Bailey Begins 32nd Season at St. Patrick

SPORTS SPOTLIGHT BY JOHN MONTGOMERY

Mike Bailey is a self-described gym rat at 71 years old who loves the game of basketball. He is addicted to watching basketball games and practices. Bailey also enjoys everything that takes place off the court, like recruiting and game planning and summer basketball. Most of all, he loves teaching the game to his players during practice sessions. And he has no intention of doing anything else.

“I am not retiring at the end of the season,” Bailey said, putting an end to rumors to the contrary. “I’m just getting started.”

“Mike Bailey has all the qualities that you are looking for in a head coach,” said former Weber and Elgin basketball coach Jim Harrington, who had Bailey on his staff at both schools. “He is hard working, loyal and dedicated. Whether Mike is young or old, he is always trying to get better as a head coach.”

Bailey, who began his hjgh school coaching career with Harrington at Weber in 1979, will begin his 32nd year as head coach at St. Patrick in the Shamrocks’ annual Thanksgiving tournament. He has won 583 games at the school on West Belmont and one of his goals is to surpass the record of 658 victories established by his predecessor, the legendary Max Kurland.

“I just keep going,” said Bailey, who recently underwent hip replacement surgery. “As long as I have energy, enthusiasm and health, I will keep coaching. I don’t think I would have retired if I had won a state championship last year. A lot of people ask me that question. Honestly, if we had won, I wanted to come back and coach this group of kids because I had promised them and their parents that I would be their coach. I think that I am a better and more prepared basketball coach now at this stage of my life.”

Last season, Bailey guided St. Patrick to 29 victories and third place in the Class 3A tournament. The Shamrocks lost to Brother Rice in the semifinals, then came back to rout Chatham Glenwood for third place.

“It was probably the most proud I have ever been of any team I have coached, to come back and win third place after losing 24 hours earlier,” he said.

Twelve players return from that 29-8 squad, including starter RJ McPartlin. The Shamrocks will begin their quest for a return trip to Champaign on Monday, November 24, against Chicago Public League power Dyett, the defending Class 2A champion.

“This team knows how to win basketball games,” Bailey said. “It expects to win. They are very motivated to get back Downstate.”

The road back to Champaign won’t be easy. It became more difficult when the Illinois High School Association placed St. Patrick in Class 4A with defending champion Benet and neighborhood rival DePaul Prep, last year’s Class 3A champion, which also has been moved up into Class 4A tournament. St. Patrick might have to beat both schools to reach the championship game.

Meanwhile, Bailey has been proud to follow in Kurland’s footsteps. Kurland built the Shamrocks into one of the state’s most successful programs at St. Patrick playing his signature 1-3-1 zone defense. St Pat's always fell short in conference play, finishing second to coach Gene Pingatore’s St. Joseph teams. The one thing that Kurland couldn’t do was advance to the state quarterfinals and gain ticket play to at Assembly Hall in Champaign. Kurland retired in 1994 after losing to Lyons Township in the York sectional championship.

“It was an honor to be chosen to replace Max Kurland at St. Patrick,” Bailey said. “Max was very nice to me when I came to St. Patrick. I didn’t replace him. I followed him.”

Bailey has a different philosophy playing strictly man-to-man defense.

“Max Kurland was one of the greatest guys in the coaching profession. He had a heart of gold,” Harrington said.

Bailey, a graduate of Gordon and DePaul University, joined Weber in 1979 as Harrington’s sophomore coach. He was head coach at St. Gregory in 1984-1986, then head coach at Dundee-Crown in 1986-1990. Then he went to Elgin to assist Harrington in 1990-94. In 1992, when Steve Pappas left Gordon to become head coach at Deerfield, Bailey applied for the job.  Rich Kolimas was hired to replace Pappas. When Kurland retired in 1994, he brought his expertise to St. Patrick.

After losing four times in the supersectional round before finishing third in the Class 3A tournament last season, marking the first time that the Shamrocks have qualified for the Final Four. The achievement isn’t lost on Bailey or his staff. Why retire when you still have goals to accomplish?

“It means the world to advance to the state finals for the first time in school history,” he said.

Basketball is a family affair in the Bailey household. Mike’s daughter Kelly is the official scorer for the Chicago Bulls while son Brandon is an assistant coach for DePaul’s men’s basketball team after spending time with the Boston Celtics in the NBA.

After the upcoming Thanksgiving tournament, St. Patrick will open its regular conference season in a televised matchup against Notre Dame of Niles. This is the last season of the ESCC in basketball. The Chicago Catholic League has merged with the East Suburban Catholic. Next season, St. Patrick will join Marist, Benet, DePaul Prep, St. Ignatius, Mount Carmel, Loyola, Brother Rice and Fenwick in a new and very competitive conference featuring three divisions.

Mike Bailey can’t wait to be a part of it.

