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Scholarship makes caddie Parent 'extremely fortunate'

Burke Parent has many talents, but the Addison Trail senior admits a strong golf game is not among them.

"I was on the team my sophomore year at Addison Trail, but I was just awful," he said.

Caddying at Medinah Country Club gave Parent a greater appreciation of the sport and of those who try to tame it.

"Just being out on the course helped me a lot, when I'm caddying, to see where the golfers are coming from," Parent said. "It's a lot easier to caddie when you're in the golfers' shoes and know what I'm supposed to be helping out with. Before, when I was on the golf team, I guess I was more oblivious about that."

He is clueless no more - not when being an active, well-reviewed caddie and an excellent student with outstanding character and financial need landed him a tuition and housing scholarship to the University of Colorado through the Western Golf Association's Evans Scholars Foundation. The average total value of an Evans Scholarship is more than $100,000 over four years.

"I honestly don't think I really grasp the whole of what's just been given to me. I've tried to comprehend it, but I just don't understand that it's nothing that I need to worry about," said Parent, who'll enter Colorado as a computer engineering major, maybe a business minor.

In 1899 the WGA was aptly founded in Golf, Illinois, to promote the game in what was considered "the western region." At the inspiration of 1916 U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur champion Chick Evans Jr., who started caddying in Chicago at 8 years old, in 1930 the WGA awarded its first scholarships to two incoming freshmen at Evans' alma mater, Northwestern, where annual tuition was a staggering $150. In 1940 the first Evans Scholars Chapter House was established there.

Funded largely by contributions from the WGA's approximate 30,600 Par Club members, plus proceeds from the BMW Championship, in 2017-18 there were 965 male and female Evans Scholars enrolled at 19 universities, and 14 colleges offer Evans Scholarship Houses. Ninety-five percent of Evans Scholars graduate.

Parent - who thanked Addison Trail English teacher Amy Ferraro for helping with the essay he submitted, and his mother, Amy, for rousting him out of bed early to hit the links - is among several DuPage County recipients this year.

Representing Butterfield, Cantigny and Ruth Lake golf clubs, Matthew Loffredo of Metea Valley, Edward Knupp (York), Filip Niewinski (Hinsdale Central) and Noel Maysonet (Downers Grove South) all have compelling stories and backgrounds. Indiana University-bound Niewinski, for example, is a first-generation American who will be the first in his family to attend college.

A National Honor Society member, Parent also participates with Addison Trail's Key Club community service organization, volunteering at Feed My Starving Children. He's swam and golfed for the Blazers, was part of the school's Science Olympiad and, as an offstage theatrical technician, helped run lighting for the Illinois High School Theatre Festival's production of "Big Fish" in February.

"I think they just saw that I was a really well-rounded kid," Parent said of the Chick Evans Scholarship folks.

"I just worked hard and kept my head straight and got involved with as many activities as I could," he said.

"I think I'm extremely fortunate."

Warrior alert

On April 9 the District 88 Board of Education approved Brandon Murphy as Willowbrook's new athletic director effective July 1. Murphy will succeed Bob Daly, who will become an assistant principal.

The board didn't need to look far to make the move.

Son of former Warriors wrestling coach Bryan Murphy, Brandon is a 2001 Willowbrook graduate. He's been knocking around there his entire life, since Bryan Murphy worked at Willowbrook starting in 1981.

A three-time wrestling letterman at Eastern Illinois, a year after graduating in 2006 Brandon Murphy returned to Willowbrook and became a physical education, health and driver's education instructor. He was an assistant badminton and wrestling coach starting in 2007 and became badminton coach in 2011.

A Woodridge resident, married with three children, in 2014 he followed his father as wrestling coach.

"Growing up, I was provided with many amazing opportunities at Willowbrook, and I want to make sure our students today have those same experiences to develop relationships, skills and life lessons," Murphy said in a release on the school's website.

For the books

In 35 years as Naperville Central softball coach Andy Nussbaum could not recall a game in which a Redhawk hit for the cycle - until shortstop Grace Biondo did the trick in a Friday win at Glenbard North.

The senior co-captain led off the game with a single and went opposite field for a triple down the right-field line in the second inning.

In the third inning Biondo belted a two-out, 2-run home run just right of straightaway center. She capped the cycle in the fourth inning on a double to right center.

The player knew what she'd done, but it slowly dawned on the coach.

"Oh my goodness," Nussbaum recalled thinking, "she just hit for the cycle."

Biondo's achievement came one day after Naperville Central beat Metea Valley for Nussbaum's 650th softball victory. He entered the season No. 13 on the Illinois High School Association's list of wins leaders and depending on the accuracy of those records Nussbaum ranks sixth among active coaches. Retired Downers Grove South coach Ron Havelka won 704 games.

Nussbaum has led a remarkable career. His 644 girls basketball victories give him 1,287 total victories.

Inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association and the Illinois Coaches Association softball halls of fame both in 2012, he's also been a longtime football assistant with two stints as varsity defensive coordinator. He's sent five children through Naperville Central with two fifth-graders on their way.

"I just really enjoy what I'm doing, and every now and then it's nice to have a mile marker to numerically give some sort of guide for what sort of success that you've had," Nussbaum said.

"It's nice to have a number to fall back on, but of course there are so many things that are more abstract, like relationships with players and coaches and opponents and umpires. But being a math teacher, the numbers are kind of nice."

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

Follow Dave on Twitter @doberhelman1

Edward Knupp
Filip Niewsinski
Matthew Loffredo
Noel Maysonet
Brandon Murphy
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