Fox captain: Helping others was the focus for St. Edward's Yohn
It's only fitting that Katie Yohn will study to be a physician's assistant in college. After all, she's spent the better part of her high school basketball career doing everything she could to help the people around her become better.
The numbers alone are staggering but what they more than suggest is that St. Edward's 5-foot-10 senior guard/forward truly has become the complete player. She can score, she can pass, she can rebound, she'll steal the basketball from you before you know it, she'll block your shot in ain instant and she has the uncanny ability to take over a game at a moment's notice.
But there's much more to Katie Yohn than what you see when she puts on her No. 10 uniform and hits the basketball court.
"She had a great career and we're excited she's coming here but what impresses me the most about her is the way she carries herself off the court. She's just so humble."
Those are the words of Bradley University women's basketball coach Paula Buscher, who will welcome Yohn to Peoria this summer on a full scholarship.
One of Buscher's favorite memories of Yohn's senior season come from a game against Nazareth Academy in the St. Edward gym. About 20 seconds before halftime, Yohn had the basketball in her hands. She dribbled and waited, about 10 feet behind the 3-point arc, for defenders to come. They didn't, so as the clock wound down to zero, Yohn nonchalantly took a couple dribbles forward, stopped, and popped in a WNBA-range 3-pointer. Swish, halftime, and everyone in the gym just smiled and shook their heads.
For her efforts this season Yohn has been named the honorary captain of the Daily Herald's Fox Valley All-Area team. It's the second consecutive season she's earned the award as she shared it last year with Danielle Smith of Cary-Grove. Yohn, boys captains Conrad Krutwig of Jacobs and Marc Little of Bartlett, along with the all-area teams and the players of the week for the 2008-09 season will be honored Sunday evening at the Daily Herald's annual recognition banquet and awards ceremony at Stonegate Conference and Banquet Centre in Hoffman Estates.
While the honorary captain award is for this season, in Yohn's case it's also the culmination of a career in which she got better and better. She will graduate as St. Edward's all-time leading scorer with 1,812 career points. She broke Beth Hasenmiller's record of 1,772 in the Green Wave's Class 2A sectional semifinal win over Chicago Christian. In addition to that, she had over 500 rebounds, 400 assists, 360 steals and 164 blocked shots in her career. She also made 146 career 3-pointers and was a 77 percent career free throw shooter.
This season, she scored 685 points, averaging 23.6 per game, 8 better than anyone else in the Fox Valley area and the best per game average of any player from the 80-plus high schools covered by the Daily Herald throughout the suburbs. She also had 55 3-pointers but in addition to scoring, she dished out 5 assists per game to lead the area. She also averaged 9 rebounds per game, second in the area, had 126 steals and 80 blocked shots. And in 29 games, the player who touched the basketball the most on St. Edward's 18-12 team, only had 72 turnovers, many of them coming early in the season when she'd catch a teammate off guard with a no-look pass. She had six games of scoring 30-plus points and registered her career high of 39 against Rosary late in the season.
"She just brings so much excitement to the court," said St. Edward coach Michelle Dawson. "She's meant so much to our program, we just need to thank her for the foundation she's laid."
For all the gaudy numbers, the one that stands out is the 5 assists per game. Unselfish, almost to a fault, Yohn went above and beyond the call of duty in helping her teammates improve by involving them in every possession.
"It looks like she takes a lot of shots but she involves her teammates and she really made those kids around her better," said Steve McCuiston, the head coach of Driscoll's Class 2A state championship team. "She was always looking for the open person and that team was scouted as hard as any team because of Katie. Our defensive game plan always revolved around trying to stop Katie, but it wasn't easy."
Yohn learned the value of being a team player early on in her basketball career from people like her dad, Steve, and Jeff Turk, who coached her at St. Thomas More School in Elgin. As her career started blossoming, she ended up playing for the Full Package Lady Lightning AAU team and its coach, Jason Nichols, offered Yohn a thought that stuck with her.
"He said 'Why shoot a good shot when your teammate has a great shot,' " Yohn said. "That's stuck with me. It's the way I've always played. I've always looked to pass the ball before I look to shoot the ball."
Buscher noticed that unselfishness more than anything as she was recruiting Yohn. But she noticed more, things like work ethic, humility and the product of good parenting.
"What Katie is so good at is that she's a complete player," said Buscher, whose team is currently 17-9 this season. "But what's really special about her is the type of person she is. You're quick to know a lot about people once you meet the parents and (Steve and Janice) are just such solid people. Katie is obviously a product of that.
"I'm really looking forward to working with her and coaching her. I think she's going to have a great college career."
The withdrawals of her high school career being over may linger some, but Yohn is champing at the bit to get her new career started.
"It's weird going home after school with my brothers instead of to practice," said Yohn, who qualified for the state finals in the IHSA's 3-point showdown and was the only unanimous choice to The Associated Press Class 2A All-State team as well as first-team selection to the IBCA All-State team and the Suburban Catholic Conference Player of the Year.
"By now I'd be thinking about next season or AAU and now it's just working out. It's exciting but scary at the same time. It's something new ... a new experience, and I feel ready for it."
And all this just four years after she left St. Thomas More without her best friend, Molly Turk, who went on to become a two-time all-area volleyball captain at Burlington Central.
