Vernon Hills' center Rideout out of doghouse and into the weight room

Eerie music has never been piped into the weight room at Vernon Hills High School.

And there's nothing scary about the room's contents. The padded benches, the weighted bars, the dumbbells ... none of them are possessed or under evil spells.

Kenny Rideout knows that. Always has.

But not too long ago, the weight room at school could have passed as the mother of all haunted houses to him.

He was literally terrified of it.

"I feared the weight room," said Rideout, a 6-foot-5 senior forward for the Cougars' boys basketball team. "Honestly, it was the worst place in the world to me."

So bad, in fact, that Rideout would have rather spent time absolutely anywhere else but there.

Even in the doghouse.

Oh, and he was in the doghouse, by the way. As a sophomore, Rideout had his troubles -- which is hard to believe now, given how Rideout has come off as Vernon Hills' golden boy over the last two years.

He's been especially angelic lately, seemingly doing everything right in leading Vernon Hills to a 9-8 record on the heels of back-to-back North Suburban Conference Prairie Division victories last weekend over Grant and Wauconda.

After being named all-conference last year, Rideout is even better this year. He's averaging about 16 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks per game and is one of the toughest players in Lake County to defend in the post.

Against Wauconda, he drilled 11 of 12 field goals and finished with 28 points to tie his career high.

"Kenny is a great kid and a great player and when he leaves here, his name will be all over the basketball record books," Vernon Hills coach Matt McCarty said. "But if you had asked me during Kenny's sophomore year if he would eventually be the kind of player he is now, I would have told you that I didn't think he had the inner drive and desire to do that."

Why? Well, it all goes back to that darn weight room.

Rideout's disdain for it weighed, if you will, on his relationship with McCarty and the rest of the coaches at Vernon Hills.

They wanted him to get bigger and stronger. They hounded him about how important it was for him to add some bulk and muscle to his lanky frame if he wanted to be a legitimate force in the post.

As a sophomore, Rideout was roughly the same height he is now, but weighed only about 160 pounds.

Ironically, his non-muscular physique was precisely the reason Rideout wanted nothing to do with the weight room.

He says he didn't know how to lift weights properly. And being so scrawny, he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to ... at least not without being laughed at.

"When I would look in the weight room, I'd see people lifting all this weight and it would be intimidating," Rideout said. "It made me feel like if I went in people would sit there and look at what I would be lifting and make fun of it."

So Rideout dodged the weight room. All the time.

Couple that with the fact that he was involved in a few minor disciplinary incidents off the court that season and Rideout wasn't exactly winning any fans on the coaching staff.

"I honestly considered quitting basketball my sophomore year," said Rideout, who had been projected to be the sophomore team's star player. "I was definitely in the doghouse that year and I didn't start because of it. I didn't even get very much playing time at all.

"The coaches kept saying I wasn't devoted enough. And they were right."

Well, Rideout was at least devoted enough not to quit. At the end of the day, he says he never could have. Basketball is his favorite sport by far -- and he's played many: soccer, baseball, football, even hockey.

But not quitting was just a start.

In order to be fully committed and devoted, Rideout knew that he would have to find a way to conquer his fear of the weight room. Otherwise, he wouldn't be giving the team -- or himself -- his best effort.

So during the summer before his junior year, Rideout decided to finally let down his guard. It helped that his teammates stood by his side the entire time.

"We were all encouraging him to keep playing, to get in the weight room, to do whatever he needed to do," said Vernon Hills senior guard Jeff Epner, who has been close friends with Rideout since grade school. "Everyone had always seen his potential and we were all like, 'Hey man, we need you.'

"We just kept telling him that everyone has to start somewhere in the weight room, that it's not all going to come at once. I mean, look at me, I'm a really small kid (5-foot-8). You just have to build up over time. I think as the days passed that summer, he finally started to realize that."

And Rideout finally started to make some gains, too.

He got bigger and stronger, and suddenly had muscles.

"I ended up realizing I didn't mind (lifting) that much," laughed Rideout, who works out every day now. "I actually started to have fun with it."

Over the last two years, Rideout has put on about 30 pounds of muscle to take him up to 190 pounds. And he's lifting amounts of weight that he'd never have dreamt of before.

Rideout benches 170 pounds, power cleans 200 pounds and squats 310 pounds.

"It's unbelievable. I'm lifting more than I used to weigh," Rideout said with a laugh. "I never thought I'd be able to do that much. Looking back, I kind of wish I had been lifting all along because it's definitely affected my play for the better. I can just imagine what I'd be like if I had been lifting since my freshman year."

Rideout has made up for lost time quickly, though.

He says that when he looks back at game tapes of even a year ago, he can barely recognize himself.

"I'm just a different player," said Rideout, who will play in the post next season for Division III St. Norbert College in northern Wisconsin. "I look different and I play different. Being stronger helps so much in the post, getting position and getting rebounds. Now, I'm not getting pushed around all the time. Now, I'm doing some of the pushing around.

"I've also improved my jumping ability. Going into my junior year, I could hardly dunk a basketball. And now, it's easy for me. It's all because I'm stronger. I've seen so much improvement."

You might say it's scary how good Rideout is now.