John Whitelaw, Hinsdale Central's sophomore quarterback, didn't produced a highlight film in Saturday's 21-6 homecoming victory over Downers Grove North. But he showed the kind of athleticism, skills and poise that figure to make him one of the most recruited players in the state in two years.

The 6-0, 165-pounder, optioning out of coach Mike DiMatteo's spread offense, rushed five times for 41 yards and completed 7-of-12 passes for 96 yards and one touchdown, a 22-yarder to Troy Laing.

He also completed a 23-yard pass to Mac Lagor and a 28-yarder to Davis Kalsbeek, then ran 14 yards to Downers North's 5 to set up another touchdown against a defense that had allowed only 56 points in five previous games.

Whitelaw, a three-sport athlete, demonstrated unusual poise and sense of command for a youngster who was quarterbacking the freshman squad a year ago. In a 6-1 varsity season, he has rushed 62 times for 632 yards (10.2 yards per carry) and scored five touchdowns. And he has completed 54-of-103 passes (52 percent) for 809 yards (15 yards per completion) and eight touchdowns.

Two weeks ago, Whitelaw made a highlight reel. In a 42-22 romp over Oak Park, he ran 19 times for 224 yards and three touchdowns and completed 10-of-17 passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns.

"He is the most athletic sophomore I've seen," Downers North coach John Wander said.

"I'd rather throw a touchdown pass than run for one," said the 16-year-old Whitelaw, who earned the starting job when returning senior Zach Leathers was sidelined with a shoulder injury.

"Whitelaw is a good athlete," DiMatteo said. "He is smart, very coachable, wants to learn and be good. As he gets more and more comfortable with what we're doing, he's going to get better and better. I think the sky's the limit for him right now."

Some observers argue Whitelaw might be a better college prospect as a point guard in basketball. But he would prefer to wait for two years to see how he stands in each sport. The hunch is he'd rather prove to one and all that he is good enough to be a big-time quarterback.

Posted by Taylor Bell at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Big Ten is having a public relations nightmare with its inability to sell its television network and to convince critics that it is the bastion of academics. Conference commissioner Jim Delaney can't understand why everyone doesn't see the big picture as clearly as he does.

But Delaney has done something right. Guess what I discovered while switching from channel to channel on Friday night, trying to find something interesting to watch? My RCN cable company picked up the Big Ten Network. But my Comcast friends in the city still can't see Illinois/Penn State.

But Delaney isn't doing everything right.

Several months ago, Delaney took time to write me a critical note after I wrote that one reason why the Big Ten had ceased to be the most dominant football conference in the country was because of its high academic standards as opposed to other conferences such as the SEC that had lower requirements.

It was a compliment. But Delaney took it as a kick to the groin. I was daring to insinuate that the Big Ten no longer was No. 1. What sports pages has he been reading lately? What bowl games has he been watching?

This is the same man who asked a well-known recruiting analyst to appear on the Big Ten Network, then opted not to hire him because the analyst wouldn't agree to sugarcoat everything about Big Ten recruiting. Delaney wanted a "yes" man and Tom Lemming refused to be his puppet.

Then there is the case of former Michigan quarterback and current Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh, who was criticized harshly after he was quoted in a San Francisco newspaper that Michigan admitted athletes who were border-line academically, then steered them into less-challenging courses to keep them eligible.

Everybody does it. Everybody brings in marginal athletes, even Stanford. But I recall catching flak from Michigan folks when I wrote years ago that one of the nation's top-rated basketball players, Antoine Joubert, was taking a course called "Introduction to Badminton."

Check the courses that many athletes are taking and explain to me what they are all about. What do "Workforce Training" and "General Curriculum" and "Outdoor Recreation" and "Justice Administration" and "General Recreation" have to do with preparing student-athletes for life after college?

I still recall one course that was offered by one of the nation's leading universities--"Safety with Hand-Powered Tools."

"The Big Ten has the best academics of all six major conferences when it comes to football players," Lemming said. "The majority of the Big Ten will abide by NCAA rules and won't take as many Proposition 48 kids and set them up in prep schools as other conferences do. For example, the SEC can't take kids who don't meet minimum requirements. But they can take a kid, set him up in a prep school and enroll him in their program in six months."

And maintain a straight face while doing it.

Posted by Taylor Bell at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm taking a brief timeout from celebrating that my two favorites teams, the Cubs and Yankees, have found ways to qualify for the postseason playoffs to discuss an issue that has been bothering me long before ESPN invented K zone.

When Glen Van Proyen, a Cubs scout since 2000, was coaching baseball at Maine South and in the early years when he was scouting for the Dodgers, the strike zone extended from the top of the kneecap to the letters on the uniform or the armpits.