DePaul Prep Survives Loyola 43-35

The DePaul Prep Rams (15-1, 3-0) defeated the Loyola Academy Ramblers (15-5, 1-2) 43-35 on Friday evening at Loyola. I have to hand it to Loyola. Tom Livatino had the Rams playing his game. Slow the tempo way down, play very physical and hope to edge teams at the end.

It was working in the first half with the assistance of the referees. I don’t like to criticize referees. They are usually very good. In first half of this game, the referees were let them play. Meaning they weren’t calling any fouls. This hurt the Rams. Their shots were not falling.

The Ramblers were hitting shots at least enough to stay close to the Rams. Loyola’s center Brandon Loftus was impressive in the paint and hitting outside shots.

The second half was different for the Rams. The refs started calling fouls and the Rams were able to score like they usually do.

The Rams gained a lead and were able to build it with some remarkable free throw shooting to seal the victory. Junior Rykan Woo was 8 for 8 in the game and 6 for 6 in the last 1:05 of the game.

The Rams improve to 15-1 overall and 3-0 in the Chicago Catholic League Blue and probably retain their #1 ranking.

A little past the midway point of the season 16 games into the 30-game season, the Rams are the No. 1 ranked team in the Sun-Times Super 25. They got that spot after winning their inaugural appearance in the Pontiac Holiday Tournament. It was another achievement for the DePaul College Prep basketball team that has now become a “program.”

At the R-B tournament in the summer of 2023, I was talking to Mike Mullin of the Illinois Wolves. He was the first person that I heard use the term “program” in conjunction with DePaul Prep. After just one 2A State Championship, some might argue that the “program” moniker might be a little premature. Not anymore. Since 2019, the DePaul Prep Rams have achieved a third place in 3A, a No. 1 ranking in the 2020, the COVID year, a 2A state championship, victory in Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic, a 3A state champion and a Pontiac title. Combine that unprecedented success with the same coach in the program for 10 years, a coach with over 300 career wins, and you are pretty much talking “program.”

That’s all fine but there are games to play. This season has seen the return of proven producers Makai Kvamme, Rob Walls, Rashaun Porter, AJ Chambers and Jonas Johnson. But it’s the emergence of Rykan Woo that have brought the Rams, admittedly a 3A team, to that top tier.

Woo, a transfer from Whitney Young, is averaging 17 points a game. His eye popping 24 points and 6 of 7 three pointers against Warren has him being talked about as the best player in the whole junior class. I first saw him play at the R-B tournament this past summer. But it was at the Ridgewood summer event that he turned heads. A longtime DePaul Prep observer told me that this 24-25 team would be better than the last two state championship teams. We will see about that but the addition of Rykan is making a believer out of me.

The Rams schedule has been rough. At the start of the season, Tom Kleinschmidt told me, “We are going to lose some games this year.”

Not true so far. Only one loss. And then to the No. 1 team at the time, Kenwood. And then only by two points in the last ten seconds of a weekend shootout game. Add in some signature wins over Niles North, Lane, Rich Township, Mater Dei (a California powerhouse program), Curie, Benet and Warren.

I would say the first half went well for the Rams. The bulk of the Chicago Catholic League games will be played in the second half, namely Mount Carmel, Brother Rice, St. Ignatius, DeLaSalle and Fenwick. Who cares about Pontiac and state championship if you don’t win the Chicago Catholic League Blue? We will see about the second half.

Lincoln Park Survives Payton; DePaul Prep Falls to Benet; Amundsen Drops Lane Tech

[Preview of my article in this weeks’ Inside—Booster]

By Jack Lydon

The high school football regular season is in the books. Lincoln Park finished 8-1 with one of the the best records on the Northside. With a 6-3 record, DePaul Prep had its best season in thirty years stretched back into the Gordon Tech era. Amundsen continues its winning ways in recent years with a 5-4 record. All three teams’ season will continue with games in the IHSA Playoffs.

The Lincoln Park Lions (8-1) survived a late charge Walter Payton College Prep (5-4) winning 14-7 Saturday afternoon at Winnemac Stadium earning a #8 seed in the 7A IHSA football playoffs.

Lincoln Park jumped out to 7-0 lead on Payton with 2:15 left in the first quarter but stalled after offensively after that. Payton’s offense was just as toothless through three quarters of the game. But with 8:19 remaining in the game, the Grizzlies faked a punt and connected on a 21-yard pass for a first down on Lincoln Park’s 25-yardline. With 2:58 remaining, Payton connected a fourth down touchdown pass to tie the game at 7-7.

On the very next play, the Lions answered. Junior wide receiver and basketball player, Jayden Dickerson, in his first year ever playing football, took the kickoff for 72 yards to the Payton 8-yardline. The huge play, symbolic of the Lions’ Cinderella season, all but sealed the Lions victory. A few plays later, the Lions pushed the ball into the endzone for a 14-7 victory.

