Bruce Douglas has been called an all-star, an all-stater and an all-American in his four-year basketball career at Quincy High School. Wednesday, he earned a new title: Mr. Basketball of Illinois.
In a statewide vote of coaches and the media, Douglas was the runaway winner of this year’s award, presented by Suburban Trib in conjunction with the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association. He outdistanced King’s Efrem Winters by 755 votes, 1,700 to 945. The next three top vote-getters were Lawrencebille’s Doug Novsek, Mendel Catholic’s Andre Banks and Peoria Richwood’s Doug Altenberger.
“Of all the awards I’ve received, this is the most important one,” said Douglas, who finished seventh in last year’s balloting behind winner Walter Downing. “It is a great honor, and I’m very proud to have won.”
Winning has been a way of life for the 6-foot-3 inch senior since he was in junior high. His teams lost only twice in seventh and eighth grades and he fashioned a 123-5 mark in high school, including a 64-game winning streak his junior and senior years.
“He may be the No. 1 guard in the nation,” said Morgan Wooten, who serves as chairman of McDonald’s All-American High School Basketball Team selection committee, which picked Douglas to play in this year’s all-star game April 10 in the Rosemont Horizon.
“He’s one of the finest players to play high school basketball ever,” said Quincy coach Jerry Leggett.
Douglas, who will attend the University of Illinois in the fall along with Winters, Altenberger and seventh-place vote-getter Scott Meents of Herscher, holds the Quincy High School record for career points with 2,023. He’s a one-dimensional player, eitgher. Besides averaging 21 points this year, he contributed eight rebounds and eight assists a game. He also holds the school record of assists in a game, 18. In that contest, he scored 33 points in a 100-69 victory over East St. Louis.