Chicago Public League Sports Blog

The Suburbs Never Sleep

Scouting Report- New Trier Feeder School Meet 2013

I got a chance to go to New Trier for their annual New Trier elementary school feeder school track meet. Here are just a few things I saw:

Katie Glue of Wilmette Junior High finished with a time of 5:25 in the mile in the 8th grade girls mile competition. The next New Trier star?

Matt Otkins of Glencoe Central goes through the human chute made up of volunteers from the New Trier girls track team. Otkins clocked in a 6:02 to win the boys 6th grade race. I talked to a few people, as good as Otkins time was there are 6th graders who are running in the 5:20's.  The problem is they do not run on the track team as they play hockey and other sports. At New Trier, their problem is competition in other sports.


Warren Blood(sp?-middle) and Shawn Gorney(right) at the gun lap. The two 8th graders finished 1-2 in the 7th-8th grade boys 1 mile run with a time of 5:11 and 5:12. If you notice behind them, there are at least 2 more blue shirts. They are all from Wilmette Junior High- who apparently have a good distance program. "I'm going to run cross country at New Trier," said Goring after the race. These guys looked serious- they had running spikes and all.

Heats of the 5th-6th grade boys 100 meter dash - hand timed by members from the New Trier boys track team.

What I got out of this meet from a CPS perspective:

• The meet seemed to have a good combination of fun and seriousness.
• Lots of volunteers (both parents and high schoolers).
• Good indirect recruitment for the high school level.
• Some kids in the suburbs enter high school with 4 years of track experience under their belt.
• I hope the city has their elementary school distance programs humming because in the suburbs, they never rest.

 

Snoop League - OUT ; Chicagoland Youth Football League- BACK IN

BCK photo

Two year's ago Snoop Dog expanded his youth football league to Chicago (article). However, due to financial and other troubles, that league is defunct. For more insight on what happened and to give us all primer on what is happening with the elementary school football scene here is a more detailed insight from Adam Campbell of the Canaryville Lions:

"Snoop" youth football gone and the leagues that were torn apart in an attempt to start his league are back to normal. The Chicagoland Youth Football League is back to six teams, with the Canaryville Lions, East Side Rams, Brighton Bears, Harrison Park Panthers, Marquette Park Comanche, and the Humbolt Park Patriots providing youth football competition the last two years.

 

Found blog posts from a couple of years ago when I conducted a search on the internet relating the start of Snoops league. His league didn't last, but ours did. This league has been around since the 1950's. We intended to be here in 2050.

For starters, Horatio Banks (Ball State via Simeon), Darvell Harris (Eastern Illinois via Dunbar), played youth football for the Canaryville Lions along with Joe Filomeno (Louisville Baseball via St Rita football and baseball). There are several other players from the Lions that have gone on to play college ball.

 

The Canaryville Lions were the dominate team in the Chicagoland Youth Football League and are arguably still the dominate team.

 

At the time the the Snoop league started the Cyfl was described as defunct but that was not accurate, we cobbled together a league from teams that did not want to be involved with Snoop and had a great season. Of course everyone remembers how the Snoop league fell apart that year. It is my understanding that each team that left our league to join the Snoop league was promised $20,000.00 worth of equiptment. I dont think that happened

 

My problem with the Snoop league was Snoop himself. Advocating drug use and alcohol was not my idea of being a roll model to young boys and girls.

 

Two years later the Bridgeport Hurricanes no longer exist having decided they had enough of Chicago football. They changed the name to Bridgeport Huskies and play in some suburban league. To be fair, they were decent competition wouldn't mind having them back, but don’t think that's going to happen. 

 

The Chicagoland Youth Football League has six teams and is searching for at least two more teams. As I write this there are three fairly competitive teams, The Canaryville Lions, Humbolt Park Patriots, and the Pilson Panthers, of the other three teams, the East Side Rams, Brighton Bears and Marquette Park Comanche can easily step up and shock someone if they take them for granted.

 

The league joined USA Football last year. Membership in USA Football provides several benefits to player and coaches. Check out the USA Football site. http://usafootball.com/#headsup

Mathus, Jackson, Pirpiris - Ryder Cup Ready?

