his honor last year.
“That’s a very distinguished list, and Jim belongs on it as a man who has always represented Leo with honor, pride and achievement,” Leo President Dan McGrath said.
A graduate of St. Sabina, Jim was an honor-roll student and a starter on the Leo lightweight basketball team that won the Chicago Catholic League championship in 1966. His history as a Leo supporter dates to 1968, during his undergraduate days at the University of Chicago, when he and some of his 1966 classmates raised money to fund a scholarship for a graduating Leo senior in honor of Coe Francis, an All-State quarterback from the Class of ’66 who died in a drowning accident before he was to begin his freshman year at the University of Illinois.
Among other contributions, Jim is the major funder for a Class of ’66 Scholarship that goes to a Leo student-athlete who excels in the classroom as well as on the playing field.
“Jim is one of the most loyal and generous supporters we have,” McGrath said, “and has been since I started at Leo 15 years ago.”
Jim earned undergrad and medical degrees from the University of Chicago and did his internship and residency at University of Chicago Hospitals. He was on the faculty at the University of California-San Francisco while serving with the Navy in California, then joined Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine faculty in 1980 and remains a tenured professor.
One of the leading ear, nose and throat specialists in the country, Jim is the former chairman of the Otolarynology Head and Neck Surgery Division at Loyola. He has contributed to more than 300 publications dealing with the subject and made more than 500 presentations nationally and internationally. He has performed more than 15,000 nasal and sinus procedures … including a memorable one on a friend of Leo President McGrath’s.
“Joe Goddard, a Sun-Times sportswriter, was referred to Jim regarding a sinus condition that was really debilitating – it affected his breathing, his energy, his lifestyle,” McGrath recalled. “Jim performed a procedure, and Joe was like a new man – he called me up to tell me my friend Dr. Stankiewicz was a miracle-worker.
“I was telling Jim about the conversation with Joe at the Alumni Banquet. While we were talking, two Leo alums came up to Jim and just raved about how the procedure he did changed their lives. Jim would scoff at the ‘miracle-worker’ label, but it’s pretty obvious he’s a great doctor and a great guy.”
Jim was inducted into the Leo Hall of Fame in 2013 and was named Alumni Association Man of the Year in 2023. He and Joanne, his wife of 50 years, have four grown children and two grandchildren.
“Jim embodies the ‘Facta non Verba, Deeds not Words’ spirit of Leo,” McGrath said. “It’s our honor to honor him.”
