Sunday Slam: Georgetown Next Coaching Stop for Schaumburg State Championship Assistant
Barrington's Anderson Keeps Rolling Between the Pipes, Ex-Libertyville Baseball Coach Panther Gets Big Ace, Morgan Park and North Central Legend Bill Warden Passes Away
Ivan Thomas was part of the biggest victory in Mid-Suburban League boys basketball history as an assistant coach for Schaumburg’s 2001 state champions.
Now Thomas is part of the big task of returning one of the big names in college basketball to prominence. Thomas has been an assistant coach for Ed Cooley at Providence College for the last eight years and will be part of Cooley’s staff in his new job at Georgetown.
“I’m lucky to have worked for such a great institution and have had the opportunity to assist coach Cooley in leading young men for the past eight years,” Thomas said in a tweet last week. “While playing in front of some of the best fans in the world, I can’t thank the Providence community enough for always supporting and embracing me.”
Thomas was part of a strong coaching staff led by head coach Bob Williams when Schaumburg won the only MSL boys basketball title by beating top-ranked Thornwood and 7-foot-1 future Chicago Bulls and NBA player Eddy Curry 66-54 in the Class AA championship game. The assistants were Thomas, current Schaumburg head football coach Mark Stilling, current Benedictine University head baseball coach Adam Smith, Tom Mueller, Mark Steger and Kelly O’Connor.
Success continued for Thomas, who was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, as he headed back closer to home. In his first head coaching job at Edison High School in Alexandria, Va., he went from 6 wins to an 18-8 record in three seasons. Then he went to T.C. Williams High in Alexandria and in three seasons his teams went 78-11 with three district titles and the school’s first state championship in 31 years in 2008.
Thomas’ title team went 29-3 (the same record as Schaumburg’s 2001 champs) and also beat a heavily favored team in the title game. He won numerous coach of the year honors.
“One of my proudest moments was winning the state championship because I saw a group of kids buy into a vision of playing and approaching a game the right way,” Thomas said in a story in the Connection group of newspapers in 2008. “When I first took over T.C., there was a different impression. The biggest challenge was changing the mindset of the players.”
Thomas then went to Kecoughtan High School in Hampton, Va., and went 127-60 in seven years. His next stop was Providence, where he spent his first year as the associate director of player development/video operations before getting promoted to assistant coach by Cooley in June 2016. The Friars went 242-153 in 12 years under Cooley with 7 NCAA tournament berths and a Big East Conference regular-season title and trip to the Sweet 16 in 2022.
Thomas and Cooley will be part of a major rebuilding project of a Georgetown program that was a national powerhouse under legendary coach John Thompson. The Hoyas won an NCAA title in 1984 and finished second in 1982 and 1985 with a ferocious defense led by the dominant Patrick Ewing at center. The Hoyas went to the Final Four in 2007 under Thompson’s son but their last NCAA tourney victory was in 2015. Ewing’s six-year tenure as head coach came to an end after they went 13-50 overall and lost 37 of 39 Big East games the last two seasons.
Age Not Slowing Barrington’s Anderson Between the Pipes
Craig Anderson is one of the few goaltenders who continued to take the best shots of NHL players into his 40s. In fact, the 1999 Barrington graduate has been thriving with the Buffalo Sabres as he nears his 42nd birthday on May 21.
Anderson has a 10-11-2 record for the Buffalo Sabres and has statistically been the best of the team’s three goalies with a .908 save percentage and 3.07 goals against average. Anderson, who started his 20-year, six-team NHL career with the Blackhawks in 2002-03, is one of just 24 goalies in NHL history to play into his 40s.
He made history in late February with 53 saves in a 3-1 win over Florida, one of his former teams, to become the oldest goalie to have 50 saves in a game.
“That’s about as good a game as I’ve played in awhile,” Anderson told Sabres TV after the game. “It’s special, for sure, but age is just a number. Right now it’s managing your rest and managing the time so you can have moments in the game like this and give your team a chance.”
Anderson has helped the Sabres stay in contention for a wild card spot in the playoffs with two weeks left in the regular season. He is 318-275 with a .912 save percentage and 2.86 goals against average in 708 games and his playoff save percentage of .929 leads all active goalies.
An Ace for Retired Libertyville Baseball Coach Jim Panther
Jim Panther would be classified as an ace pitcher Highland Park High School and Southern Illinois University before spending three seasons in the big leagues. Panther also worked with his share of aces during his Hall of Fame tenure at Libertyville.
But Panther never had an ace on the golf course until Feb. 25 when he knocked in a 5-iron from 156 yards at the Heritage Palms Golf & Country Club at his home in Fort Myers, Florida. (Thanks to my aunt Mary, who is a neighbor of Panther, for the tip).
Panther went 7-13 with a 5.26 ERA with the Oakland A’s, Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves from 1971-73 and was connected to a lot of baseball’s biggest names. He debuted with the A’s and Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers as they went on to win three consecutive World Series from 1972-74. Panther became part of the first Rangers’ team when he was traded for 31-game winner and two-time Cy Young Award winner Denny McLain, where he had Hall of Famers Ted Williams as a manager and Nellie Fox as a coach and beat Nolan Ryan for his first victory.
Panther was traded to the Braves for the 1973 season and played with soon-to-be home run king Henry Aaron before an arm injury ended his career. Panther had a 528-169 record as Libertyville’s coach from 1983-2002.
