When Bill Chesbrough came to Elgin High School to teach and coach, he never intended to become a legend.
It just sort of worked out that way.
And now, a third generation of Chesbroughs are plying their basketball trade at Elgin High, and they're doing it in the field house named for their grandfather.
While Elgin has a long-standing basketball tradition that celebrates 100 years March 2, no one person is more recognizable and more linked to Elgin basketball than Bill Chesbrough.
He began coaching the Maroons in 1950 and carved his legend over the next 35 years. He coached 919 games and won 573 of them in those 35 seasons, taking second in the state in 1955 and making three other Elite Eight appearances. His teams won an incredible 21 regional championships and 10 sectional crowns. Three times, his teams won 14 straight regional games.
He coached players who went on to play in the NBA as well as countless college players.
Rick Hopkins, Rick Sund, Chuck Brandt, Terry Mayfield, Flynn Robinson, Terry Drake and George Clark all scored over 1,000 points playing for "Ches."
Two of Elgin's most memorable games came with Ches on the bench - and, ironically, they were both losses. One, the 1955 state championship game against Rockford West, recently was voted as the top moment in Illinois high school basketball history. The other, a 1973 double-overtime state quarterfinal loss to John McDougal's West Aurora Blackhawks, is one of the favorite memories of many present-day Elgin fans who never saw the '55 Rockford West game.
But more than wins, losses and great games, Chesbrough stood for longevity, loyalty and good character.
"When people looked at my teams, I always wanted them to say, 'Those Elgin boys are really good people,'æ" says Chesbrough, who retired as the schools' coach and athletic director after the 1984-85 school year, his last game a Sweet Sixteen loss to Homewood-Flossmoor at East Aurora's jam-packed gym.
He produced good people as well. His son Bill Jr. played for him, graduating in 1971, and his son Tom played for him, graduating in 1978. Tom is now in the insurance software business in Kansas City, while Bill Jr. is a Fox Valley-area attorney. And it's Bill Jr.'s daughters - Jessica and Kelly now and Jill coming quickly through the elementary system - who are carrying on the Chesbrough name in Elgin basketball tradition.
Jessica actually played her sophomore year at Larkin when the family lived on the west side of town. But a move to the east side before this school year has the Chesbroughs back wearing Maroon and Cream.
"Family pride was certainly a factor in making the move over from Larkin," said Bill Jr. "We wanted the kids involved in the Elgin tradition."
And when Jessica, the oldest, made that move she felt some of the pressure that comes with being a Chesbrough and playing basketball in the building bearing your grandpa's name.
"At first it hit me a lot," Jessica said during an interview that took place near the Hall of Fame inside the field house. "I'd think about it every time I'd walk in here.
"Last year, when I played here with Larkin, I thought about it a lot. When we decided to move over to Elgin, at first I was a little tentative about it because I knew there'd be a lot of pressure. The field house, at first, is kind of intimidating.
"But now I love playing here. There's no other basketball court I'd rather call home."
Even Kelly, a freshman, has caught the mystique of playing in Chesbrough Field House.
"At the beginning of the season, I'd get really nervous before games," she says. "But now I don't think about it as much."
Just where did the Chesbrough/Elgin story begin? At a sectional tournament game in Waukegan, actually.
"I came to Elgin after World War II," said Bill Sr., who was born in New York. "I was in Chicago, and in 1948 I went to a sectional tournament game in Waukegan and watched Elgin play and I was impressed with Elgin and the way the played and the way the fans supported them. I told the guy I went with, 'I'm going to apply at that high school and see if I can get a job there. That's the atmosphere I want to be in.' In May of 1949, I got hired."
And after an auto accident during a return trip from a Christmas tournament in Wisconsin left head coach John Krafft unable to coach the team, the Maroons became Chesbrough's - for the next 35 years as a coach and ever since as a fan.
"I thought I'd be here a while," the elder Chesbrough says now. "But I never thought it'd be that long. I was interviewing for some college jobs in the '50s, and I thought maybe I'd get one but I never did."
Staying at Elgin made Chesbrough appreciate the school more every year.
"I relished this job," he says. "This was a great job. I think it's the finest job in the state myself. I've said many times I think Elgin High School is the finest high school in the nation."
Elgin basketball games became the thing to do whenever the Maroons were playing. Their home gym was aptly dubbed "The Snakepit," and Chesbrough's teams made hay in that building, still standing and well preserved on East Chicago street. From 1938 until 1972, Elgin teams were 298-66, a winning percentage of .819 in the Snakepit, which was officially named The Gym Annex.
"It was tough getting a seat in those days," Bill Sr. recalled. "We very seldom played when a game wasn't sold out. We had a tremendous advantage in that old gym. The crowd was right on top of the court, and those were gung-ho Elgin people, I'll tell you. They really rattled the other teams.
"The student sections were really gung-ho. Their biggest objective was to GET DOWNSTATE! The adults were just as bad. The pressure was really on the players."
Then, in 1972, the Maroons moved to their new field house and the whole game changed.
"This was a big place," said Chesbrough. "We had 5,000 seats, and this place was packed. It just lifted the whole program another notch."
The first four years in a the new gym produced a 93-18 record, the most successful four-year period in program history. During that span, the Maroons won 40 of 47 home games. To date, entering Friday's Upstate Eight Conference championship game against St. Charles, Elgin is 255-124 in the field house, a winning percentage of .673.
But, again, there's more to this story than wins and losses.
There are the values that come from supporting a program that teaches fair play and respect first and foremost, values that continue today in both the boys and girls programs, under coaches Jim Harrington and Lee Turek.
"Ches is one of the people I really look up to," said Harrington, who just gained his 400th career win and who has 288 of those wins at Elgin since he took over for Chesbrough in 1985. "He means more to me than I can say, and we're not even personal friends. I owe him for getting me started in the right direction here."
"Ches was my mentor," said Turek, who played for Elgin and Chesbrough from 1967-69. His mother, Maxine, was a girls sports pioneer and also Chesbrough's assistant athletic director for many years.
"He is Elgin basketball. That's the bottom line. He's the man behind the success of this program and always will be."
And they are values formed, in large part, by the Chesbrough family. You could just say it's in their blood.
"That's a fair statement," said Bill Jr. "We got the girls involved at an early age and indoctrinated them into the Elgin basketball tradition. We talk about it a lot."
"Always," Jessica says. "We've heard a lot of (Bill Sr.'s) stories, and he's always giving us advice on how to improve our games. We get a lot of advice from my dad, too."
"I've talked to the girls about the tradition and what Elgin basketball has meant to the basketball community in this state and how the city has interacted with the basketball program," Bill Jr. says. "The tradition of Elgin basketball goes well beyond the basketball court. It's Elgin."
The next generation understands those lessons well.
"We've always been told that we're not going to let anyone down if we're not all-state," Jessica said. "We've been told that, 'We want you to be a good person. We just want you to do your best."
For over 50 years, the Chesbroughs have been doing just that.
