High school wrestler also a thespian

HighBeam Research

Title: Back in the spotlight.(Sports Extra (High School))

Date: February 16, 1996 Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Author: Bush, Joe

Byline: Joe Bush Daily Herald Sports Writer
Alone before a crowd, Lisle's 189-pound state qualifier Brian Davis has no one to lean on.
He's done this over and over, in practice and for real, and still the moment raises his doubts and his pulse.
Finally, it's his turn. He takes a deep breath, steps forward and begins.
"Cry havoc," Davis projects to the back row, "and let slip the dogs of war."
Say what?
Wait, that's not Davis, it's Marc Antony, Roman general and one of Julius Caesar's main men, upon discovering Caesar's body after the dictator's assassination. And he's not on the floor of Assembly Hall, trying to win a Class A state title, he's on stage at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, trying to impress the judges of a Shakespeare monologue contest, the winner of which will compete in New York City.
Davis is just as serious about Act III, Scene I of The Bard's "Tragedy of Julius Caesar," with which he will attempt to advance from next Monday's first round to Tuesday's final round, as he is about the single-leg takedowns and six-minute endurance with which he will attempt to advance this weekend in Champaign.
"It's something that I really love to do," Davis says about...acting. "I'm not passionate about anything else, any other school subjects. I can't see myself doing anything else and being happy."
We've already tapped the similarities between Davis' two loves - theater and wrestling - in the first three paragraphs. Davis says the link between the two is deeper still.
"There's a lot of human drama in wrestling and the state tournament," Davis says. "There's tears and there's joy, and there's the same thing in theater. Theater's just a mirror of life, to tell a story, to bring something out in the audience that they didn't know was there inside themselves. To show them a part of themselves they either refused to see or never knew was there.
"Wrestling's a lot like that. You're forced to make a decision whether or not you want to work hard and improve yourself or just let the chance go by."
In Davis' freshman year he chose to work hard and improve himself in both disciplines.
Since discovering drama that year, Davis has been Lt. Col. Jessup in a drama club version of "A Few Good Men" and last November won the lead role of McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Both are Jack Nicholson parts, and to be sure, Davis played each differently than did Ol' Eyebrows.
What other wrestler will tell you that Kirk Douglas played McMurphy in the stage version which preceded the Academy Award-winning film?
"Just imagining (Douglas), you can see the big difference between the two characters," Davis explains. "Nicholson was more of a rebel. It was harder to see the cause in the movie, whereas in the play it's very evident that McMurphy is vulnerable."
Davis dedicated himself to the mat after he witnessed the utmost in wrestling and drama - four-time Lions state qualifier Dan Hajek's victory in the 119-pound state championship in 1993, his final attempt.
"I made up my mind right there that I had to get down there," Davis says. "(Wrestling's) really helped me develop as a person. To develop self-discipline and a hard work ethic."
It's the sweat that's gotten Davis to the state's main stage in Champaign. The four-year letterwinner has shoulders which each have a history of dislocation, he's lighter and a bit weaker than many of his foes and has no state-meet savvy to call upon this weekend.
"The thing Brian always lacked was strength," says Lions coach John Ruettiger. "He was always kind of a chubby kid. With his work ethic, he's matured into a good wrestler. He's a legitimate 189-pounder. The weights have really helped him."
"I'd say that I'm all-around a decent wrestler," Davis says. "There's no real moves that I'm known for, or stellar at. I use singles when I shoot, and I use a standup when I'm on the bottom. I'm not very good at pinning strong kids, but I can keep guys down pretty well. I'd say it's just stamina and mat experience and hard work."
Hajek, as well as former Lions placewinners Rich Mackins, Steve Winz and Chris Reeder, provided important cameos as well. From them Davis learned what it took to make the big time.
"No one really took me under their wing," Davis says. "Just by seeing how they worked in the practice room. Going Downstate with them my freshman and sophomore years was probably the best thing for me. Just to see them down there wrestling was enough inspiration to get me to wanna be where they were."
At 33-4, Davis is now where they were, in Assembly Hall waiting for the curtain to rise. He's lost to Yorkville's Ryan Lemberg twice, 6-4 and 7-4, split with Class AA state qualifier Jake Vercelli of Joliet Catholic and once to another Class AA kid who's staying home.
First up is Mahomet-Seymour's J.D. Curry, who is fresh with a 9-3 record. The winner faces third-ranked Roxana junior Tom Riggins (39-4).
Davis has beaten two wrestlers in his bracket, Sterling-Newman's Casey Burke and Illiana Christian's Jeff VanderWoude, either of whom he would meet in a semifinal. A third match with Lemberg would be in the final.
"If they meet again, Davis'll beat (Lemberg)," Ruettiger says. "I haven't seen him at his best yet. He's gonna have to wrestle his best this weekend, and I think he has it in him."
If not, the show must go on, and Davis is well prepared. Last summer he tried for, and won, a spot in a Steppenwolf Theatre workshop for high school kids.
He plays guitar and bass guitar in a rock group which occasionally plays at parties, has a 4.9 GPA on Lisle's 5.0 scale, and has auditioned for the drama schools at Boston University and DePaul. Northwestern is also in the mix, as well as Brown.
Wherever Davis goes, he will act, but this weekend concludes his seven-year run as a wrestler.
"I feel good," Davis says. "I'm working harder than I've ever worked before. No matter what happens I know I'm not gonna be disappointed because I'm gonna give it everything I have and see what happens. I like where I am right now."

