LaBelle wins District 200's Grange award
When Mark LaBelle posed with the Red Grange Award for excellence Friday afternoon at the DuPage County Heritage Gallery, it was hard not to notice that there already was a "LaBelle" name on the trophy.
Just four years ago, Mike LaBelle held the exact same trophy in the exact same gallery.
The award is given to the Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 football player who best demonstrates a combination of athletic skill, sportsmanship and scholastic ability.
Having two children in one family with enough athletic prowess to hoist the Red Grange trophy is a parenting achievement on its own. But perhaps even more intriguing is the fact that neither LaBelle carried athletic dreams beyond the high school gridiron. Instead, brain power was the heavy lifting they did and will pursue.
Mike LaBelle went on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Business Honors Program.
Mark LaBelle landed a spot on the Daily Herald Academic Team and will be a student in Northwestern University's honors program in medical education.
Mark LaBelle spoke only of his team and overcoming low team expectations with hard work in receiving the award Friday.
Sure, it was great beating Naperville North High School in triple overtime and snagging two interceptions against Morgan Park, LaBelle said. And, of course, there was the thrill of making it to the state title game two years in a row.
"It was fun to be there with the group of kids that I helped lead and the group of kids that I grew up with and played with," LaBelle said.
But his biggest thrill in the future will be representing Wheaton Warrenville South by being a success in whatever he chooses to do in the future, he added.
In the immediate future, that means waiting tables at Egglectic Café in Wheaton and umpiring youth baseball until school starts. Then the road to becoming a surgeon begins.
As for the LaBelle family, Mark and Mike LaBelle are only two of eight LaBelle siblings. And the rest all have their high school careers ahead of them.