So what happened?

I remember when I was a catcher on our high school baseball team in Blue Island. During the offseason, our coach had pitchers throwing through strings that were hung between two wooden poles. The strike zone, from the knees to the letters, was always the same.

But now the strike zone, for whatever reason, is from the knees to the belt. Anything from the belt to the letters is judged to be too high and out of the strike zone. No wonder earn run averages have soared sky high.

But Van Proyen believes that Major League Baseball is changing its view on the strike zone. He insists more high strikes have been called this season than at any time he can recall in the recent past, since the decision to cut the strike zone from the armpits to the belt was adopted.

"Umpiring is a lot more consistent since they went to major league umpires instead of American and National League umpires," Van Proyen said. "It used to be that National League umpires called low strikes and American League umpires called a more liberal zone, above the belt, the way it should be called."

Van Proyen pointed out that umpires used to work directly behind the catcher's head wearing a balloon chest protector. But now they work over the inside corner, over the catcher's shoulder on the hitter's side because they want to make sure they call the inside correctly. Why? Because that's what a hitter sees best as opposed to the outside corner. The umpires won't get an argument on an outside call because no one can see it.

The next time you're watching a major league game on television, see if he isn't right.

Posted by Taylor Bell at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All of this debate about "Who is No. 1?" or "Is Darius Fleming better than Steve Filer?" or "Why isn't Garrett Goebel rated higher than he is?" or "Will Loyola's Chance Carter be the best prospect in the state in two years?" or "Is everybody overlooking Rolling Meadows' Ty Kirk and Joe Okon?" caused me to think about how difficult it is to evaluate a 17-year-old player and project if he will develop into a productive performer in college.

I'm not a professional recruiting analyst like Tom Lemming. That's his business. He's been doing it for nearly 30 years and he's good at it. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have been doing it for so long. College recruiters wouldn't trust his evaluations. By comparison, everybody else--Rivals and Scout and SuperSport--are Johnny-come-latelies.

Dick Lascola has been in the business for a long time, too. But he isn't one of Lemming's competitors. Based in southern California, Lascola was the first to provide lists of junior prospects to colleges across the country. Years ago, he asked me to cover the Chicago area for him. Each year, I call about 200 coaches in the city and suburbs and obtain names of 300 to 400 players who they believe have Division I potential.

To give you an idea of how the process has accelerated over the years, I used to contact the high school coaches in January, evaluate the players and send my findings to Lascola by the first week in February. But now, to meet the needs of the recruiters who want to contact prospects as soon as possible, I make my calls after the state finals in November and send my list to Lascola by the first week in December.

The other day, I examined by old lists dating to 2002 to see how I had fared. Did I pick the best players? Did they hold up from November of their junior year to the end of their senior year? Did they perform well in college? Did I overlook someone? Did I underrate or overrate someone? Did a high school coach neglect to inform me about a player who should have been listed?

2002: Joliet Catholic's J.R. Zwierzynski was my No. 1 choice. At the end of the season, he was everybody's pick. He went to Penn State, didn't play up to expectations, then transferred to Western Illinois.

2003: Buffalo Grove's Tom Zbikowski was my No. 1 choice. At the end of the season, he was everybody's pick, the Sun-Times Player of the Year. He went to Notre Dame and is a starting cornerback. As a junior, he earned some All-America recognition.

2004: Buffalo Grove's Eric Andino was my No. 1 choice. He went to Michigan State but wasn't much of a factor. At the end of the season, Thornton's Tim Jamison, who went to Michigan, earned the top spot. Hubbard's Chris Patterson, now at Kansas, was second. Harper's Roland Martin, now at Michigan State, was third. Rivals picked Bolingbrook's Kyle Williams, who wasn't in Tom Lemming's top 100. Lemming said he observed Williams on two occasions, once against Jamison, and "he didn't do anything."

2005: This was easy. Niles West's Rashard Mendenhall was my No. 1 choice. At the end of the season, no one argued the point. As a junior at Illinois, he is emerging as the impact player that everyone anticipated.

2006: Morris' James Cumbie was my No. 1 choice. He is a starting defensive end at Clemson. But he didn't have an outstanding senior year so he fell behind two quarterbacks, Morgan Park's Demetrious Jones and Vocational's Isiah "Juice" Williams, in the postseason evaluations.

2007: Hubbard's Justin Hickman was my No. 1 pick. Hickman is playing at New Mexico. But Simeon's Martez Wilson was a popular choice as the top prospect at the end of season. Wilson wasn't rated among the top prospects in my November list because Simeon coach Jesse Chick said he was 6-2 and weighed 200 pounds and projected him as a wide receiver in college. At the end of his senior year, Wilson was closer to 6-4 and 240 and terrorizing opponents as a defensive end. He was named to USA Today's first-team All-America squad.