The Lions are the surprise team of the year. “I don’t think anybody expected us to do what we’ve been doing. I am pretty sure that if you took a poll before the season started, everybody would probably pick us to finish last, Lincoln Park head coach Andres Flores said.

Lincoln Park draws a playoff game against #8 seed Hoffman Estates Hawks (6-3) from the Mid-Suburban West conference. This is an interesting match-up for the Lions. A top team from CPS facing a fourth-place team from a good suburban conference. The Hawks’ losses this year came at the hands of Fremd, Palatine and Barrington—all ranked in the Super 25. The Lions will have their work cut out for them. But they will host the game, probably Saturday afternoon at Lane Stadium.

Lions head coach Andres Flores likes his underdog status. Before the brackets were announced, Flores said, “that suburban team is probably going to be licking their chops . . . We have been underestimated all year and our athletes have shown up all year. I know people are probably overlooking us despite the record. I think we will match up fine with whoever we get in the first round.”

On Friday evening, the 6-2 DePaul Prep Rams travelled to Lisle to face Benet Academy in the game that would decide the CCL/ESCC Purple Division. The Rams gave up five turnovers, two of which went for Benet touchdowns and came away short with a 31-24 loss.

“You can’t win football games when you have five turnovers,” said DePaul Prep head coach Mike Passarella. “And two of them went for scores.”

Despite the five turnovers, there is no quit in these Rams. The Rams tied the game at 17 each with 4:33 remaining in the game, only to give up an 80 touchdown on the very next play from scrimmage run by the Redwings.

The Redwings added another pick-six to push their lead to 31-17. No quit in the Rams. Fernando “Juju” Rodriguez connected on a 40-yard bomb to Justin Sterner to make the score 31-24. It wasn’t to be. The Rams came up short falling to 6-3 on year and losing their chance for Purple Division championship.

“We struggled today on a number of fronts. Miscues, penalties on the offensive side, big plays on the defensive side, You’ve got to take advantage of what’s given to you and we just didn’t do that tonight which is not like us,” said Passarella.

Even with the loss, the Rams are still in the playoffs. They earned the #9 seed in 4A and will play #8 Dyett Eagles (7-2), possibly next Friday at Gately Stadium. The Rams and the Eagles had no common opponents. The Eagles did not pay any ranked teams and their losses came against conference foes Corless and King.

The Amundsen Vikings (5-4) defeated the Lane Tech Champions (3-6) on Friday afternoon 14-7, earning themselves a playoff berth. It was the first time the Vikings defeated in the ten years that Amundsen head coach Nick Olson has been coaching the Vikings.

The Vikings lead the Champions 7-0 at the end of the first quarter and added another after a long drive late in the second quarter taking a 14-0 lead into the halftime break. Amundsen burned six minutes off the clock after intercepting Lane’s replacement quarterback on the first drive of the second half.

Lane’s usual starting quarterback Noah Mayra reentered the game halfway through the third quarter. Moving the Champions steadily down the field, Mayra rifled an eighteen-yard touchdown pass to fellow senior wide receiver Julian Vickery to get Lane back in the game 14-7.

The Vikings run game and defense proved too much for the Champions to overcome. Reggie Mitchell ran the ball for first downs and the defense intercepted Mayra midway through the fourth and recovered a Champions’ fumble with 1:13 on the clock lock up the victory and a playoff berth.

Vikings’ head coach Nick Olson was a bit emotional after the game. “We are graduating 15 seniors, this is a special group for me,” he said.  

The toughest playoff draw has to go to Amundsen. The Vikings will play Geneva (8-1) from the DuKane Conference, who are currently ranked #5 in Michael O’Brien’s Super 25 rankings of area schools.

“This will be the best team we have played all season. We are well aware of that. Once you get in the playoffs, everybody is good,” said Amundsen head coach Nick Olson.

“We are gonna just try and do what we have been doing all year and that’s trying to run the ball, stay ahead of the chains and keep the ball away from their offense.”

Amundsen’s Reggie Mitchell scores touchdown against Lane Tech.

Benet 60, Oak Park/River Forest 48 on Friday at Pontiac

Friday was a full day. First a morning trip down to Pontiac for two games then a quick trip back to Hinsdale for two more games.

Benet (14-1, 6-0) defeated OPRF (5-7, 0-2) 60-48 in the third game on Friday. The Redwings have since advanced to the Pontiac championship game by virtue of an overtime 59-58 victory over Bloom on Saturday only to lose later in the day in another overtime game to Curie 69-66 and finish second in the Pontiac Holiday Tournament.

Previously unbeaten and ninth ranked Benet certainly proved that is team, largely made up of sophomore, is an elite team that will surely rise in the rankings given its showing at Pontiac.

These are a few photos from the game.