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This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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Mike Ditka rants about Saints; has he changed?

HighBeam Research

Title: Ditka tries to light fire under team.(Sports)

Date: September 30, 1997 Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Author: Bush, Joe

Byline: Joe Bush Daily Herald Sports Writer
NEW ORLEANS - You say Mike Ditka looks the same, sounds the same and spits the same?
You're right. Same old (three weeks from his 58th birthday) squinty Iron Mike. Except there seems to be a little rust on one of his legendary talents: motivation.
When asked for the main difference between Ditka and Bears coach Dave Wannstedt, Saints center Jerry Fontenot, who played under both regimes in Chicago, said:
"I'd have to say Mike's ability to motivate. He's a good speaker. He can really drive a point home. It's not like Dave's not a good speaker, but Mike just has a special gift and he's able to use it."
Much was made of Ditka's long-awaited tirade at halftime of the Saints' 33-7 loss to San Francisco in Week 3, but the fact is the Saints still lost the second half, 10-7.
The next week Ditka hired a stress therapist to counsel the team on the eve of the game with Detroit. The Saints won 35-17.
Sunday, New Orleans created more anxiety with a 14-9 loss to the 1-3 Giants. After the Saints' first three possessions produced 17 yards, 0 first downs and an interception, Ditka lit into the offensive line.
The offense came up with 130 yards and 2 field goals on its next three possessions.
Ditka was amazed by his team's lack of energy at Giants Stadium, and Monday, he openly questioned his role in that blackout.
"We had no emotion going into that game," Ditka said. "We could have been going down Fifth Avenue on a shopping spree as well as playing the Giants. I'm serious.
"You cannot win without emotion. You cannot win without enthusiasm, without excitement, without getting crazy, without getting pumped up, without believing, without screaming and hollering, without believing in your teammates and encouragement.
"You can't win without that. If we think we're going to roll up a win with three-button suits on and a Wall Street Journal under our arms, we're crazy. We can't do that, we're not good enough to do that."
"It really is frustrating. I know I'm a dumb-(butt) if I can't impart that to them. I guess I've failed in that area. But I'm not going to quit trying."
Ditka almost got misty while talking about his mid-to-late 1980s Bears squads. They didn't need many pep talks.
"We had a lot of leaders," Ditka said. "I could go right down the list on offense and defense. Whether it'd be Payton or McMahon or Singletary or Fencik or Suhey. They all led in their own ways. Our linemen, they didn't talk that much. Covert was a great leader by example.
"We have a lot of good guys here that are winning their battles, too, we just don't have enough of them."
He was spoiled with the last of a bygone breed of player, and he wonders if part of his present problem is present attitudes.
Motivation takes two, and as he looked around the Saints' pregame locker room Sunday he said to himself, "Wow, maybe this is the new football. I don't know."
In other words, Ditka says, if you can't get fired up just by having an NFL job, something's wrong.
"If you give a guy an opportunity to start in this league, you hope he would understand what magnitude that is and what it would mean to them and their career," he said. "I don't understand it. This is the greatest game in the world.
"To have an opportunity to play it and not to grasp everything you do with all your energies and every bit of your might and have fun doing it and lay it all on the line every week, you've got to be crazy."

