Gavin Building Fenton Basketball Team into Factor in Upstate Eight

SPORTS SPOTLIGHT BY JOHN MONTGOMERY 

 

The life of a sophomore basketball coach and teacher isn't glamorous although suburban coaches do make more money.

Two of the greatest high school coaches in the state were Mount Carmel football coach Frank Lenti, who won 11 state championships and St. Joseph head varsity basketball coach Gene Pingatore who won 1,035 games and two state titles. Both men began their long career as lower-level coaches.

No dynasty or good winning program is built without good assistant coaches or good lower level coaches. Jack Gavin who is currently the sophomore basketball coach at Fenton is hoping to help Charles Taft build the Bison into a top program in the Chicago area. Gavin is starting his third season at Fenton after beginning his high school coaching career at Elwood Park going 17-5 at the lower level.

“The sky is the limit for him,” Fenton head varsity basketball coach Charles Taft said about his 25 year-old sophomore coach. Taft coached on the Northwest Side at Notre Dame for Girls and St. Patrick.

“He always had fun,” former Orr point guard Handy Johnson said on his former basketball student. “Jack was super competitive. Jack had the ability to be a good basketball coach because even at a young age he really understood the game. He is a player’s coach.”

To say Gavin grew up in the game of basketball would be an understatement. Gavin played in high school at Elmwood Park and has participated in the Sharks suburban youth AAU basketball program as a player and coach. The Sharks recently stunned the basketball team run by former NFL player Tai Streets.

Off the court, Gavin will start student teaching next year after receiving his masters degree from Purdue. Gavin played for Illinois Benedictine University in Lisle led by Keith Bunkenburg.

“He knows the game of basketball,” Bunkenburg said on his former point guard. “What a great kid. Fenton is lucky to have him.”

Lower-level coaches like Gavin have a big job besides player development. Guys like Gavin are also responsible for recruiting and scouting opponents. One other issue since freshmen play varsity basketball you might have to deal with a lesser talented team at times while the varsity coach is juggling the roster. In the past depending on the league freshmen would participate in both sophomore and varsity games playing limited minutes. Ultimately the job of any lower-level coach is to prepare the player for the varsity. 

“It is not about wins and losses at our level,” Gavin said on his job as sophomores coach. “It's hard to win basketball games.”

 “I hired him because he was young energetic and willing to learn,” Taft admitted and he has now won over 300 varsity basketball games in his career. “He wasn't a know it all. A lot of young coaches in the game of basketball think they know everything. He does a great job getting our sophomores ready to play on the varsity.”

Fenton (2-9) is struggling so far this season with only two seniors. The Bison finished the week by beating Ridgewood in Upstate Eight while sophomore squad is 4-6 under Gavin in early basketball contests.

The Lakers of the NBA are struggling to figure out what to do with Bronny James, who is son of superstar Lebron James and is currently playing with the big boys after playing primarily in the G League last year. The younger James is averaging only two points per game. The Lakers are looking at possibly adding Rodney Gaston of the Windy City Inferno who leads ABA in scoring. A player, who by the way, the Bulls have declined to sign or even give a tryout.

Gavin had his high school playing career in basketball derailed by torn labrum during his senior year at Elmwood Park in 2018. So, Gavin who was a point guard received an early start on his coaching career. 

“It was tough getting hurt in my senior year,” Gavin stated. “I was worried about getting hurt because I wanted to play college basketball.”

Gavin learned the game from Johnson, Bunkenburg, Kelly and his father Pat Gavin who played at Steinmetz and later coached at Fenton. The older Gavin coached in the Sharks basketball program started by Matt Kelly 14 years ago.

Mount Carmel football is probably the most successful varsity program in any sport with 17 championships. Jordan Lynch who replaced Lenti enters 2026 going for an unprecedented fifth straight title after topping Oswego in Class 8A championship game at Illinois State. Lynch is 88-12 with five titles while the lower-level teams were 36-0 this past season.

Last year, St Patrick advanced to state basketball finals for first time in school history winning games 29 games. That group as sophomores went 16-0 in ESCC play.

The landscape of high school sports especially basketball has changed. Freshman now play and start on some varsity basketball teams while 19 year-old kids are playing in the NBA.

