Hastert became a born-again Christian as a teenager, during his sophomore year of high school. Hastert attended Oswego High School, where he was a star wrestler and football player. Hastert briefly attended North Central College, but later transferred to Wheaton College, a Christian liberal arts college. Jim Parnalee, Hastert's roommate at North Central who transferred with him to Wheaton, was a Marine Corps Reserve member who in 1965 became the school's first student to be killed in Vietnam.