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This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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Who could become the winningest HS hoops coach in Illinois? Who would want to be?

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Title: It might take Joe Spooh to break wins record.(Sports)

Date: March 18, 1999 Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Author: Bush, Joe

Byline: Joe Bush Daily Herald Sports Writer
Joe Spooh is 23, and a head varsity basketball coach at a well-funded parochial school.
He was a slick-shooting basketball legend at the orphanage, and decided long ago that coaching is his calling, so much so that he swears he'll stay single until he meets a female basketball coach who doesn't want children, doesn't care how much money he makes, and whose parents live in Europe.
No family holiday obligations for him.
He's our choice as the man to one day break Dick Van Scyoc's Illinois high school career-wins record of 826.
The problem is, he doesn't exist (Spooh is hoops spelled backward).
* * *
Three very real men are the most likely to eclipse the mark Van Scyoc reached in a 44-year, four-school career: Gallatin County's Bob Dallas, Bunker Hill's Jim Hlafka and Okawville's David Luechtefeld.
By most likely, we mean slim chance.
Dallas is 69 years old, and needs four 20-win seasons. At a breakfast with Van Scyoc last year, the retired coach said to the active one, "You're the guy who's going to come up and beat my record."
"I said, 'No, don't worry about that,' " Dallas said.
Hlafka is 116 victories from the top, which, even though he's 65 years old, is conceiveable. Six more 20-win campaigns would put him at 71.
The hole in that hypothesis is that he figures next year's inexperienced squad will win four games, then do well to reach .500 the year after.
"I'm not worried about victories," Hlafka said. "That's just longevity. I want to help kids."
At 58, Luechtefeld seems a lock to hang on for the six 20-win seasons he needs. He could even suffer a down year or two.
If it wasn't for his darn side job.
Luechtefeld just earned his second election to a four-year state-senatorship term.
"I'm not going to (coach) a whole lot longer," the senator said from his office in Springfield. "I do not intend to stay in it long enough to break the record."
So there you go. Who among coaching's present or next generation will break Van Scyoc's record? No, not who will. Who can?
"That record looms bigger and bigger every year," Dallas said.
* * *
Naperville North coach Mark Lindo turned 41 and won his 300th game on the same day two weeks ago.
While the Huskies athletic staff rolled out a Happy Birthday/300 Wins cake for fans and players to enjoy after the game, a reporter did some quick math.
Jeez, relatively young Coach, you've got a chance to put up some pretty big numbers, huh?
"Naw, I'll never be in it long enough," Lindo said without any hesitation.
If Lindo feels that way, Van Scyoc's record may last until the ball is rectangular and the court is round. Times have changed in Van Scyoc's favor.
First of all, the Illinois High School Association says teams can't play as many regular-season games as their ancestors could (St. Elizabeth was 48-3 in 1956-57; Taylorville was 45-0 in 1944).
Secondly - and this is what Lindo was referring to - coaching varsity basketball has become a year-round grind in the last 15 years.
"They've gone crazy," said Chuck Rolinski, who's not only the executive director of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association, but the retired owner of 649 wins in a 34-year career at Toluca.
"They're out of control. If you talk to 90 percent of the coaches, they hate it."
The hang-up is, everyone else is doing it.
There is the November-to-March season, there is spring weight lifting, there are summer leagues and camps and tournaments, and there is fall conditioning.
That's not all, said Dave Fenton, who burned out after five years in the top job at Wheaton North.
"When you're the varsity coach, you're responsible for all levels," Fenton said.
So there might also be off-season leagues for sophomores, and the organizing of a traveling squad for middle school kids.
Off-season work for Hlafka in the late 1960s consisted of getting the town leaders to build an outdoor court, then driving by to see which of his players were using it.
"It was easier then," he said.
Dallas is strongly against the extra work, and hasn't changed his ways. Besides, he's got a 750-acre farm to tend to.
He opens the gym once a week in the summer, and while he sees neighboring programs playing 80 to 90 games a year, he's not in favor of the extra load.
"I might add we beat some of them teams this year," he said just before chuckling in triumph.
* * *
Lisle's Mark D'Amico has numbers similar to Lindo's: He's 43 and has 252 wins.
Here's a stat D'Amico can also trot out: Of the eight coaches in the Interstate Eight Conference when Lisle joined in 1992, he is one of two who remain.
"I've looked at (the job) year to year," said D'Amico, a father of three children aged 11 and under. "As you get older, it gets harder and harder to release yourself from (family commitments)."
So we return to coach Spooh, our blueprint for the record-breaker.
He gets a head start on his wins total by working at a parochial school, where young teachers have a better chance to run a program. (Lindo started his career at Aurora Central Catholic when he was 24).
Spooh doesn't have parents, and if he marries that perfect woman, holiday visits to hers will be logistically prohibitive. If he never meets her, so much the better.
Now all he has to do is win 20 games per year for 41 years.
"It's going to be hard," said Addison Trail coach Matt Thompson.
Thompson is talking a good game - now. He's 31, and just finished his third year as the Blazers' head coach. He has 36 wins and two children.
"It's still early enough where something like (the record) hasn't entered my mind," he said. "I foresee myself doing this for the rest of my life."
Then Thompson added, "Lindo probably said this when he was four years in."

