Maciejewski sets sights even higher

For years veteran coach Lee Maciejewski had the goal of coaching high school sports for 100 seasons.

Now up to 108 this winter as varsity assistant to Hinsdale Central boys basketball coach Nick Latorre, Maciejewski is also Hinsdale Central's varsity softball coach and is an assistant football coach at Wisconsin Dells High School, where he and his wife, Nora, have a home.

Well over 100 seasons, he's adjusted his sights.

“I have a new goal,” he said while scouting the Jan. 31 game between West Aurora and Naperville Central with Latorre. That is to coach three sports for 40 years.

Less than four to go ...

Huskies in the Hall

Naperville North welcomes a seventh class of inductees into its Athletics Hall of Fame at 5 p.m. Friday in the school auditorium. The standouts also will be introduced between sophomore and varsity boys basketball games against Glenbard East, at about 6:30 p.m.

The list this year: athletes Kathleen Bazzetta, Kevin Hill, John Kandl, Amy Boothe and Tom Vilet, and coach George Klumb.

Bazzetta (Class of 2001), whose name was in heavy rotation in the Daily Herald DuPage office in the last of her two all-DuPage Valley Conference volleyball seasons, led the Huskies to two DVC titles. Team captain for Sports Performance's Under-18 national champions in 2001, she went on to Illinois where at libero ranked among the Illini's top-10 digs list. She earned the university's Jim Bayne Award for academic excellence three straight years.

Boothe (1993) was not only the Huskies' 1991 volleyball MVP but also a five-time track all-stater, specializing in the hurdles. Boothe was runner-up in the Class AA 300-meter hurdles as a junior and senior. She still holds Taylor University's 100-meter hurdles record, is second in the 400 hurdles, and was an NAIA All-America after a sixth-place 400 finish.

Hill (1998) racked up a slew of honors as a football lineman. He was this newspaper's lineman of the year and was an All-Area pick as well as a Coaches Association all-stater. He made the Illinois Coaches Association Shrine game and didn't stop there, twice earning first-team honors in the Ohio Valley Conference while at Eastern Illinois. Also a heavyweight wrestler and team captain, Hill went downstate twice.

Kandl (1993) was nothing if not versatile, at a high level. He earned 12 varsity letters at Naperville North and was a 10-time state qualifier in cross country, track and swimming. He was part of four all-state 400-yard freestyle relay teams, ran on a second-place Class AA 3,200-meter relay in 1991 then in 1992 placed seventh in the 1,600 run. In 1993 Kandl was Naperville North's male senior athlete of the year. At the U.S. Military Academy he became brigade swimming champion in 1994 — and in boxing in 1995.

Vilet (1988) was a baseball star who captained DVC champions in both baseball and basketball. The all-stater moved on to Wisconsin, where he was a career .300 hitter, three-year starter and gold-glove outfielder. In the 1991 Amateur Draft, Vilet was selected in the 23rd round by the Philadelphia Phillies, and played three years in their minor league system.

Finally, Klumb was the Huskies' boys swimming and diving coach for 20 years. His teams finished second in both 1983 and 1984 — coming up against the St. Charles juggernaut — and then took third in 1991 and 1995. Klumb won 11 sectionals, enjoyed 13 top-10 state finishes and was named coach of the year in 1991 and 1995. A masters swimmer himself with more than 40 state titles and 10 top-eight national finishes, Klumb coached 14 individual All-Americas, eight state champions and 17 relay All-Americas.

Big-ticket event

Neuqua Valley graduate Chris Derrick, an 11-time All-America track and cross country runner in his senior year at Stanford, has been invited to run in a loaded 5,000-meter race at the 105th Millrose Games, Saturday night at the Armory's New Balance Track & Field Center in New York City.

Preliminary hype includes the possibility of four records being broken. New Jersey high schooler Edward Cheserek is looking to set a new scholastic 5K indoor mark, set just last year by the great Lukas Verzbicas.

A group of runners including Derrick and University of Arizona freshman Lawi Lalang — who defeated Derrick at the NCAA Cross Country Championships last year — will attempt to break Galen Rupp's collegiate record.

In the same 12-man field, world champion and Olympic medalist Bernard Lagat will try to snap the Millrose Games mark as well as Rupp's American indoor record of 13 minutes, 11.44 seconds.

Derrick has said it's too soon for him to attack such times with a full slate of indoor and outdoor meets still to come. But one never knows.

Another quote by the Cardinal in a Runner's World interview Feb. 1 by Peter Gambaccini should warm the hearts of his pals at Neuqua.

“I owe a lot for the good things that happened to me in the last eight years to Coach (Paul) Vandersteen and all the coaches, really, who helped me get into and build my confidence and other stuff. When I started running, my goal was just to get a varsity letter so I could wear a letterman jacket. I never anticipated winning a state title or ever running in college or anything like that. I've been very fortunate — I don't know why, but I'm very, very grateful.”

Wildcat strikes

The DuPage Heritage Gallery has decided upon Northwestern recruit Dan Vitale, of Wheaton Warrenville South, as the 2011 winner of the Red Grange Award.

The honor is presented annually to the District 200 prep who best demonstrates a combination of athletics, sportsmanship and academics. Former Tigers quarterback Reilly O'Toole, now at Illinois, earned the award for 2010.

Vitale, essentially the offense for the Class 7A runner-up Tigers in 2011, ran for 1,390 yards and also was the team's top receiver.

The Illinois High School Football Coaches Association 7A All-State pick earned WW South's MVP award and even more, the Don S. Garner Award for football, the program's top individual honor. Northwestern got a good citizen who registered a 29 ACT score and logs a whopping 5.375 grade-point average.

For those keeping score at home, WW South has claimed the last nine Red Grange Awards. Tigers have won 16 awards (Jon Beutjer and Jon Schweighardt shared the honor in 1998) to 12 for Wheaton North. Wheaton Central landed 6 and Wheaton Warrenville secured 5.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com