More Top Picks Air Fryer
player ready...It’s hard to be a state champion and almost an afterthought, but that’s the fate that faced Richards and Zion-Benton after the Chicago Public League coronation in the Class 3A championship game Saturday afternoon.
Marshall vs. Simeon was the game of the day, if not the year, and after the former grabbed the 3A championship trophy with a 69-61 victory, you could almost feel some of the madness fading from March.
Richards would win the 4A title at the Peoria Civic Center, and while the winner’s hardware and smiles would shine as brightly as the 3A champ’s had hours earlier, it wasn’t going to be quite the same.
You knew Richards and Zion-Benton wouldn’t care, nor should they. And you knew that the IHSA insists that its jump to four-class basketball is all about more smiles, but you also knew the Class AA weekend has always been special, and that it felt a little less special at this inaugural 3A-4A extravaganza.
That’s because until now the Class AA champion was the state champion. This year it happens to be clear that Marshall is No. 1, but it sure was nice to have the issue decided on the court instead of on message boards and in bars.
Richards and Zion-Benton deserved better. They are talented, well-coached teams, and their enthusiastic crowds provided light years more energy than the electricity-free zone that accompanied Marshall and Simeon, who produced a terrific game but simply don’t bring many fans.
That’s the big reason for the sadly sparse 3A crowd, but it’s likely the four-class system isn’t helping.
Marshall and Simeon are state finals veterans, winners of three titles each. Richards and Zion-Benton are finals rookies, who overcame any opening-night jitters in Friday’s semifinals.
Zion-Benton edged Evanston 54-51 on a half-court heave by Ronald Steward at the buzzer. Richards then dissected Lockport in a 58-41 victory. Saturday night Richards became rookie of the year, defeating Zion-Benton 67-63.
Even beyond their finals inexperience, there was an unlikely quality to Zion-Benton and Richards. Steward, the Zee-Bees’ Friday hero, had a troubled childhood that reached the point in 6th grade where he sought stability and direction in the home of teammate Lenzelle Smith.
Smith’s father, Lenzelle Sr., became Steward’s legal guardian, and the 5-foot-10-inch junior guard turned his life around.
“There were things I had to change that they helped me change,” Steward said. “Simple things, like the way I talked. Instead of ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ it was ‘Yes.’
“It meant a lot.”
Steward had both his natural parents in attendance Friday, and so, of course was his “little brother,” Smith Jr., a 6-3 forward who has emerged as one of the state’s elite sophomores.
“Blood couldn’t make us closer,” Smith said. “We would do anything for each other.”
That spirit of sharing extends to the court, where five players average in double figures in scoring. The leader of it all is Don Kloth, who has quietly piled up almost 400 victories in 19 seasons as Zion-Benton’s coach but remained somewhat anonymous because his school is practically in Wisconsin and he never made it to high school basketball’s big dance until now.
Kloth retired as a teacher three years ago, but school officials wisely allowed him to continue as coach.
His title-game counterpart, John Chappetto, never played high school basketball, no doubt because he was 5-3 and 115 pounds when he attended Brother Rice. Sounds more like a soccer player, and that’s what he was, though he also kicked for the football team.
His father was a basketball referee in the Chicago Catholic League, so Chappetto always hung around the game, and he got a break when then-head coach Jack Fitzgerald hired him as a sophomore coach at Richards in 1994.
“He gave me a chance,” Chappetto said. “I think of all the guys who never had the opportunity to coach here, and here I am, on top of the world.”
He admits he didn’t expect to play in Peoria when he became head coach in 2002.
“A lot of coaches take a job to play Downstate,” he said. “I just wanted the job at Richards.
More Top Picks Best White Noise Machines For Adhd Focus
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get here until 2006, when we played Simeon in the sectional championship and were down by just one in the fourth quarter. I went, ‘Wow, it’s possible.'”
For Richards on Saturday, all things were possible.
———-
ON THE INTERNET
Read Barry Temkin’s blog, “Upon Further Review,” at chicagosports.com/temkin