Androus' game has grown by leaps and bounds

When Brian Phelan moved his family into its current house in Lindenhurst about five years ago, he didn't need the neighborhood Welcome Wagon to reach out and make him feel at home.

He had John Androus, the best welcome that the brand new basketball coach in town could have ever gotten.

"John lives around the corner and I remember being really excited when I first saw him because he was always out there shooting hoops in his driveway every time I drove by," said Phelan, the head coach at Lakes High School. "He was only in sixth or seventh grade at the time, but you know how it is. You can tell the kids who are going to put the time in. It builds."

Indeed it does.

Just as Androus has grown in stature - from a 5-foot-8 seventh grader into a 6-foot-5 senior - his game has grown by leaps and bound since Phelan first spied him in the driveway.

In fact, Androus, a long and lean guard whose specialty is getting to the basket for layups, runners and short jumpers, could very well leave Lakes as its most prolific scorer in school history.

Entering next week's boys state basketball tournament, he is just 28 points away from breaking the career scoring record of 1,289 points, set by Sean Hertz in 2007.

Androus has been averaging about 19 points a game this season.

"If it happens, it happens," said Androus, who has started on the varsity since sophomore year. "It'd be great to get the record, but it's not too much of a big deal.

"When the game starts and I'm on the court, I don't even think about it."

From what I can tell, Androus seems to genuinely mean that.

I covered Monday's Lakes-Antioch game and Androus had a monster first half in which he scored 15 points. I would think that many kids on the brink of a scoring record would say to themselves at halftime, "Let's keep it going, let's get even closer to that record. Keep shooting."

Not Androus.

He didn't score a single point in the second half, and not because he was shooting and missing a bunch.

Androus attempted just 4 shots after halftime, none of which looked forced as if he were attempting to score for the sake of scoring (and a scoring record).

His focus instead was on passing the ball to his teammates. Because, with the defense concentrating on him after his big first half, that was what was open.

"He could have taken over, but John's not like that. He's a team player," said fellow senior guard Tyler Swindle, who has been good friends with Androus since freshman year. "He always thinks about the team and trying to get a win for us."

Androus did indeed carry Lakes to a win in its rivalry game against Antioch, and by my recollection, he must have had at least 4 or 5 assists in the second half alone.

"For me on the court, it's whatever's working," Androus said. "It's always a better game when everyone's getting involved. It's more fun for me. I like it more."

Androus could say the exact same thing about basketball in general.

A great athlete across the board, he likes basketball more than any other sport he plays, including football, another sport in which he excels.

In fact, Androus, a speedy linebacker at Lakes, was generating some pretty impressive looks from college football coaches at the Division I level.

Even Northwestern took a good long look this past fall.

"The interest has kind of faded since then, but when I was getting those big looks, it was kind of a tough situation," Androus said.

"If I could have gone to a good school for free, I knew that I had to at least consider it."

Consider it? Why wasn't Androus ready to follow the money without question?

Well, you probably know the answer already.

"Playing football would have been hard for me, even though I really like it," he said. "I've talked to some people and they've told me that you can't do football in college unless you really, really love it. That's how I feel about basketball. I really, really love it. It's my passion and I think I would have missed it too much if I gave it up for football.

"I've always wanted to play basketball in college."

Androus, who is considering mostly DIII schools in the area such as Lake Forest, North Central, St. Norbert in Green Bay and Carthage, has always wanted to play basketball, period. Anywhere, any time.

He's been playing for as long as he can remember, and his dad Pete coached many of his early youth teams.

In his free time, when he wasn't shooting in the driveway, Androus was calling up his new, well-connected neighbor to see if he would open up the gym at the high school for him.

"I was always calling up Coach Phelan," Androus said with a smile. "When the season ended last year, I was in the gym every day, 5 days a week. It's just what I do."

It's just who Androus is.

But basketball isn't all that Androus is.

"I call him a once-in-a-decade kid, because he's got everything, and kids like him don't come around that often," Phelan said of the superstar from (almost literally) next door who feels like part of the family. "I hope my kids grow up to be like him. I mean, he just gets it. He's coachable, he does the right thing on and off the court. He's got good grades. He's the complete package.

"If you could bottle him up and sell him, you'd make a fortune. I'm going to miss him"

But not for too long,

"At least he's a neighbor," Phelan said with a smile.