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This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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Australian Rules Football tries to take hold in U.S.

HighBeam Research

Title: Will the game from Down Under go over in U.S.? Australian Rules Football remains an obscure game in this country, but the younger generation may kick 'footy' to new heights.(Suburban Living)

Date: September 30, 1999 Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Author: Bush, Joe

Byline: Joe Bush Daily Herald Staff Writer
Joe Nicoloff looked like a boxer who had either lost a fight or survived a lot of punches to win one.
A shiner, not very well-concealed by sunglasses, encircled his left eye. His lower lip carried 22 stitches.
But the West Chicago resident did not stand out in this crowd. True, he was the only one wearing shades indoors at 9 p.m., but his injuries barely drew a second glance from the men standing around the bar drinking beer. Many sported injuries inflicted on each other a week before during a game of "footy" - the ironically affectionate nickname for the rough-and-tumble game known as Australian Rules Football.
During that game, Nicoloff bashed heads with another player and had to stop playing, but that didn't discourage the 6-foot, 235-pound former Division III football player. He couldn't wait to play again.
"It's an awesome sport," Nicoloff insists. "It's constant motion. There's always something going on during the game, and that's a lot different than American football."
Different? Yes, but footy is so different it might never attract a large following in the United States. Can a nation that has been slow to accept soccer, the most popular game in the world, embrace an obscure game from Down Under?
"Right now we're dealing with a sport no one knows," says Paul O'Keeffe, an Australian living in Milwaukee who serves as the president of the 2-year-old United States Australian Football League (USAFL). "Our goal is not to take on the big four (football, baseball, basketball, hockey). Right now we're based around participation."
* * *
Three years ago, Australian Rules Football existed only in obscure nooks and crannies of the American sports scene. Today, about 30 teams across the country are linked by the USAFL, which has not-for-profit status, a 14-member executive board and a man devoted to drumming up interest in the game among kids.
In August, the first international game on U.S. soil was played on a makeshift field on the grounds of Naperville Central High School. (Nicoloff's team, the Chicago Swans, defeated a Canadian rival.)
The event failed to attract much attention. Most members of the small crowd were related to a player either by kinship, friendship or marriage, and the streaker who sprinted across the field at half-time was unmolested by security officers, since the event had no security officers.
Ironically, Australian Rules Football is more obscure today in the United States than it was in the 1980s. Then, ESPN and ESPN2 regularly broadcast highlights and games of the Australian Football League late at night.
Today, only satellite-TV owners can watch AFL games and highlight shows, and the Australian Football Association of North America (AFANA) - a fan-based lobbying organization - is working to increase TV exposure.
But another important way to increase interest in the game is to recruit the young.
"If you actually want to grow the game, you've got to get the kids to play," says AFL executive Andrew Catterall, who has been in on the AFL's fledgling strategic plans for the sport's international development. "If in 25 years there were 200,000 people playing footy (in the United States), that would be fantastic."
The Australian Football League recently gave 45,000 Australian dollars ($30,000 U.S.) to the USAFL, and part of the money was used to pay expenses for former AFL star Paul Roos to conduct clinics around the country.
Roos, 36, who played more than 300 AFL games before retiring in 1998, has seen enough talent and ability in his clinics to make him believe Americans could get into footy.
"There's a real potential over here, and I've said this to some of the people back in Australia, that one day an American could play professionally in the top league back home," Roos says.
Australian Rules Football requires 18 players on each team to advance the ball by running with it, kicking it to a teammate, or passing it by propelling it with a fist.
The running, leaping, catching, tackling and kicking continue nonstop for four 25-minute quarters on an oval field more than 50 percent longer than a football field.
While America undoubtedly has athletes with enough strength and stamina to play the game, the skills unique to footy - kicking under pressure to a target, punch-passing to a teammate, developing spatial sense - come only with experience.
