Ready or not, soccer about to start
According to the IHSA's calendar, it's spring. Actually, by the calendar on my desk, winter ends in just over two weeks.
But looking out my window, there is still snow on the ground and it certainly looks like winter. Heck, Nate Drye coached a boys basketball game on Tuesday, and his Aurora Central girls soccer team is less than one week from opening its 2008 campaign.
Of course this craziness happens because the state is unwilling to move spring sports past graduation dates. In sports like soccer, there is a real conflict, with the club state cup.
Forcing athletes to make a choice between one or the other would be worse than the club vs. high school conflict that currently exists. That problem has only gotten worse in recent years and doesn't look like it's improving. For every enlightened club coach who allows players to have a full range of opportunities and for every high school coach who is aware of the allure of club soccer and tries to offer something positive interscholastically, there are still many entrenched on both sides.
Moving up the calendar may have seemed a great decision given the mild winters we have had recently. But this year, it looks awful. All those fields in poor condition from last year's football season will be only marginally thawed before they are forced to endure another 10 weeks of punishment.
That's bad for the fields, bad for the athletes, and ultimately bad for anyone wanting to watch the games. The ball is supposed to be able to roll on a soccer field. Too many divots and ruts ruin that potential spectacle.
Unwittingly, this plays into the club coach's argument that they provide better for their athletes. Even very few clubs have a billiard table surface on which to work, but most club fields don't have football played on them.
Figure schools like Wheaton North, Wheaton Warrenville South, Bartlett, West Chicago and any others with artificial surfaces to benefit in the early days of this season. And those schools won't have to re-sod this summer either.
Evanston renovation?: If it's hardly spring sports season, to most of the world, winter sports still rule. There is still much talk about swimming, my resting place during the winter months.
One of the rumors rolling around the Evanston pool during the recent boys state meet involved how the Wildkits' pool might be expanded.
In essence, the pool's direction would be rotated, and the building in which the pool is housed would be extended to the north, toward Church Street. The entire facility would be reworked and the result would be a state of the art 50-meter pool. The rumor is that this might be put in place in anticipation for possible use should Chicago succeed in its Olympic bid.
Will it happen? It's just talk, and may never even reach the planning stages. Something about airborne pigs and moon-hopping cows come to mind. Any number of possibilities have been mooted over the years. None have really come close to fruition. The Evanston-New Trier rotation will continue for the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, the boys state meet at Evanston took place with fewer glitches than the previous two meets which took place at New Trier. The girls meet in November is back at Evanston, which certainly seemed better-suited to host than did New Trier in November.
As far as Evanston's pool is concerned, when they shovel dirt to start the project, that's when I'll believe something is really taking place.
Fast state:ŒThat state meet provided another glimpse into the heart of one of the fastest swimming states in the nation. The Evanston pool only has six lanes and the pool is too shallow to create the deep well swimmers and coaches like to foster fast swimming.
But the atmosphere helps create incredible swimming. And let's not take the pool completely out of the equation. It may not be state of the art by 2008 standards, but it isn't the worst tank in the world either.
Neuqua Valley had the most visible set of fans in the gallery, sporting their bright yellow shirt. They got to witness quite a show, with their favorite team lifting earning the right to take the state trophy for a swim for the first time in school history.
Brian Alden, Neuqua's senior star, confirmed his place among the state's elite. His most electrifying swim came in the 200-yard freestyle relay, a 19.84 split that was just off Matt Grevers' 19.83 record in the 50 freestyle. Needless to say, the Wildcats won the event.
Locally, the best performance came from St. Charles North's medley relay, which opened the meet by swimming 1:35.00 to claim the state championship. That time is tied for 10th-fastest in state history. Of the quartet, John Higgins and Jimmy Brooks graduate while Dan Stanek and Nick Smith return next year for their senior campaigns.
College updates:ŒCollege swimming is finishing its conference meet sequence, and is heading toward the NCAA meet. This area has produced a massive number of college swimmers, and to list them all would take too much space.
But St. Charles East graduate and current University of Michigan junior Curtis Dauw helped the Wolverines lift their 33rd conference title on Sunday.
Dauw was fifth in the 200-yard individual medley, fourth in the 100 butterfly and third in the 200 butterfly and was named first team all-conference.
Catherine Nosal, a St. Charles North grad and a Michigan sophomore, helped her team to a second-place finish. Among other notable area swimmers was West Chicago's Jackie Vavrek, now a senior at Wisconsin. Vavrek was also named first team all-conference and won the 50-yard freestyle.