NCTV17 earns national acclaim

Over the past couple years whenever a Naperville high school team had a big game, chances are someone from Naperville Community Television Channel 17 was there to document it.

Their efforts earned acclaim with the July 6 announcement that NCTV17's "Naperville Sports Weekly" television program has won a National Communicator Award of Distinction.

"It's definitely nice to be recognized," said Jeff Mahoney, "Naperville Sports Weekly" producer.

"From where we started to where we are now it's just kind of a night-and-day difference," said Mahoney, 31. "When we first went out to events it was like people were going, 'What are you doing here?' to now - 'When's it going to air?'"

Mahoney estimated the past two years 84 different "Naperville Sports Weekly" shows have aired, beginning with the start of the prep football season and continuing through the state baseball championship. On average, he said, NCTV17 personally covers nine events a week, and folds in feature stories as well.

Mahoney, a graduate of Missouri State University, said a highlight was working with North Central College football coach John Thorne on "The Red Zone" segment throughout the Cardinals football season. NCTV17 hopes to broadcast three North Central College games this season, Mahoney said.

He also enjoyed the selection of "athletes of the season," which in 2008-09 produced winners from Naperville Central (volleyball player Emily McGee and basketball player Drew Crawford) and Waubonsie Valley (track athlete Shakeia Pinnick).

Mahoney shares the National Communicator Award with "Naperville Sports Weekly" director Stevan Petkovich, associate sports producers Will Armistead and Rick Rysso, and personnel both in the field and in-house.

"In these days, when all sorts of news outlets across the country are cutting staff left and right, we're able to do something and people are responding positively to it," Mahoney said.

NCTV17 also won an Award of Distinction for its weekly news show, "Naperville Connection"; Liz Spencer is the executive producer. Winning entries for the Communicator Awards are selected by the International Academy of the Visual Arts.

Talent pool: Neuqua Valley recently announced additional head coaches for the 2009-10 season, making up for coaches transferring to the new Metea Valley High School.

In addition to naming Tony Kees as boys soccer head coach, Mac Guy as head girls swim coach and Elaina Ktistou as head softball coach, the Wildcats athletic program has added Maryann Senesac and Michael Bathan as girls and boys head water polo coaches, respectively.

Bathan, a graduate of Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., has taught physical education and has served as an assistant boys track coach at Neuqua Valley for the past five years. A former water polo player himself, Bathan has a strong background in strength and conditioning.

Senesac, a graduate of Saint Mary's College of Notre Dame, comes to Neuqua Valley from Glenbard West. An English teacher, she played water polo at St. Viator and coached at both Stevenson and Hinsdale Central.

Full plate: Payton Leonhardt only recently graduated from the University of Chicago, but his activities and accomplishments already could fill the resume of a man twice his age.

Youth minister at Holy Trinity Church in Hyde Park... participant in the inaugural University of Chicago Relay for Life benefit... St. Baldrick's Foundation promoter... four-year varsity baseball pitcher... pediatric oncology researcher...

This only scratches the surface of the Wheaton Warrenville South graduate.

"I guess when I was in college I just filled my time with things that I obviously enjoyed, like baseball and a lot of organizations and the fraternity (Phi Delta Theta) I was in," said Leonhardt, who now lives in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. "And, on the other side, things that were more medically directed, like research and shadowing at the hospital and volunteering at the hospital."

Leonhardt, a dean's list student who earned a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and completed his medical school prerequisites, discovered that as far as his time was spent doing something, the more the merrier.

"It wasn't really a problem for me," he said. "I found that in my off-season from baseball is when I struggled with time management because I had too much time."

We initially reported on Leonhardt when he became the first junior to be selected as president of the University of Chicago's "Order of the C." It's the nation's oldest collegiate varsity letterman's group, started by Amos Alonzo Stagg in 1904. Leonhardt became the Maroons' first two-year Order president as a senior, continuing the group's efforts toward community service and acting as a liaison between athletes and faculty, coaches and administration.

A former winner of Wheaton Warrenville South's Bob Quinn Athletic Award for leadership, Leonhardt is currently employed full-time as a laboratory technician by the University of Chicago's department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is doing research on ovarian cancer at the University of Chicago Hospital. He plans on applying to that medical school to continue his education.

As simply attending medical school couldn't possibly provide the 22-year-old with enough stimulation, he hopes to join an adult baseball league.

"Ever since I could walk I've been playing baseball," Leonhardt said.