Because of this, Australian expatriates tend to be the team leaders on the USAFL clubs. Half of the Canadian national squad that played in Naperville was Australian, and the Chicago Swans are striving to increase the number of American players.
The unwritten USAFL goal is to eventually field teams with American players who have grown with the game.
"I think if we can get it in the schools over here," says Roos, "get it to kids that are 9, 10, 11 years of age, and develop similar to our kids back home, then with the added athleticism, and if they do get those skills early enough, that they could be very, very good players."
* * *
To that end, the USAFL this year hired Wheaton resident Jeff Norris, a junior-high teacher at Komarek School in North Riverside, as its junior development coordinator.
Norris taught footy in his P.E. classes seven years ago, well before the USAFL was a twinkle in O'Keeffe's eye.
He liked the participation potential above all - even if a team is reduced to 14 players, that's still more than an American football team. He also reduced the sport's level of contact by making it like touch or flag football.
"My kids at the school just went wild," Norris says. "They loved it."
Norris runs an annual summer camp, which this year brought in about 50 kids from 10 years old through high-school age.
Two years ago Norris took a youth team to Australia for some games, and last year an Australian team made the reverse trip.
Local channels 2 and 9, as well as ESPN and ESPN2, have featured Norris and his programs. St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights has added footy to its p.e. classes.
"Once Americans see the game, they'll fall in love with it," Norris says. "It has everything Americans want."
Norris says some of his top players are girls, and many of them got a chance to show off in the co-ed youth exhibition game played before the United States-Canada match in Naperville in August.
"Every kid has a chance when we play," Norris says proudly.
Norris has developed a teaching curriculum named AusKick in preparation for widespread school acceptance, and the USAFL has encouraged member clubs to recruit grade schools in their area. Once school administrators are interested, Norris will pounce.
"My own vision of it is starting to take shape," Norris says. "I just want to help our kids."
* * *
Footy is particularly well-organized in the Midwest - Cincinnati, Nashville, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City - and California, which has its own league, the four-team California Australian Football League.
Each club handles its own business, such as dues, travel arrangements, schedules and sponsorships. (When they played in Naperville in August, the Canadian team sported polo shirts embroidered with the Labatt's Brewery name, while the Swans have a relationship with Jacob's Creek, an Australian winery. Air New Zealand is the major sponsor on the 1999 USAFL handbook.)
Roos, who makes his home in California with his American wife, is pleasantly surprised with the sport's progress.
"I admire all these guys for the work they put in," Roos says. "They're a lot further advanced than anyone back in Australia probably realizes."
There are older footy leagues in other countries - England, Denmark, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Japan - but none seems to be as ambitious as the USAFL.
"(The AFL) has really stood up and listened this year," says USAFL president O'Keeffe. "I think they've been surprised. They're taking a wait-and-see attitude."
The AFL's Cutterall agrees. The small amount of financial support the league provides the USAFL carries more opportunity for the U.S. league than risk for the AFL.
"It's not a core strategic priority of the AFL," Cutterall says of the state-side growth. "We're willing to provide support. I'm sure in time if the USAFL identifies some hot kids, I'm sure the AFL would come look at them."
* * *
So the United States is years from producing AFL-quality players.
O'Keeffe says for now, the USAFL will concentrate on solidifying its base, managing its growth, attracting national sponsors, and developing its Web site (usfooty.com) and its youth and umpire programs.
For now, guys like 29-year-old Schaumburg native Sean Quinn are simply getting their kicks.
While in law school in Indianapolis, Quinn was in on the sport's formative years. Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati fielded the only teams and played each other over and over.
He moved back home and formed the Swans and has seen the sport's popularity grow. He expects that the Chicago area will sprout another team by next season.
Quinn has had a bad knee since high school, but with 18 positions to choose from and not as much violence as you might think, he's able to hold his own.
Neither he nor any of the guys he plays with will ever play for the AFL, but they can enjoy its game well past the day when some American bloke does.
For more information about the Chicago Swans, call team president Rick Martinez at (847) 895-0825.