Speaking of high school basketball players, freshman Emran Alispahic at Notre Dame will be a player to watch over the next four years.

“He had a high basketball IQ,” Johnson said about Gavin. Handy played college basketball at Nebraska and Southwest Missouri State after playing games in the Red West Section with ORR. “He was always a sponge and willing to learn. Jack picked up things fast and quickly.”

Gavin had interesting suggestion for solving our obesity problem with youngsters who spend a lot to time on computers and cell phones while eating junk food.

“I think more kids need to play sports,” Gavin admitted. 

The varsity basketball team under Coach Taft will play at Marengo during the Christmas break while the sophomore squad will play at home in a tournament.

Blog Posts and DePaul Prep's 3A Semi-final Opponent Glenwood

By Jack Lydon

I think I am finding my voice when it comes to blog posts. The blog on my website usually just contains galleries of photos from games and events I cover with some explanation. I also post my news articles that appear in the Inside—Booster.

Starting tomorrow, I am going to post news related items from the IHSA boys basketball playoffs that the U. of I. State Farm Center in Champaign in more of a first person blog format. I hope to do it in as close to real time as I can for games that I am not photographing. Tomorrow are the 1A, 2A and 3A semi-finals.

We have six Chicago area teams in playing tomorrow: Chicago Hope, Christ the King, Dyett, Brother Rice, DePaul Prep and St. Patrick. So I will post what I can as I watch the games. But I will probably be photographing the 3A games with just the usually Twitter/X score updates.

Here is some stuff DePaul Prep’s opponent, Glenwood. The Rams take on Glenwood in tomorrow’s 3A sem-final starting at 8:15 p.m.

The Glenwood Titan (24-9), with an enrollment listed by the IHSA as 1,466, are from the Central State Eight conference where they finished fourth behind MacArthur (3A in Decatur), Springfield (3A) and Lanphier (3A from Springfield). All of those schools were in the same sectional that the #3 seed Glenwood won.

The Glenwood starters are senior guard Cameron Appenzeller, senior guard Gavin Simmons, junior forward Jack Kurman, senior forward Mason Neumann and senior forward Jonathon Helm.

Glenwood’s leader scorer is Appenzeller followed closely by Helm. Based upon the games played, it looks like their starters get almost all of the playing time with the only bench player getting significant playing time being junior guard Brody Green.

Knowledgeable high school basketball commentator Big Tim Shabazz suggests in his blog that Glenwood’s size could give DePaul Prep some trouble. Check that out at Big Tim’s blog. Click here to read it.

Michael O’Brien reported this afternoon in the “No Shot Clock” podcast that the Glenwood’s Cameron Appenzeller is a 6’5” lefty pitcher who might be a first-round draft pick in the Major League Baseball draft. So that’s something. Must be quite an athlete.

Appenzeller does not show up in the PrepHoops.com rankings of Class 2025 basketball players. I am guessing that is because he probably plays baseball and not club basketball in the off-season, so he is not on that radar.

Chatham (Glenwood) team photo as appears on the IHSA website.

DePaul Prep Throttles Marian Catholic 20-7; Improves to 3-0

Preview of this week’s article in the Booster.

DePaul Prep defeated Marian Catholic 20-7 Friday in Chicago Heights. The Rams improved to 3-0 for the first time in the DePaul Prep era.

DePaul Prep had Marian playing their game. The Rams knew Marian Catholic could run the football. Spartan six foot, 173 lbs, junior tailback Kyle Scott was a load, and fast. Early in the game, the Spartans strung together a couple first downs in each of their first quarter possessions. The Rams stiffened, forcing the Spartans to throw the ball.

An ebullient head coach Mike Passarella gushed about his squad. “Stop the run. That was the game plan,” Passarella said. “They moved the ball on us. I said, ‘let’s just play base football . . . Let’s get after them.’ We are confident in what our guys can do. They know their business,” Passarella said after the game.

“We wanted to force them to throw.”

And they did. Except the Spartans throw the ball to the Rams. Two early interceptions thrown by Marian quarterback senior Joey Baranski killed the Spartans drives without ever moving deep into DePaul Prep territory. Multiple illegal formation penalties contributed to the Spartans troubles. The Rams committed penalties of their own contributing a slow, mistake plagued half for both teams.

