These student-athletes specialize in being mentally tough

Since high school student-athletes form the basis of this column, when the Illinois High School Association announces its annual All-State Academic Team it sparks our interest. So here we go.

The 26 students on the 2026 team — 13 girls, 13 boys — the IHSA released in February includes Margaret Andrzejewski of St. Francis, Nate Cichy (Prospect), Madison Miles (Barrington), Hunter Stepanich (York), and Michael Whitacre (Marmion).

Kudos to the IHSA for doing this.

“I’m kind of, like, wowed with what I’ve achieved,” said Miles, Barrington’s second straight selection after Joe Bregenzer made the 2025 All-Academic Team.

“I really didn’t see this in the cards for myself, but it’s a really big honor to represent my school,” she said. “Not just my school but my cross country team as well. I think we’re all very dedicated people to both our sport and school as well. It means a lot.”

Running on two straight Class 3A championship cross country teams and also a four-year participant in Barrington student government among other school functions, Miles joins Andrzejewski and Whitacre as track and cross country runners.

Cichy also ran track and played football in the fall. A two-time Cook County All-Area wide receiver, he’ll play football at Harvard. Stepanich is the rare three-sport athlete, football, basketball, volleyball.

One year we counted and 21 of the 26 student-athletes on the All-State Academic Team were in the running sports.

“Cross country, you have a lot more time to think about things,” said Miles, a captain on both Fillies track and cross country teams who also has racked up more than 100 volunteer hours at school. “And I think part of that is during cross country races you have to be really mentally tough.”

Prospect football coach Dan Deboeuf highlighted Cichy’s team leadership.

“His smarts have really crossed over to his leadership ability,” the coach said.

“He is one of the best leaders I have ever seen. Leads by example, vocal leader, and has the ability to get the best out of everyone around him. He was always the first one in the weight room or practice field and always the last one to leave,” Deboeuf said.

The IHSA highlights seniors on its Academic All-State Team, and Andrzejewski, Cichy, Miles, Stepanich and Whitacre all must deal with the dreaded “senioritis.” Being engaged in a spring sport helps.

“It’s really difficult sometimes, especially after you’ve a bad result or a bad test and you’re just really sick of it, and you have to remind yourself to stay mentally tough, to stay positive,” Miles said.

“It gets really hard when you really don’t want to, because it’s so much harder to stay positive than it is to be negative. But it’s always worth it in the end.”

‘On the Outdoors’ honor

The Daily Herald was happy to see that the Sports section’s outdoors columnist, Steve Sarley, will receive an Illinois Outdoor Excellence award March 19 at the Illinois Conservation Foundation Outdoor Hall of Fame Gala at Abbington Distinctive Banquets in Glen Ellyn.

The Wheaton resident will have a whole entourage with him, including his wife of 50 years, Joyce, when he picks up his award for Outdoor Writer of the Year.

“It’s the biggest honor I’ve ever received. It’s very important to me,” Sarley said.

For the past two years Sarley’s “On the Outdoors” column has run Thursdays in the Daily Herald. Since 2008 he’s also written regularly for Illinois Outdoor News.

He’s written for various publications for the past 38 years, and he has appeared on television, radio and a national podcast.

Though Sarley’s expertise and favorite topic is fishing — he said he was “Dusty Baker’s fishing guy” when the former Cubs manager was in town — he wrote a well-received series on the disappearance of the wild turkeys that occasionally stopped traffic near Herrick Lake Forest Preserve in Wheaton.

People even thought police shot the turkeys to reduce the hassle for drivers, Sarley said. That was not the case, and the outdoors writer said eight of the gobblers can be found hanging around St. James Farm in Warrenville.

Sarley got a bunch of responses on that series.

“It’s nice to see that the readership is active and engaged,” he said.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com