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This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

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Wrestling coach can't coach against his son

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Title: Every day is Father's Day in the Arlis during wrestling season.(Sports Extra)

Date: January 18, 2002 Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)

Byline: Joe Bush
Tom Arlis and his 14-year-old son, Clint, agree on most things.
You read that right, like a banner headline in the Parents' Daily Herald: Father and Adolescent See Eye to Eye.
The harmony swells from Tom's longtime position as Naperville North's wrestling coach, and Clint's brief tenure as one of Batavia's freshman phenoms.
"Most things" in their lives involve wrestling.
Tom and his wife, Jamie, moved to Batavia before they had kids, when their only concern was affordability.
Now, they each have active lives in the river town - 9-year-old Logan grapples as well, and 11-year-old Taylor is a gymnast - and the couple long ago decided that Tom coaching his sons in high school wasn't a good enough reason to move to Naperville.
So Clint grew up rolling around Naperville North practice mats and at duals and tournaments with Huskies heroes like Nate Patrick and Charles Martelli, and once he was 6 years old, began competing.
"Half the shirts in his drawer are 'Naperville North Wrestling,' " Tom said during a break in the action at last Saturday's Batavia Invitational.
Hey, how nice, father gets a rare chance to see son wrestle in person (Jamie videotapes every bout). That's correct, but Tom was there because his team was there, and here is where the father and son disagree.
Had Clint won his 103-pound semifinal, he would have met Naperville North's Nick Fanthorpe in the title match.
What at first seems like a neat scene is clearly problematic: a father who taught his son most of what he knows, and who has been supportive for eight years, is providing someone else's child instructions for defeating his son.
"I don't think it would have been that big of a deal," Clint said after winning the third-place match.
His father has wrung his hands over the matter since Clint - an accomplished kids' club competitor who wrestled at Cadet Freestyle Nationals last summer in Fargo, N.D. -claimed a spot on the varsity in November, then won match after match leading up to the 16-team tournament.
"As the day got closer and closer, it got heavier and heavier on my mind," Tom said.
After much thought, Tom decided to be a father instead of a coach whenever over the next three-and-a-half seasons Clint is matched with one of the Huskies; Naperville North assistants would oversee the bout.
"You cannot not be a dad," Tom said. "That's really the only way to do it. I can't coach against my son, and I can't coach against (Fanthorpe) either."
Here's Tom during a tight Naperville North match: writhing on his chair, contorting his body as if he were out in the circle.
When he watches Clint wrestle, as he has been able to do in person eight times this year? The bleachers are perhaps a better place for him.
"I can't get away from it," he said of the ghost-wrestling. "That's the worst. I feel the butterflies in my stomach. I would say that feeling ... outside of competing your own self would be seeing your son compete. You get those same butterflies, that same nervous feeling, and you're totally wrapped up and involved in it. It just totally engulfs you."
Tom and Batavia coach Brian Drendel have known each other for years and have the same wrestling philosophy: "Always working for extra team points," Clint said.
Drendel wanted a youth club to one day supply his program; Tom and other fathers wanted a youth club for their kids. Thus was the Batavia Pinners club born.
Those parallel pursuits assure a conflict-free relationship between the men. Clint was raised to be an aggressive, hard-working wrestler - just like Dad - and Drendel wants that type of kid.
"If you try to relax at all during a match, he's gonna beat you," Tom said. "He just outhustles everybody. He's the first to shoot and the last to shoot."
There has been at least one unforeseen benefit from Clint's entry into high school wrestling under a different coach: Tom is now cool.
"Before, I was his dad and his coach, and every dad out there will tell you the same thing: when they try to tell their son something, 'Oh, it's Dad,' and they get a little rebellious," Tom said.
"This year, I had one of my wrestlers give me a lot of attitude after a loss, and I told him, 'I don't need that from you, I get that from my son.' I was telling my wife that, and (Clint) was in the other room, and he came in, he goes, 'That's how it used to be. It's not like that anymore.'
"I thought it was just a little rhetoric, but he's been really good when I talk to him now. I look at his film and I'll see him wrestle. I will tell him what I think he needs to work on, and he's real receptive now, and I think maybe because now he really, really wants to do well. His focus has been towards high school.
"It's really been quite pleasant at home."
You can reach Joe Bush at (630) 587-8641 or by e-mail at jbush@@dailyherald.com