One of Panther’s neighbors is Phil Roof, who had a 15-year big-league career as a catcher started with the Milwaukee Braves in 1961 and ended with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1977. Roof also caught for the Angels, Kansas City and Oakland A’s, Brewers, Twins, Indians and White Sox.
Legendary Morgan Park, North Central Basketball Coach Bill Warden Passes Away
Bill Warden, who sandwiched a tremendous playing and coaching career at North Central College around one of the most memorable state titles as a coach at Morgan Park, passed away on March 25 at 90.
Warden’s 1976 Morgan Park team won the Class AA championship in dramatic fashion 45-44 over West Aurora when future Illinois standout Levi Cobb tipped a jump ball to Laird Smith, who nailed a turnaround 20-footer from the wing as time expired. His 1974 team lost in the state quarterfinals to eventual champion Proviso East and his 1975 team lost in the Chicago Public League title game to eventual champion Phillips.
He had a 288-208 record at Morgan Park before going to North Central. He was 204-212 from 1981-97 as the Naperville school with four trips to the NCAA Division III tournament and three College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) titles in 1985, 1989 and 1990.
Warden was inducted into the North Central Hall of Fame in 2004 and still holds career records for points scored (2,249) and points per game (28.5). He was the program’s first All-America selection in basketball when he was named to the NAIA first team by the Helms Foundation after his junior season in 1953-54. He was the first player in NAIA history to average more than 30 points a game in consecutive seasons and his 34.7 ppg as a senior led the nation. He was also a four-time unanimous first-team all-College Conference of Illinois (CCI) selection.
Warden was drafted by the Minneapolis Lakers but spent two years in the Army and played for Peoria’s Caterpillar Cats in the National Industrial Basketball League. He earned his master’s in guidance and counseling at Bradley in 1960 before going to Morgan Park to coach and teach physical education. He played at Oak Park-River Forest High School and was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association (IBCA) Hall of Fame in 1983.
Barrington Softball Stars Reunited in Crosstown Showdown
Barrington’s Kendall Peterson of Northwestern and Tori Meyer (DePaul), who graduated in 2019, faced off in the “Crosstown Showdown” at DePaul. Northwestern, which was ranked 22nd in the country, improved to 18-8 with a 20-1 win in 5 innings. Peterson went 1-for-2 with a walk and run scored and Meyer played center field and went 0-2.
Peterson also went 2-for-2 with double and 2 RBI in 2 games at Weber State. Last year she played 29 games with 10 starts as Northwestern made the College World Series.
Meyer is hitting .247 with 2 homers and 13 RBI and she was the Big East Player of the Week after helping DePaul to a 4-0 start. Last year she earned all-Big East Conference honors after hitting .339 with 5 homers and 34 RBI.
Miller Time Goes to Atlanta Falcons
Former Barrington star Scotty Miller is looking forward to a new start as he signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Falcons. The 5-foot-9, 174-pound wide receiver spent the past four seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
"I know nothing here is going to be handed to me," Miller said on the Falcons website after his introductory news conference. "I have to go earn everything. I'm just really excited to get out on the field and show these guys what I can do."
Miller was drafted in the sixth round by Tampa Bay out of Bowling Green. In his best season in 2020, he caught 33 passes for 501 yards and 3 touchdowns with Tom Brady leading the way to a Super Bowl championship. He caught 23 passes for 185 yards last year.
Miller liked the opportunity to be a bigger part of the offense with the Falcons and to play with new starting quarterback Desmond Ritter. Miller said the Falcons haven’t told him yet if he’ll play the slot or outside.
"I can stretch the field, stretch the defense so I think it's a little bit easier to do that on the outside," Miller said. "I can get 1-on-1 matchups, but in the slot I can use my quickness and my ability with mismatches on bigger guys like safeties, linebackers and nickels. I feel like I'm a well-rounded player. Just trying to bring toughness into everything that I do.
"It's never been easy. As a sixth-round pick, you're not guaranteed anything, so I just had to grind it out and that's kind of been my story my whole life. Keep trying to earn everything."
Big Inning an Understatement for St. Joseph-Ogden Softball
Often coaches will say if we could have just avoided those few big plays or that one big inning it would have been a different game.
That case could be made for a 27-6 win by the St. Joseph-Ogden softball team over Westville on March 21. All of the runs for SJ-O came in the third inning for the third-highest total in state history, according to IHSA records. Vandalia scored 29 runs in an inning against Altamont in 1985 and Ridgewood had a 28-run inning against Holy Trinity in 1989.
According to a report by longtime Central Illinois prep writer Fred Kroner, SJ-O trailed 6-0 when it scored 24 runs before the first out was recorded in the third inning. The Spartans hit 4 homers and drove in 22 runs in the outburst.
Former Aurora Christian Basketball Star Jake Wolfe Enters Portal
Morehead State senior and former Aurora Christian basketball standout Jake Wolfe announced last week he was entering the transfer portal for his graduate year. The 6-foot-5 Wolfe averaged 9.1 points and 3.2 rebounds and shot 36 percent from 3-point range this season and started 66 of 68 games in two seasons at Morehead State. He also played three years at Lipscomb.
Wolfe’s father Todd is a member of the IBCA Hall of Fame who starred at Arlington and Prospect before going on to play at Michigan State.
