This team is winning more than games
The Elgin boys basketball team injected the city's east side with a desperately needed shot of hope Friday night
The Maroons won the Class 4A Jacobs sectional title by upsetting Rockford Boylan 70-67, but the symbolic effect of that victory might have been more significant than the actual hardware it garnered.
It hasn't been an easy year for residents east of the Fox River in the City to Watch.
A series of shootings last summer had the east side on edge, including an incident at Drake Field near Huff Elementary School in September. Two men were arrested that day after shots were fired while 7- and 8-year-olds were playing football and cheerleading nearby.
Two weeks later Elgin starting point guard Jeremy Granger's older brother, Xavier, and his cousin Raymond Granger were wounded in a drive-by shooting while walking to a gas station.
In late November Elgin High basketball coach Rob Brault was removed from his job days before the season opened due to an arrest for driving under the influence.
Elgin High's collective morale hit rock bottom in mid-January, when teacher Carolyn Gilbert was stabbed multiple times in her classroom by a 16-year-old student.
Elgin coach Mike Sitter, an EHS alum and east-side resident, took the downward spiral personally.
Sitter was at Drake Field with his family when that shooting occurred.
He picked up the pieces and carried on as head coach after the removal of Brault, his friend, whose system he credits for allowing Elgin to advance this deep.
Sitter's team was practicing inside Chesbrough Field House as Gilbert was being attacked.
Though the good fortune of a basketball team does nothing to affect the socio-economic reality that has led to the many troubles plaguing the city of Elgin, such emotional victories do remind people that good things can happen to residents east of the Fox River.
That idea has been an underlying motive throughout the Maroons' improbable 5-0 postseason run, one that has landed them in the NIU supersectional against Zion-Benton on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
"I told the kids before the game the city of Elgin has had a bad reputation, and they're looking for a hero," Sitter said. "You can take the east side, put them on your back and carry them. That's what they did tonight.
"I'm more than a coach. I'm a teacher and I'm a friend to these kids. I want them to raise their kids on the east side of Elgin. I went to Elgin High, I went to Larsen Middle School. My brother, my parents, my grandparents are all from Elgin.
"I just want them to have a family atmosphere and want to live on the east side and not say life is better somewhere else. I want them to make life better here, where we live now."
Supporters of Elgin athletics absent from the stands for years have been re-energized by the current team of underdogs.
"There are people I don't even know who went to Elgin who come up and tell me congratulations, people who haven't been to an Elgin game in 10 years," senior Kenny Williams said. "We're bringing a community together. That's what makes us fight every day."
It's a heady motivation for a team of talented players finally realizing the potential so many east-side fans believed this group possessed.
"I'm so glad we're finally putting the tradition back in Elgin," senior Armani Williams said. "There have been so many bad things for the reputation of Elgin lately. We're glad to put Elgin on our shoulders and show them things are positive. I think we're helping Elgin out."
Elgin fans chanted their usual, "East side, Maroon pride," at the end of Friday's game.
For the first time in a while, they really meant it.