"It was so intimidating," Yohn said of her freshman year at St. Edward. "I didn't have Molly and it was scary without my best friend by my side. But I remember coming into summer camp and meeting Lindsey Birchfield and Maddie Richmond and Katie Chambers and getting the nickname "Orange". And Jeanne Butzow. I also looked up to her and thought she was the greatest basketball player ever."
As a sophomore, Yohn reached the pinnacle in helping her team reach the Class A Elite Eight at Redbird Arena - the last state final tournament under the two-class system.
"I didn't know what to expect as a sophomore, without the seniors and Jeanne," said Yohn, who ranks 17th in her class of 111 students. "It was weird. But we had (Kaitlyn) Payne come in that year (she transferred to Fenwick after one season at St. Edward) and we went Downstate and that was just awesome, one of the best experiences of my high school career. I learned so much from those girls."
The peak of a Downstate appearance turned into a valley her junior year when the Green Wave didn't make it out of the regional.
"It was kind of a blah year," Yohn said. "We were rebuilding and unfortunately we got stuck with Driscoll in our regional, otherwise I think we could have gone farther."
Yohn knew coming into the 2008-09 season that this team was now truly hers. But there was also the pursuit of the school scoring record, which at times became a distraction, one that she took in stride, never changing the way she played just to get the record.
"That's probably what I'm most proud of, that I could average that many points and still have 5 assists a game. That's 10 points for the other girls," she said. "I just felt if the record happened it happened, if it didn't it didn't. It was in the back of my head but it wasn't what I set out to do. This season I wanted to be more of a leader on the court. It was important to me this year to be a good leader and a good teammate."
And the story of Katie Yohn could stop there, but there's something else she's become, and that's the poster child for how celebrated high school athletes also need to be good role models to much younger players.
"We were leaving practice one day and there was a grade school kid in the car with her mom," recalled Dawson. "Katie walked out of the gym and the kid was like 'there she is, there she is. You see her mom? That's Katie Yohn, right there. She works our camps and she's such a role model to them."
For all the accolades and thank yous thrown her way Yohn, who will go down as one of the best players to ever compete in the Fox Valley area, has a few of her own to hand out.
"I would just thank my mom and my dad for everything. They've been with me through everything, through all the wins and losses," she said. "And coach Denny (Butzow), coach Stacey (Wahlberg) and coach Dawson. I've known Denny since grade school and when he plays 3-on-2 with us in practice, we have the same style. We just click. Stacey just pushes you and wants you to play your best and coach Dawson is so encouraging. I have great respect for all three of them. They helped me grow and mature on the court and as a person so much."
And it's so very obvious they have all, as has Katie Yohn, done a wonderful job.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>All-Area basketball teams coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Cook County</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=276980">Girls team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276982">Boys team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276929">Captain: Ashley Wilson</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276927">Captain: Cully Payne</a></li> </ul> <h2>Cook PDF pages</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/cook1.pdf">Page 1 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/cook2.pdf">Page 2 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/cook3.pdf">Page 3 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/cook4.pdf">Page 4 </a></li> </ul> <h2><A HREF="http://dailyherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=706057&CategoryID=5971">Purchase PDF page reprints</A></h2> <h2>DuPage County</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=276984">Girls team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276985">Boys team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276917">Captain: Toni Kokenis </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276915">Captain: Danny Crawford</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276916">Past girls captains</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276914">Past boys captains</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276931">The best of the girls season</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276930">The best of the boys season</a></li> </ul> <h2>DuPage PDF pages</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/dupage1.pdf">Page 1 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/dupage2.pdf">Page 2 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/dupage3.pdf">Page 3 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/dupage4.pdf">Page 4 </a></li> </ul> <h2><A HREF="http://dailyherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=706057&CategoryID=5971">Purchase PDF page reprints</A></h2> <h2>Fox Valley</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=276978">Girls team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276990">Boys team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276709">Captain: Kati Yohn </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276820">Captain: Marc Little</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276780">Captain: Conrad Krutwig</a></li> </ul> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/multimedia/?category=19&type=video&item=88">Fox Valley captains </a></li> </ul> <h2>Fox Valley PDF pages</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/foxvalley1.pdf">Page 1 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/foxvalley2.pdf">Page 2 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/foxvalley3.pdf">Page 3 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/foxvalley4.pdf">Page 4 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/foxvalley5.pdf">Page 5 </a></li> </ul> <h2><A HREF="http://dailyherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=706057&CategoryID=5971">Purchase PDF page reprints</A></h2> <h2>Lake County</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=276987">Girls team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276981">Boys team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276907">Captain: Lydia Bauer </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276908">Captain: Brandon Paul</a></li> </ul> <h2>Lake PDF pages</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/lake1.pdf">Page 1 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/lake2.pdf">Page 2 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/lake3.pdf">Page 3 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/lake4.pdf">Page 4 </a></li> </ul> <h2><A HREF="http://dailyherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=706057&CategoryID=5971">Purchase PDF page reprints</A></h2> <h2>Tri Cities</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=276989">Girls team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276988">Boys team</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276904">Captain: Taylor Whitley </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=276905">Captain: Jeremy D'Amico</a></li> </ul> <h2>Tri Cities PDF pages</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/tricities1.pdf">Page 1 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/tricities2.pdf">Page 2 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/tricities3.pdf">Page 3 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/tricities4.pdf">Page 4 </a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/images/allareapdfs09/tricities5.pdf">Page 5 </a></li> </ul> <h2><A HREF="http://dailyherald.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=706057&CategoryID=5971">Purchase PDF page reprints</A></h2> </div> </div> </div>