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This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.

This document provided by HighBeam Research at http://www.highbeam.com

Mike Ditka's first season in New Orleans

HighBeam Research

Title: New Orleans embraces Ditka But it's no Chicago.(Sports)

Date: October 3, 1997 Publication: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Author: Bush, Joe

Byline: Joe Bush Daily Herald Sports Writer
NEW ORLEANS - There are three Grabowskis in the greater New Orleans phone book.
There is a page and a half of Boudreauxs and 117 Fontenots, not including Jerry, the one who plays center for the New Orleans Saints.
And during breaks in the live broadcast of Mike Ditka's WWL-AM radio show Tuesday nights at Spanky's Grill and Beer, no one in the crowd woofs with their fists in the air.
It's a different crowd in the Big Easy, but Ditka won it over almost immediately after his hiring last Jan. 28. Since the swooning was immediate and had nothing to do with what Ditka had done for New Orleans, it had everything to do with his gruff celebrity.
Remember, as world-famous as this town is for music, French heritage, Mardi Gras, riverboats and cuisine, it is less than half the size of Chicago.
While Chicagoans have five major-league pro teams to choose among, here there are the Saints, a minor-league baseball team called the Zephyrs, three minor-league hockey teams (Brass, IceGators, Kingfish) and a pro soccer squad (Riverboat Gamblers).
"This is the first time a larger-than-life phenomenon has hit New Orleans," says Times-Picayune sportswriter Brian Allee-Walsh, who has covered the Saints for 11 years. "They've never had a coach that's been on 'Third Rock from the Sun,' let's put it that way. He supersedes what an NFL coach should be. He's strong, he's virile, he shoots from the hip."
Most Bears fans weren't in awe of Ditka; he was one of them. He had played for the Bears, was hand-picked to coach the team by Papa Bear George Halas, had a working-man's directness and lack of tolerance for b.s.
While there is no family-tree connection here, New Orleans is every bit as blue-collar as Chicago.
"New Orleans has got a lot of mix; low-income to middle-income," says Jerry Fontenot, a Louisiana native. "They identify with his straight-forwardness and his record as a coach. His style. That's what people relate to."
Indeed, Ditka gets the loudest cheer at Spanky's when he snarls at the pre-game pleasantries that go on between opponents these days. "Kissy-kissy" and "huggy-huggy" he calls it.
Before the Saints had played a game, there was a web site devoted to all things Ditka: Mike Ditka Altar. Saints ticket sales skyrocketed and good tickets are hard to find on home dates.
Evidently, "Da" is no longer yours, Chicago, but travels with Ditka, becoming regional dialect wherever he lands.
Ditka does commercials for Burger King, a local carbonated beverage named Big Shot, and an HMO, not to mention the national gig for 1-800-COLLECT.
In the Burger King spots, the locals have fun with Ditka's outsider status. The French word "Lagniappe" means "something extra," or "bonus," and its pronunciation is as dainty as its spelling. In the commercial, Ditka shoves out "Lag Nap."
There are not one, not two, but three weekly half-hour TV shows featuring "Da Coach."
"It's gotten a whole lot more exciting and colorful," says Cindy Siegrist, one of the fans at Spanky's. "Whether (the Saints) win or lose, he's already done a huge service for the Saints."
So if the Saints don't win another game this year, it'll be OK?
"Well, now you're pushin' it," says Siegrist's friend, Linda Scott.
Promises, promises
After a 1-4 start, then, the question is simple: How long will the honeymoon last? No, there's a better question: How long will Mike Ditka last?