Rising CPS golf stars Myah Jackson and Erica Jackson, better known as the "Birdie Sisters", who have been winning local, national, and international tournaments all year, will also play at the Cog Hill Regional. If they look young it's because they are. Erica is 14. Myah is 12. They go to Skinner West Elementary School located 2 blocks from Whitney Young.  Let's hope they stay in the CPS for high school. Whitney Young, Lindblom, Payton, etc would love them. But same with Iggy (St. Ignatius), Fenwick, Nazareth, and every private school.

I got the following email from a reader:

This year's biggest local sports event will be the Ryder Cup, which will be held the last week in September at the Medinah Country Club.  The best golfers in the United States and Europe will be facing off in this event that is held every four years alternating between a US and European locale. The competition is extra special this year because this is the first time the Ryder Cup will be held in the Chicagoland area. The activities will start on Saturday, September 22 with the Ryder Cup Youth Skills Challenge Finals.  

Since May, over 3,000 junior golfers (some as young as 6 years old) have been competing in 57 Ryder Cup Youth Skills Challenges held all over the state.  The winners of these local challenges are now competing in four regional competitions to determine the 32 competitors that will have the honor of participating in the finals that will take place during the Ryder Cup activities at Medinah.

Of course, getting a chance to play at Medinah during this special time and be treated to VIP status during the Ryder Cup has attracted many of the most talented junior golfers to the compete in this skills challenge, including some of the best CPS golfers.

Lindbloom's dynamic Mathus brother duo are quoted on the Illinois PGA's webpage that covers the details: "DeVaughn Mathus, 17, and Jason Mathus, 15, are two junior golfers who qualified to compete in August 11 regional qualifier at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont, Ill., after advancing out of the June 2 local qualifier held at Marquette Park Golf Course in Chicago".

In addition to the Lindbloom contingent, other top CPS golfers that have qualified for a regional include: Skinner West's  Myah Jackson and Erica Jackson, better known as the "Birdie Sisters", who have been winning local, national, and international tournaments all year, will also play at the Cog Hill Regional.

And last but not least, a Taft Senior, Deanna Pirpiris, is a true testament to CPS Golf, having started learning the game nine years ago in the CPS summer programs and has advanced to be one of the top contending CPS Girls Golfers last year. Deanna will compete Saturday, August 18 at Pine Meadow Golf Club in Mundelein, Illinois. 

Good Luck to all of the CPS contenders - we hope that they all get a chance to play at Medinah with the pros in September!


Would you like to contribute an article to CPSfan.com?....send me an email...Publisher@LaneTechFan.com

update: It is reported that Erica Jackson is seriouly considering either Walter Payton or St. Ignatius for high school.

A look at a suburban elementary school track meet

I got a chance to see a family member run at the New Trier East campus in Winnetka, IL for the annual New Trier Elementary School Invitational for 5th-8th graders.

There was a huge crowd to watch the 14 elementary schools that feed into New Trier high school. It was a boys and girls meet that featured sprint events, field events, and of course distance event. This is the start of the girls 1600 meter run. I think the winner ran a 5:33 or 6:33- that is what someone told me.

Here is the winner of the boys 7th-8th grade 1600 meter run. Someone told me his name was Jack Lebowitz(sp?), an 8th grader form Glencoe. I personally hand timed his result of 4:44 (that is not a misprint). There were five 7th-8th grade boys that ran under 5:15. The New Treir Trevian cross country program looks like they are going to be good.

Start of the 5th grade 100 meter dash. That's right they start at 5th grade in the burbs. The 100 is the most popular event.

Heet of the 8th grade 100 meter dash. Some of these guys look like high school sophomores.

Awards were given to the top 6 placers of each heet.

They also had the long jump, shot put, and high jump.

I was impressed by the number of New Trier high school track and cross county team member volunteers. Overall great introduction to track for elementary school students. May be the CPS can learn how other school districts do things.

Baby Indians Feeder Center

If you think Lane sports are good now, can you imagine how much better they will be if/when they develop athletes from their new academic center?

The new Lane Tech Academic Center (LTAC) opened up this fall at Lane. It is an elementary school within Lane Tech open for 7th and 8th graders. Technically, a LTAC student can goto another high school besides Lane. But the reality is most of them are set up to go to Lane after 8th grade.

