Hall of Fame 2025: Competitive Drive Never Left Thrower Greg Pilling
9/8/2025 10:58:00 AM | General, Our Stories
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Greg Pilling has always been a competitor.
Growing up in London, Ont., he partook in most every sport available to a kid, hockey, wrestling, soccer, volleyball, track and field. You name it, he did it. And he's still competing, having won three consecutive National Highland Games Lightweight championships from 2022-24.
In between his active youthful years and his national titles won while wearing a kilt, he became an All-American discus thrower at Central Michigan, setting a record in the event that still stands a decade and a half later.
Pilling, who now lives in Carmel, Ind., will be inducted to the Central Michigan University Marcy Weston Athletics Hall of Fame during a ceremony on Friday, Sept. 26 in McGuirk Arena in the Kulhavi Events Center. He and other members of the class will be introduced during the CMU-Eastern Michigan football game on Kramer/Deromedi Field at Kelly/Shorts Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 27.
Pilling competed at CMU from 2006-10, placing first in the discus at the Mid-American Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships in 2009 and in 2010. In 2009, he finished eighth at the NCAA Outdoor Championships to earn All-America honors and then placed 10th in 2010, just missing out on repeating the All-America feat.
He was CMU's 2009 Dick Enberg Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award winner, was twice named to the United States Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic Team, and his career-best throw of 197 feet, 2 inches still stands as a Chippewa program standard.
Coming out of Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School in London, Pilling, then tipping the scales at 185 pounds, was lightly recruited. CMU coach Jim Knapp, who is a member of the hall of fame, took an interest as Pilling's brother, John, was on Knapp's Chippewa track & field team.
"Being this small guy," Pilling said, "I didn't expect that I'd have a lot of opportunities even though I threw really far in high school. (Knapp) was the only one that was really willing to take a chance on me."
Pilling was also at the time considering taking a two-year break from academics and athletics for his mission as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ultimately, he answered his calling and served his mission in Provo, Utah.
"I was fully expecting that I was going to lose my (athletics) opportunity when I did that," Pilling said. "I was shocked when (Knapp) said, 'That's great Greg; you'll be a better man when you come back and you'll still have your spot on the team.'
"Coach Knapp was awesome for me and doing that kind of answered my prayers."
It was two years that paid immeasurable dividends on so many levels for Pilling. He didn't train, but he grew physically and, more importantly, emotionally and intellectually, and it changed his perspective.
"Serving a mission for two years, I learned how to study when I was there, learned how to focus and kind of be single minded in what I was doing and really focus on things," he said. "It definitely helped me long term with being able to achieve the goals that I set and achieved.
"It really helped focus my life. I was working with people from all over the socioeconomic spectrum. I was in the dirtiest trailer to multi-million-dollar homes just seeing all walks of life along the way. It was eye-opening.
"I learned so much from serving people over those two years because it wasn't just going out and teaching people; we did a lot of service for people in the community. We did a lot of good, where it wasn't about ourselves. Having had that experience, I wish that was a requirement for all high school students to graduate. Spend six months or nine months or a year in some sort of service capacity where they're not thinking about what's in it for me, but how can I make the world a better place or improve the lives of people around me?
"That definitely helped clarify for me what my purpose was and what I wanted to do with my life and how I wanted to behave."
Pilling was 21 years old when he arrived at CMU – and by then "old-man strength started to kick in," he quipped. He then took two redshirt years, one for injury, another to train in an attempt to make the Canadian Olympic Team.
By the time he graduated from CMU, Pilling was a married father and had bulked up to 230-plus pounds. He didn't qualify for the Olympics, but he did compete under the Canadian flag in the World University Games and in the Jeux de la Francophonie (Francophone Games), an Olympic-like competition featuring athletes from 45 French-speaking nations.
Pilling and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children, and recently celebrated 20 years of marriage. He owns and operates a mortgage brokerage firm and coaches his two sons, one a discus thrower, the other a budding decathlete.
"When I was done (competing), I had just turned 27," he said. "I was a little more physically mature than most of the other throwers. The 18-year-olds coming in, they looked at me like I was an old man."
