The 41^st Governor of Illinois may be 68-years-old and have white hair, but he’s no stranger to the basketball court or the LT area.

After growing up in Hinsdale and graduating from Fenwick, a young Pat Quinn found himself back in the suburbs in 1968. It was spring break of his freshman year at Georgetown University.  He and his friends frequently played basketball under the lights on the asphalt courts of local Spring Rock Park.

“I’ve only dunked a basketball two times in my life, and the first time was [at Spring Rock Park],”Quinn said.

Aside from making buckets in his free time, the former governor has had a vibrant political career in the state, most notably his time as Governor of Illinois from 2009-2015. This status led him to the stage of LT’s Reber Center on Feb. 27 in front of over 750 Chicagoland students and advisers.

LYMUN II (Lyons Model United Nations), formerly known as SILTMUN, (Saint Ignatius/Lyons Township Model United Nations) is a one-day conference that simulates various UN committees like the World Health Organization (WHO) for students to orally express thoughts and opinions about complicated topics in a UN format. All participants dress up in formal attire for the event and prepare weeks in advance by writing position papers and more.

At LYMUN II, 35 schools and 712 delegates were in attendance.

“We began our search for a guest speaker for our conference in November,” LYMUN Secretary General Cristian Gonzalez ’16 said. “I delegated this responsibility to Danny Benson ’16, and miraculously, he found a connection to Governor Pat Quinn through Kalyn Harris ’16, the president of senior class board.”

Although getting Governor Quinn was incredible for the conference, it was also slightly problematic and like a rollercoaster, Gonzalez said.

“He was able to confirm with us in January, which was little short notice to begin with, and in the first week of February he informed us he had a trip to Australia and wouldn’t be able to attend,” Gonzalez said. “But then he pushed back his flight and was able to reassure he could come and talk, which was great to hear.”

Model United Nations is a club that has risen a great deal in popularity in the Chicagoland area in the past decade, LT Model United Nations sponsor John Cronfel said. The club allows cognitive and critical thinking skills to be sharpened and allows worldviews to be widened, all while meeting students from all across the area and learning to work with them.

“I consider this movement, where kids learn about the countries of the UN and the problems that have come up over it’s near 75 year history, an amazing learning experience,” Quinn said. “It’s more than just a Monday-through-Friday class lesson. Everybody out here is spending their Saturday morning to learn something new, and to learn it from each other. “

Model United Nations encourages cooperation of its delegates in committees with practices such as necessary percentages of approval on position papers. Persuasion must be used and compromises must be made.

“I really believe in cooperative learning, where students help one another learn,” Quinn said. “LT really deserves to be saluted for providing this venue and this opportunity, one that allows students to learn something they’ll probably never forget.”

The speech that Quinn gave at the opening ceremonies consisted of praise for the delegates before him and the importance of volunteering as well as the future of our nation. He referred to the crowd of young faces as the “diplomats of the future.”

“It was a great, apolitical speech, which is exactly what we asked of him. In year’s past, we’ve had relatively political speeches, which aren’t great because nobody will agree 100-percent,” Gonzalez said.

The day of debate and hard work continued without delay after the opening ceremonies concluded, and Gonzalez believes that Quinn’s sentiments aligned well with the day.

“Not everyone may agree with the former governor’s politics, but he’s a stand up guy and gave a pretty great speech in terms of the obligations of individuals in making a better place for our future,” Gonzalez said. “He’s a normal guy who was concerned with how things were going and decided to take up a job in government. He’s a great model for anyone wanting to pursue that career.”