Below is a list of potential sports LTAC can compete in:

Fall Boys’ & Girls’ Cross Country Boys’ Soccer Girls’ Volleyball Double Dutch (Coed) Girls’ Tennis Flag Football (Coed)

Winter Wrestling Girls' & Boys' Basketball Chess (Coed) Cheerleading Pom-Pons

Spring Boys’ & Girls’ Track Girls’ Soccer Boys’ Volleyball Boys’ Tennis Golf (Coed) Boys’ 16” slow pitch softball Girls’ fast-pitch softball

 

If done right, this looks like the makings of a potentially serious elementary sports feeder program for the school of champions.

Spotlight- Dion Earls, Jr. Incoming freshman running back from Simeon

I got some more info on Dion Earls, Jr. He is an incoming freshman running back going to Simeon this year. Here is some of his numbers taken this summer 8th grade: 4.89 40 yd dash, 24" vertical- those are good numbers for a recent 8th grade graduate. More importantly, it looks like he can play. He's very shifty and had got some great bursts of speed. Here is a YouTube Video of him during some elementary school games: (It looks like Simeon's got another a good one).

 

 

Spotlight - Mather freshman Mamadou Bah

Mamadou Bah(incoming freshman) for Mather

Sometimes, I get some emails from up and coming players. Here is one of them:

My name is Mamadou Bah. I am 14 years old. I am going to be attending Mather this fall and I am going to be playing football. I played 3 years for the Welles Park Cowboys at the park district level. I am 5’8 168 pounds and play runningback. I run a 4.86 40 yard dash. This past season I had 19 rushing touchdowns including the playoffs. I have very good vision with the ball in my hand and I can catch out of the backfield and also block (Im not trying to be cocky). On defense I played safety, corner, and some linebacker. I have quick feet on defense and good range and good ball skills. I don’t miss tackles. I just want to be on your blog page so I can get my name out there.

Baby Indians

 

Lane Tech will be opening an Academic Center this fall. The fall class starts with 7th graders. The Academic Center will also include an opportunity for the kids to participate in a cross country team. The team will have a new coach, train, and run in meets.

This is a potentially big boost to the Lane Tech cross country program. I'd imagine that many of the kids attending the academic center will be going to Lane Tech after they graduate from 8th grade. So the Lane Tech high school cross country team could have a bunch of new freshman who already have cross country experience prior to going into high school.

While this is nothing new in the suburbs, in the city elementary school cross country programs are still being developed.

The importance of elementary school football to high schools

All the kids from Maine South and Naperville Schools play pk district football. Of course some don't pan out or some play other sports. My point is that it is an advantage rather than a disadvantage to play park district/elementary school football.

The reason why south side schools are better in general than north side school in football because south side elementary school football is generally more developed than it is on the north side.

I talked to south side elementary kid football players. Even though they are in 6th, 7th, 8th grade they all know the top football programs. The top players want to go to Hubbard, Simeon, and Morgan Park. A few go to Brooks or Harlan and more than the share go to Mt. Carmel and St. Rita. The rest of the Catholic League (Brother Rice, Marist, St. Laurence) get a few hard core Chicago kids but most of them (at least the ones I talked to) inspire to either go to Simeon,Hubbard, or Morgan Park. Though I don't see why Curie can't be in the discussion.  If they can afford it they go to Mt. Carmel or St. Rita.

As for the northside, Lane Tech is still king when it comes to football. Despite a down last couple of years, Lane Tech football is still the palce to go for football. Yes it was Curie and Simeon's year last year but as early as 2008 and 2004 Lane Tech won the city championship. In those years and for many years and decades before the king of north side football has always been and wil continue to be Lane Tech. Much of that has to do with elementary kids want to go to Lane to play football.

My point is that elementary and pk district football is serious stuff and make a big impact to high school football programs.

Intial Results from 2010 CPS Elementary School Cross Country Championship

5th/6th Girls Team Champion - Onahan

5th/6th Boys Team Champion - Norwood Park

7th/8th Girls Team Champion - Whitney Young

7th/8th Boys Team Champion - Whitney Young

I don't the name of the girls 5th/6th winner from Peterson.

I don't know the boys 5th/6th winner.

The 7th/8th girls winner was Maia Sanders from Whitney Young (9:43).

The 7th/8th boys winner was Malcom Grba from Bell (not sure of time).