Ditka blew into New Orleans like Buddy Ryan stormed into Phoenix, and thus far that unfortunate comparison runs deeper than ex-Bears coaches who took over floundering franchises.
Just as Ryan told enraptured Arizonans, "You've got yourself a winner," Ditka pledged to forge a team that would, if nothing else, mirror its coach. There would be smash-mouth football, there would be fighters, there would be wild-eyed Southern boys.
"Find a way or make a way," is the motto, and for sure these Saints have found a way to lose (an NFL-high 21 turnovers) and a way to wear down their iron-clad head coach.
Ditka shows up for his Monday press conferences looking more than his 57 years. Monday, a reporter actually sounded motherly when she said "Mike, how big a toll is this taking on you? You look tired."
"I am tired," he said. "I'm emotionally tired. You can handle the physical aspect; it's the emotional aspect that makes you tired. It makes you old. If you don't care, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately, I happen to care a lot.
"I made some promises to myself, and I made them to these people, and I'd like to fulfill them."
Most of the Saints have yet to share Ditka's determination. Ditka has admitted he overestimated the talent he inherited. At this point, he and the coaching staff aren't looking for wins, just some effort.
"I think the restoration process is 10 times what he thought it was," Allee-Walsh says. "He thought he could will (the team) not necessarily to victory, but to his style of play. He's been embarrassed. They haven't lived up to his image, and I don't know if anybody can. This team is faced with a real identity crisis."
The natives have noticed, they're getting restless and some of them aren't blaming the players.
"I think Ditka is dazed and confused," says Andy, a caller to WWL's post-game show last Sunday. "He's got three years of a Stalinist plan, and I don't think he can pull this thing out."
Caller Doc pipes in: "I think Ditka's gonna lose his credibility if he doesn't" replace ineffective quarterback Heath Shuler with rookie Danny Wuerffel.
Nick chimes in: "Ditka's been evaluating the players, and so forth. What I really think he needs to do is evaluate himself and his coaching staff."
Great expectations
Saints offensive coordinator Danny Abramowicz new it wasn't going to be easy.
"The expectations were so high," Abramowicz said. "Like he was gonna come in and just because it's Mike, the wand was gonna be waved."
Sure, but who raised those expectations?
Ditka turned down a five-year contract with the Saints, signed a three-year deal, and bought a house in the gated English Turn development, a golf-course community with homes ranging in price from $350,000 to over $2 million.
His Bannockburn home recently sold for nearly $2 million, so he and his wife Diana are now residents of the Crescent City.
An English Turn sales agent proudly describes the development as the city's only "true" gated community. "No one gets in," she says.
That's no way to get close to the people, but then again, Bannockburn wasn't exactly a South Side tavern. Besides, it's apparent already that Ditka's aura will eventually fade next to the glare of the team's performance.
"I doubt if it'll ever develop into the Chicago love affair, even if he's successful," Allee-Walsh says.
Tuesday night at Spanky's, half the callers are from the Chicago area, and Ditka seems to perk up when he talks to them. Fans don't hesitate to approach Ditka during commercials. He signs whatever, and poses for pictures. He looks like he's having a good time.
Sometime during the evening he tells a caller, and the rest of his fellow Louisianans, "I'm not in a popularity contest. If the people don't like my decisions, I can't help that."

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