25 years later, this remains the best Tigers team ever
Ralph Heatherington and Rich Jarom didn't know what they were getting into - and certainly couldn't have predicted the road ahead.
"We had never coached girls before," said Heatherington, Jarom's assistant on the Wheaton Central girls basketball team starting in 1982, and formerly a freshman boys basketball coach under Don McGee. "We were going to our first game and I said to Rich, 'What do you think?' and he said, 'I don't know.'"
Heatherington and Jarom, who now lives in Atlanta, figured out they had a pretty good club that night after beating Fremd.
The ride was just getting started.
Two years later, Wheaton Central's journey ended at Assembly Hall in Champaign, where the Tigers took second to Marshall in the Class AA state tournament.
To this day it is the only Wheaton Central or Wheaton Warrenville South girls basketball team to reach state. And on Saturday, in this the 25th anniversary of that achievement, the team will be honored at halftime of the WW South-Glenbard North game.
"Just a fun group," said Heatherington, who retired as principal at Wheaton North in 2004. "It will be fun to see them all back together."
By the time the 1984-85 season rolled around Jarom and Heatherington knew they had something special going. The year before girls from Wheaton-Warrenville had joined Wheaton Central, and the once-rivals advanced together to the supersectional before losing to eventual state champion York.
"I think that helped the school," Heatherington said. "It kind of brought everybody together."
It didn't hurt having Katie Meier, a 6-foot-1 guard and Chicago Tribune Athlete of the Year who would go on to an All-America career at Duke. She now coaches at Miami (Fla). Teammate Yvonne Simmons went on to play at Drake.
"She was a 6-1 guard that could play anywhere," Heatherington said of Meier. "When she went in for layups you thought she was going to dunk the ball."
Wheaton Central started the season with a loss to South Shore in the Whitney Young Thanksgiving Tournament, but then the Tigers went on a run. Oak Park beat them at a Christmas tournament at Willowbrook, but Wheaton Central rolled undefeated through the DuPage Valley Conference and past regionals in Batavia.
The Tigers beat St. Charles in a very close sectional game, then avenged their loss to Oak Park in the supersectional at Wheaton North. They beat Libertyville, then Maine West and at that time fourth-year coach Derril Kipp 30-25 in the state semis, for 17 years the lowest point total scored by a winning team at state.
"That was when Kipp was first getting it rolling at Maine West," Heatherington said. "He held the ball on us."
Wheaton Central finally lost to 30-1 Chicago Marshall in the state championship, the second of Dorothy Gaters' eight state titles.
"We got beat by Marshall," Heatherington said, "like a lot of people had."
All of the players on a senior-heavy team graduated. It would be 12 years before Wheaton Warrenville South won another sectional. No basketball team, boys or girls, has been to state since.
"The girls all had the same goal, to get down to state," Heatherington said. "They were easy to coach, and a good bunch of kids. They had talent and wanted to do well."
jwelge@dailyherald.com