Karlos Whittaker understands that the folks at North Chicago are proud he will attend the Naval Academy.
He appreciates that a photographer from a local magazine and one from the school yearbook joined school officials and his parents to watch him sign commitment papers at noon Tuesday.
The senior running back just doesn’t love the spotlight, which is why his smile seemed bigger once the lenses disappeared.
“I just wanted to get it over with,” he said of the photo session. “I don’t think it should be that big.”
Sorry, Karlos, but it is big.
In North Chicago, good news is still big news, if only because it arrives too infrequently. Violence and bad grades are still too commonplace, so Whittaker’s achievements are indeed cause for celebration.
“It is a phenomenal feeling for me, for him, for the entire school,” football coach Mike Grenda said. “Just to be a kid coming out of a place where a lot of things can have a negative impact . . . he has risen above all those types of things.”
In particular, Whittaker has had to rise above the June 2002 shooting deaths of classmates and teammates Jarreau Patterson and David Mackins.
Football player Durell Gales was quoted in a Tribune story about those murders. The following summer Gales was shot to death.
For Whittaker, a friend of all three victims, the killings were hard to take, especially coming after his older brother, Chevan, died in a 2000 automobile accident.
“It hurt me,” he said of the shootings while shaking his head. “I couldn’t do anything about it, though.
“It made me more determined to focus on my work more and get out of this town. To stay focused on my goals to go to a good college and graduate and get a job and be a success in life.”
Whittaker is well on his way. Despite starring in football and track and playing basketball as well, the 5-foot-11-inch, 195-pounder has a 3.5 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale.
He credits his mother, Corlis Mosley, for making sure he worked as hard in school as he did in sports.
“I just try to encourage my kids to stay focused on their goals and remember you go to school to get an education,” Mosley said. “And that you have the right to make that choice.
“I’m thankful for all he has done because he has had a lot of things happen in his life. It was hard for him, but he stayed focused on what he needed to do.”
More Top Picks Why Noise Canceling Headphones Help Autistic Kids
Navy got in the hunt for Whittaker’s football services because North Chicago offensive coordinator Adam Chavez tipped off Navy assistant coach Jeff Monken, who was Chavez’s high school coach at Morton.
Whittaker was reluctant to consider Navy at first, but its 8-5 record last season helped change his mind. He also realized the Naval Academy would be a great place to achieve his goal of becoming a mechanical engineer.
The quiet Whittaker seems more animated discussing the workings of robots than he is his athletic honors. He is easily qualified to play as a freshman under NCAA rules, but to ease his transition to military life and the academic demands of the Naval Academy, Whittaker will first spend a year at the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, R.I.
After four years at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., he still will face a five-year active service commitment. That adds up to 10 years of his life, but Whittaker figures a Navy education will set him up for good.
Grenda realizes the academy will offer serious doses of academics and discipline but believes Whittaker, a two-year football captain, is up to the challenge.
“On and off the field, he’s a great kid with a great attitude,” Grenda said. “To be honest with you, I’d say he’s the only kid in our school right now who could go there and do well.”
Whittaker’s college choice has North Chicago on a bit of a winning streak.
The football team reached the state playoffs for the third straight year after going 3-33 during a stretch in the late 1990s, and the basketball team is enjoying a solid season in a newly refurbished gym that had been gutted in 2002 by a suspicious fire.
One hopes all this positive energy will spread to North Chicago’s underclassmen.
“We have a lot of kids who are talented in sports but academically seem to be toward the lower end,” Grenda said. “The younger kids can look at Karlos and see the potential for themselves.”
Whittaker will try to make sure they do.
“I tell the freshmen and sophomores to keep their grades up, because most of them play sports,” he said. “I say, `Make sure you get good grades so you can be somebody.'”
Somebody big, such as Karlos Whittaker.
———-