Catching up with Batavia senior forward Sara Fruendt
What's up...
Sara Fruendt
After her "whole life" as a point guard, this year Batavia senior basketball player Sara Fruendt grew into a 5-foot, 11-inch forward. That wasn't too mysterious since her 6-7 father, Joel, played at Illinois Wesleyan and her brother, Nick, is a 6-5 sophomore guard at Northwestern. She has an aunt who's 6-4 and Sara's 13-year-old little sister Liza is 5-7, in eighth grade. Sara Fruendt, aka "Fru-Fru," used to run cross country and track, but shelved it before her junior year to concentrate on basketball. Still, she has run two half-marathons: one this summer and one in 2008 in memory of the late Batavia graduate Kevin Bryant.
Q: What's been your greatest challenge in life?
A: Probably the fact that I have (Type I) diabetes and I deal with that every day. I got it when I was a child, in the eighth grade, so my whole world was changing.
Q: Reflect back on your life in basketball as a short person.
A: For my position it was what I needed. I had the quickness and point guards are generally smaller. But I was never way shorter, like 5-2.
Now that I'm tall It's frustrating to me because I never realized how much post (players) don't get the ball. When I was a point guard the posts would say, "Gimme the ball!" I'd say, "I am giving you the ball!"
Q: Do you feel valued on the court?
A: Yes, I feel valued. We've only had three games (as of Nov. 30) but so far a lot of different girls have stepped up and everyone brings something different. I guess everybody's valuable on the court.
Q: Were you afraid of taking your brother on in driveway basketball?
A: No. He's a softy.
Q: Can you do any Globetrotter-style tricks with the basketball?
A: I can spin it on my finger, but that's about it.
Q: If you could be a contestant on any game show, which would it be?
A: "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," for sure. Or "Survivor," for sure. It would be a challenge. It would be fun, and you actually do something to earn the money.
Q: Ever drink a fruit bat milkshake?
A: No, I haven't.
Q: You say you're dating another athlete at Batavia. What's the most aggravating thing about going out with an athlete?
A: We have to watch sports all the time. No matter what. We can never do anything, we have to watch the game.
Q: Now that you're a power forward, what's your best post move?
A: My best post move is probably the up-and-under.
Q: What's the best advice your parents have given you?
A: My mom (Suzanne) says, "Go for it, Sara," all the time. They say just to work hard and go for whatever I want to succeed in life.
Q: At this point what kind of career do you want?
A: I want to be a secondary education teacher. I like teaching. I teach swim lessons right now and I just really like working with people and seeing them learn.
Still boiling over Purdue
Since this writer is a graduate of Indiana University, there's no way we can promote the admittedly fine varsity boys basketball debut of Kendall Stephens at St. Charles East.
There is absolutely no way we can applaud the fact that the 6-foot-2, 145-pound guard - just a freshman - scored 12 points in a 71-62 loss to Proviso East at St. Charles East's own Ron Johnson Thanksgiving Tournament.
The reason, of course, is Kendall's father is Everette Stephens, the former Purdue Boilermaker star who in the 1988 NBA Draft was taken ahead of Hoosiers Dean Garrett and Keith Smart.
Good thing Kendall isn't the son of old Hoosiers thorn-in-the-side Doug Lee. Or the grandson of Gene Keady. Seriously, we'd be unable to write about him.
More football? You bet
As reported here Nov. 12, 15 proposed IHSA Bylaw amendments including one pertaining to football scheduling made their way to a statewide series of "Town Hall" meetings and a Nov. 23 meeting of the IHSA's Legislative Commission in Bloomington.
Eureka principal Rich Wherley had proposed that the IHSA schedule all football games in 10-team regional formats in a two-year cycle (home and away), effectively ending football conferences.
"It didn't receive any support," said Benet athletic director Gary Goforth, a first-year member of the Legislative Commission who attended a Town Hall session at Addison Trail and the Nov. 23 meeting.
"He did a nice job presenting it," Goforth said of Wherley's proposal. "He did a lot of background work for it. But in our conference, with conference affiliations and rivalries, I just don't think that would satisfy the (IHSA) membership at this time."