Old at 27? Hardly. But he was certainly wiser, no doubt. And an All-American.
And now, a CMU Hall of Famer.
Growing up in London, Ont., he partook in most every sport available to a kid, hockey, wrestling, soccer, volleyball, track and field. You name it, he did it. And he's still competing, having won three consecutive National Highland Games Lightweight championships from 2022-24.
In between his active youthful years and his national titles won while wearing a kilt, he became an All-American discus thrower at Central Michigan, setting a record in the event that still stands a decade and a half later.
Pilling, who now lives in Carmel, Ind., will be inducted to the Central Michigan University Marcy Weston Athletics Hall of Fame during a ceremony on Friday, Sept. 26 in McGuirk Arena in the Kulhavi Events Center. He and other members of the class will be introduced during the CMU-Eastern Michigan football game on Kramer/Deromedi Field at Kelly/Shorts Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 27.
Pilling competed at CMU from 2006-10, placing first in the discus at the Mid-American Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships in 2009 and in 2010. In 2009, he finished eighth at the NCAA Outdoor Championships to earn All-America honors and then placed 10th in 2010, just missing out on repeating the All-America feat.
He was CMU's 2009 Dick Enberg Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award winner, was twice named to the United States Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic Team, and his career-best throw of 197 feet, 2 inches still stands as a Chippewa program standard.
Coming out of Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School in London, Pilling, then tipping the scales at 185 pounds, was lightly recruited. CMU coach Jim Knapp, who is a member of the hall of fame, took an interest as Pilling's brother, John, was on Knapp's Chippewa track & field team.
"Being this small guy," Pilling said, "I didn't expect that I'd have a lot of opportunities even though I threw really far in high school. (Knapp) was the only one that was really willing to take a chance on me."
Pilling was also at the time considering taking a two-year break from academics and athletics for his mission as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ultimately, he answered his calling and served his mission in Provo, Utah.
"I was fully expecting that I was going to lose my (athletics) opportunity when I did that," Pilling said. "I was shocked when (Knapp) said, 'That's great Greg; you'll be a better man when you come back and you'll still have your spot on the team.'
"Coach Knapp was awesome for me and doing that kind of answered my prayers."
It was two years that paid immeasurable dividends on so many levels for Pilling. He didn't train, but he grew physically and, more importantly, emotionally and intellectually, and it changed his perspective.
"Serving a mission for two years, I learned how to study when I was there, learned how to focus and kind of be single minded in what I was doing and really focus on things," he said. "It definitely helped me long term with being able to achieve the goals that I set and achieved.
"It really helped focus my life. I was working with people from all over the socioeconomic spectrum. I was in the dirtiest trailer to multi-million-dollar homes just seeing all walks of life along the way. It was eye-opening.
"I learned so much from serving people over those two years because it wasn't just going out and teaching people; we did a lot of service for people in the community. We did a lot of good, where it wasn't about ourselves. Having had that experience, I wish that was a requirement for all high school students to graduate. Spend six months or nine months or a year in some sort of service capacity where they're not thinking about what's in it for me, but how can I make the world a better place or improve the lives of people around me?
"That definitely helped clarify for me what my purpose was and what I wanted to do with my life and how I wanted to behave."
Pilling was 21 years old when he arrived at CMU – and by then "old-man strength started to kick in," he quipped. He then took two redshirt years, one for injury, another to train in an attempt to make the Canadian Olympic Team.
By the time he graduated from CMU, Pilling was a married father and had bulked up to 230-plus pounds. He didn't qualify for the Olympics, but he did compete under the Canadian flag in the World University Games and in the Jeux de la Francophonie (Francophone Games), an Olympic-like competition featuring athletes from 45 French-speaking nations.
Pilling and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children, and recently celebrated 20 years of marriage. He owns and operates a mortgage brokerage firm and coaches his two sons, one a discus thrower, the other a budding decathlete.
"When I was done (competing), I had just turned 27," he said. "I was a little more physically mature than most of the other throwers. The 18-year-olds coming in, they looked at me like I was an old man."
Old at 27? Hardly. But he was certainly wiser, no doubt. And an All-American.
And now, a CMU Hall of Famer.
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