Police escort and all, Benet's Monson enjoyed international volleyball experience
Volleyball dignitaries, is what they were. It seemed like that to Benet's Hattie Monson after boarding the bus from the Honduras airport.
"The police just put their lights on and we cruised down the middle of the three-lane highway," she said. "It was so scary but it was so cool. And that was every time we got on the bus, we had a police escort down the highway."
The 16-year-old libero and the USA Volleyball Girls National Youth Team were also a runaway success on the court. They swept to the title of the NORCECA (North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation) U18 championships held in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Aug. 25-Sept. 2.
The American team went 5-0 and won all 15 sets against a field that included Barbados, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua. NORCECA had the title win over Canada as 25-13, 25-12, 25-23.
"There were two, three teams that just were not very good," said Monson, who earned the tournament's individual awards for best receiver and best digger. "But Dominican, Cuba and Canada, they were monsters."
As finalists the American and Canadian squads advanced to the U18 World Cup in Egypt in June 2019. Thus, another round of tryouts like those Monson aced to make this team.
A junior playing at Benet under coach Brad Baker and already committed to play at Notre Dame, Monson initially auditioned in Chicago among "at least 100" candidates at one of many regional tryouts, she said. Overall 20 advanced to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Monson made the final 12 who drew a police escort in Honduras.
For Monson - who trains at Sports Performance in Aurora and credited assistant coach Don Joe Lei for countless hours of help - it was her first time out of the country.
"I had no idea what to expect. I felt so safe. The people were so nice and very welcoming," said Monson, whose parents, Susan and Eric, named her Hattie Mae after passing Hattiesburg on vacations in Mississippi.
She still communicates via Snapchat with girls from the Barbados team, and after the tournament's capping ceremony all the teams came back to the hotel and negotiated their own international trade agreement.
"I have a Cuban shirt, a Dominican shirt, a Canada shirt and a Honduras shirt," Monson said.
Cuban goods apparently are still in high demand.
"I had to fight tooth and nail for that."
They are ironmen
St. Francis football visits Wheaton Academy on Friday, resuming a friendly rivalry that extends to the sidelines.
As former head coaches in the Arena Football League, St. Francis coach Bob McMillen and Wheaton Academy offensive coordinator Steve Thonn faced each other more recently than have the Spartans and Warriors, together again in the Metro Suburban Blue.
On the way to an appearance in ArenaBowl XXVVII in 2014, Thonn's Cleveland Gladiators twice beat McMillen's Los Angeles Kiss.
"He's a tremendous offensive mind and I told that to our defensive coaches," said McMillen, whose 3-0 Spartans are off to their best start since 2015. That season included a Week 2 forfeit win; St. Francis also began 3-0 in 2013.
An Arena League player for five seasons before turning to coaching, Thonn was the Georgia Force's offensive coordinator when McMillen concluded his AFL Hall of Fame playing career with the Chicago Rush in 2007. In the off season the two were rec-league basketball teammates, McMillen said.
"Steve's a gunner, Steve can shoot from the outside," he said.
St. Francis beat Wheaton Academy all three times from 2009-2011 when both were in the Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division.
"The rivalry between the schools goes back pretty deep, not only in football but in other sports," said Warriors coach Brad Thornton. "They're kind of Wheaton counterparts just 10, 15 minutes away."
Pair of aces
DuPage County cross country lacks a couple legendary coaches. One happily retired of his own volition. One sadly did not.
We anticipated saluting John Kurtz for 50 years as Fenton's boys cross country coach. This summer Clint Porter, Kurtz's successor as Bison boys track coach also after 49 years, reported John and wife Dawn moved from Wood Dale to their place in Bonita Springs, Florida, this time for good.
"Coaching longevity was never a goal," Kurtz said from the Gulf on Wednesday. "The years meant nothing to me other than the enjoyment and satisfaction in what we were doing. I went out on my time and my decision."
The Kurtzes, married 45 years, met in Fenton's physical education department. Dawn was Fenton's first girls track coach and first assistant athletic director. Fenton hosts the D.B.K. Classic girls indoor track meet and the John Kurtz Early Bird Invitational cross country meet, which evolved from 30 boys to more than 1,000 girls and boys combined.
It took John Kurtz and the Bison boys cross country team eight years to win its first conference championship, 1976 in the Tri-County. That was the first of 22 league titles in a career that produced second- and third-place state trophies and sent 30 Fenton runners into coaching, including Porter and new boys cross country coach Patrick Fritsch.
Three-time Olympian Jim Spivey seems an obvious pick as Kurtz's best runner ever. The coach doesn't quite see it that way.
"Every athlete that I've coached has always been most valuable to me," he said, "but as far as the individual success I don't think any one of the guys would say Jim doesn't belong at the top of the group."
Earlier in his career Kurtz had a string of 13 straight years in which he ran at least 4 miles every day. Imagine that discipline.
"There is no finish line but there is an end-of-the-coaching line," Kurtz said. "I loved it up to the day that I retired. It was a passion in my life."
It remains one for Ken Jakalski. That's why it's so unfortunate that on Aug. 10 he made a "painful visit" to submit his resignation as Lisle cross country coach to athletic director Dan Dillard.
As this column previously reported, Jakalski suffered a dizzying sequence of health events starting with a stroke during the Lions' first outdoor track practice on March 19.
Jakalski is well on the road to regaining full strength, but the one thing that didn't come back forced the resignation. The stroke resulted in homonymous hemianopsia, or hemianopia, the lack of a column of vision in each eye.
Two failed peripheral vision tests and two doctors stating that after six months there's little likelihood of regaining a full field of vision clinched the decision. The 42-year head coach has a wry sense of humor and can laugh at walking into an open door or missing the peas on his plate, but driving the activity bus is serious business.
"I don't want to put any kids in jeopardy by my disability," said Jakalski, like Kurtz a member of the Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Jakalski won't be scarce. He was among the last on the field celebrating Lisle's big football victory over Wilmington on Sept. 7, and as always the "Inspector Gadget of Track and Field" will dig into the science of running and give new coach Pat Woyna any help he can.
Jakalski's predecessor at Lisle, Carlin Nalley, once gave him this advice: Be creative yet respect traditions.
"I think I've done that," Jakalski said. "It's just the reality that you pass something on to a new generation."
doberhelman@dailyherald.com
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