It wasn’t until the end of the first half before either team put together a scoring drive. With 3:27 left in the half, having moved the ball down to the Marian Catholic eleven-yard line, Rams’ senior quarterback Fernando “Juju” Rodriguez, a three-year starter, rifled a pass to junior wideout Matthew Osterman at the goal line in the middle of the field. Osterman caught the pass in a crowd for the first score of the game. The PAT gave the Rams a seven- point lead.   

 The Spartans took the subsequent kick but again throw an interception. The Spartans through a total of four interceptions in the game. The Rams took their 7-0 lead into the half.

 The second half was a different story. The Rams took the kickoff and moved right down the field. Halftime adjustments on the offensive line led to Rodriguez being able to connect with Osterman and Rams’ senior running back Nick Martinez for big gains. The drive culminated with a 25-yard strike to senior wide receiver Justin Sterner early in the third quarter.

Rodriguez added a touchdown late in the third quarter on a two-yard quarterback sneak up the middle. Marian blocked the extra point attempt making the score 20-0 at the end of the third.

The Spartans scored on a 73-yard pass reception touchdown that was mostly run-after-the-catch with 1:18 left in the game against the Rams’ second team defense but the game was decided at that point.

This was a huge game for the Rams. They haven’t started a season with three wins since the Gordon Tech days. The Rams move closer to making the IHSA playoffs which takes six wins to be assured a playoff berth. The Rams finished last year’s the regular season 4-5 and missed the playoffs

DePaul Prep started this season with two convincing wins over Deerfield and Marian Central Catholic, 35-28 and 35-7 respectively. The Rams moved up a division in the combined Chicago Catholic League and East Suburban Catholic League. Moving from the lowest “Red” division into the Purple. The CCL/ESCC Purple includes Benet Academy, St. Viator and Northside rival St. Patrick.

The Rams will face St. Patrick next Friday at home. After that will be Loyola at home. The Ramblers lost a shocker at St. Francis 35-21 on Friday. A playoff berth is by no means assured for the Rams. Only tough games remain on the schedule. After Loyola is St. Viator, Carmel, St. Francis and Benet.

Sparked by last year’s huge upset win over Fenwick at home and squad loaded with experience and talented seniors, including expected Division One talent of senior wide receiver Braden Peevy and sophomore offensive tackle Carlos Rios, the Rams football program is on the rise.

“I am excited for [the rest of reason]. This is kind of what we wanted. The goal is to continue to build up the program. We talked about it a few years ago. Where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do. We never wanted to stay down in the Red. We wanted to move up. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. I am excited for it. This is what it is all about,” Passarella said.

Reflections on the Feast of St. Patrick

My father was the Co-ordinator of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade from 1956 to 1991. St. Patrick’s Day has always been a special day for me and my family. My dad had a great deal to do with making Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day what it is these days. Particularly, the dying of the Chicago River. In recent years, I have not made a big deal of it. Frankly, it is somewhat painful. I miss my dad, Daniel P. Lydon.

I am beginning to appreciate what St. Patrick’s Day has become. It is now largely a secular celebration of Irishness and Ireland. The entire Republic of Ireland has about 5.5 million people. That is about the same number of people in Cook County. Yet, Ireland and the Irish occupy such a large place in American popular culture. Ireland, it patron saint and its people enjoy their own American holiday. Perhaps not exactly a feast day of a Roman Catholic saint intended to celebrate the evangelization of the Emerald Isle to Christianity in the Fifth Century. But I, and I think, the rest of Irish America, don’t mind too much.

I enjoy, and take considerable pride in, the outsized influence the Celtic island on the edge of Europe has had in history and particularly the history of the United States and Chicago in particular.

I take pride, in the good sense, not pride in the sinful sense, in my Irish heritage and Irishness of America. The Irish—Irish Americans—have made Chicago the place it is. A good place. A friendly and productive place that has contributed to America and her people. I hope that we have brought the Irish skills and traits of good humor, hard work, faith, wit, charm, good looks and devotion to the American persona—especially the good looks part.

Enjoy the holiday. Don’t forget about St. Patrick. He taught the Irish to love. He made us who we are, like so many before and after him.