[Preview of this week’s Inside—Booster article.facility.]
By Jack Lydon
DePaul College Prep broke ground Thursday afternoon on the construction of its new athletic facility. Chicago Roman Catholic Archbishop Blase Cardinal Cupich, DePaul Prep president Mary Dempsey, Athletic Director Patrick Mahony and three-time basketball state championship coach Tom Kleinschmidt opened construction on the athletic complex.
Construction is expected to cost $32 million and not be completed until the start of the 2027 school year late next summer. The 74,600 square foot facility will include multiple gyms, an indoor track, locker rooms, a strength and weight training room and a wrestling room. The new complex will be situated on the existing parking lot north of the school building. The facility will feature a competition gym and a multiple court field house. President Mary Dempsey announced that the court in the competition gym will be named for basketball coach Tom Kleinschmidt.
“I think athletics helps draw students. Athletics is kind of the sizzle of the steak. The sizzle gets them in the building and then they see our faculty, they see our students, they see our administration, and that’s the meat and that sells itself,” said DePaul Prep Athletic Director Patrick Mahoney.
The athletics have been sizzling indeed in recent years with three state boys basketball championships, a football state championship, a cross-country state championship as well as multiple other state finals appearances.
DePaul Prep is the successor to Gordon Tech high school. In 2012, a group of trustees and administrators of DePaul University was asked by the Archdiocese of Chicago and the priests and brothers of the Congregation of the Resurrection to assist Gordon Tech High School. The story at the time was that the Bishop George and the Archdiocese wanted another high school to fill the need for a high performing high school to fill that need on Chicago’s northside. As the academic partnership with DePaul University progressed successfully, the school officially became DePaul College Prep in 2014.
“We did demographic studies and focus groups before we even started DePaul Prep. What we heard from people is yes, there is a need for another catholic faith-based values, academically rigorous, high school to serve those needs in Chicago,”said Mary Dempsey.
“It's more difficult for us to figure where our child is going to go to high school than where they're going to go to college. If you can build an academically strong, faith based high school, we will come and certainly that’s what parents have done.”
DePaul Prep as a high school has grown dramatically in since moving into the former DeVry University facility on Rockwell Avenue adjacent to Lane Tech High School. The student population jumped from approximately 550 students in the former Gordon Tech at Addison and California to currently 1300 students.
DePaul Prep’s head basketball coach and Director of Admissions Tom Kleinschmidt was emotional in giving remarks at the event with the announcement of the main basketball court being named in his honor. He has deep connections to both Gordon Tech and DePaul Prep.
“I've had great memories and I've been going to the [Gordon Tech’s Tom Winiecki Gym] since 1980. It's been fantastic to me. I played basketball there, played for my favorite coach of all time, [Steve Pappas] there, played with some of my best friends in the world there. I've coached great teams, I get the coach with friends there. It's been awesome, but this is the next step on the northside here. Our kids deserve it and it’s coming to fruition. So it’s very special,” Kleinshmidt said.
Despite loads of memories and history in the old Gordon Tech facility, Kleinschmidt was clearing looking to the future.
“The three courts in the new gym are nice. The competition gym separately is a big plus, so we can have practices running on lower levels in the field house. And then the varsity teams can practice where they're going to play games. So that's pretty cool.”
