When Bill Chesbrough came to Elgin High School to coach basketball in 1949, he had no idea he would end up as the Maroons' boss for 35 years.
Not in his wildest dreams did he imagine that the field house the Maroons now call home would be named after him.
And I doubt seriously that anyone around on March 2, 1900, when William LeBaron managed the Elgin High boys basketball team in its first game against another high school, could have envisioned the explosion to follow over the next 100 years.
But over the course of the 20th century, that first game in Sauer's Hall on Fountain Square has evolved into what today is the most beloved athletic passion of Elgin High School - basketball.
It's hard for me to fathom what that first game was like, but in today's special keepsake section, we try to tell you something about that inaugural event.
Before I go any further, I must thank everyone involved with this project. I won't name everyone, because surely I'll forget someone. But I must say a huge thanks to 1974 Elgin High graduate Scott Johnson, who is now the web master for the Illinois High School Association in Bloomington.
Scott also maintains the Elgin High basketball web site, which is the best high school sports Internet site in the country, bar none. His intense research of 100 years of Elgin High basketball was the key ingredient to making this section a success.
Thanks, Scott, for everything.
Anytime we take on one of these projects, which involves looking back in time, it turns out to be as much fun as it is work. Believe me, I enjoyed every minute of sitting in Chesbrough Field House talking with Bill Chesbrough, Bill Jr., and Jessica and Kelly. I could talk basketball with Ches for weeks and weeks.
Researching this project with Dave Tonge, our Fox Valley photography chief and a longtime Elgin resident, allowed me to take a much closer look at some of Elgin's rich history. We really do have a wonderful story behind our town.
But the topic of today's project is basketball - 100 years of hoop dreams at Elgin High.
Bill Chesbrough told me during our sit-down at the field house that bears his name that Elgin High School has the best basketball tradition of any school in the state, if not the country. Bill wasn't born in Elgin, remember. Heck, he wasn't even born in Illinois. And yet he believes Elgin High has the best basketball tradition in the state.
So do I, and I recall saying as much last spring at the "E" Booster Club banquet. I tried to remind the Maroon athletes they had a big responsibility to uphold the EHS tradition. It's a grand and wonderful tradition - and it has maintained itself, first and foremost, with the sport of basketball.
When coach Jim Harrington's Maroons take the floor Tuesday night in the first round of the 2000 state tournament, it will be the 2,155th boys basketball game in the school's history.
Aurora and Quincy and Galesburg and Peoria and Springfield and all points in between can argue as long as they like about their traditions, but they won't convince me otherwise. There's simply no high school basketball tradition anywhere like Elgin High's.
So, sit back and enjoy today's walk through 100 years of basketball at Elgin High School. It's a story worth telling again and again.