2008: Mount Carmel's Steve Filer was No. 1, St. Rita's Darius Fleming was No. 2. That was last November. Nothing much has changed.

"It's tougher to pick the top players in November, before they have played their senior year," Tom Lemming said. "So much happens between then and now. Some don't perform as seniors. Some are injured. It's so difficult to single them out, mostly on the basis of what they did as juniors and how you think they will project as seniors and beyond."

Posted by Taylor Bell at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The poster boy for the overzealous parent is Steve Marinovich, who tried to groom his son Todd from early childhood to become an NFL quarterback.

He didn't do a bad job in that regard. Todd grew up to be a starting quarterback at USC, one of the nation's premier college football factories, and played with the Oakland Raiders in the NFL.

However, when last heard from, Todd had been arrested for smoking weed on a beach in California. He is 38 years old and is looking for his future.

Fears about future Marinovich types surface frequently in an era in which parents send their sons and daughters to fitness clubs and speed camps, enroll them on all-star traveling teams and hire personal trainers. Some spend as much as $3,000 or $4,000 annually or $12,000 over two years and pay $40 to $120 a session for personal trainers.

What is their purpose? What is their goal? Do they want their kids to be future Olympians, college All-Amereicans or professional athletes?

"Yes, some parents are overbearing," said Don Beebe, a former NFL player who owns House of Speed in Sugar Grove. "But I haven't been aware of anyone who resembles the Marinovich type.

"Instead, some parents are motivated to get college paid for, not to see their kis on television or in the NFL. They see it as an investment, like buying a stock or bond and hoping it will mature and be worth more in 15 years."

David Buchanan, president of ProSport Training and Rehab in Rolling Meadows, agrees.

"I don't see parents who think they have a kid who will play pro," Buchanan said. "If they are thinking it, they aren't saying it. They are taking one step at a time. They just want their kid to have a good high school experience, get faster, stronger, avoid injury, be aware of their body, help them play better and see what happens next. They talk college scholarship, not NBA or NFL or major league baseball."

But the costs can be staggering. For example, it could cost $3,000 to $4,000 to have a son or daughter compete on a traveling club for one season. Beebe said it costs $1,200 for an annual membership to House of Speed. And a fitness or personal trainer costs $40 to $120 an hour or $2,000 annually. Buchanan said some parents invest as much as $12,000 for two years.

"Kids start at age 12-13, before they become overly committed to one sport or another," Buchanan said. "Soccer has taken off. There are a lot more kids involved in soccer than 15 years ago. They tend to be one-sport athletes as opposed to football players. It is rare to find one-sport football players today.

"But the pressure of trying to play at the next level is detrimental. When kids look toward a goal that is beyond them, it is difficult to develop and succeed at the rate that they need to develop. For example, some kids get hung up with the fact that they run 40 yards in five seconds in eighth grade while Randy Moss runs 4.5. They don't understand it takes years to develop."

Posted by Taylor Bell at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can't resist.

Follow the bouncing ball and see how Les Miles and LSU connect with the late Bo Schembechler and Michigan, then to Illiniboard.com and Peoriaman, Obelixo, Chieftan13 and Illini82.

This is going to be fun.

Despite all of his success at LSU, coach Les Miles is feeling the heat from members of the Louisiana media because he said at a recent press conference that every media outlet that covers LSU football should only report positive stories on their "home team" and only disseminate information that he chooses to share.

It reminded me of the last time I encountered Miles. He was on Schembechler's staff at Michigan. At the Sun-Times All-Area dinner, Bo told me the names of five Chicago area players that Michigan was recruiting and added that normally he only targeted one or two, that the Chicago area usually didn't produce any more players who could play at Michigan. When the story was printed, Schembechler and Miles, who recruited the city and suburbs, went ballistic.

Now the Illini Nation is pulling a Les Miles over reaction by some Chicago Public League basketball coaches over the hiring of Jerrance Howard as Illinois' new assistant coach.

There is a segment of coaches in the Public League who have serious questions about Howard. It's a legitimate story. Illini Nation may not agree with it. But a reporter who covers both sides of the street has to deal with it. And I'm sure Howard will, too.

Negative reporting, they say.

Mud throwing, they say.

Anonymous sources, they say. Why doesn't anyone have to stand up and say who they are when they make comments like this? they say.

Thank you very much, Illinialways, Hopeeternal, Illiniptown and FightingIllinifan and all you other nameless Illiniboard.com contributers.

I only wish those folks would learn some history (do any of them know who David Dodds Henry was and why he is so important to the history of Illinois sports?) and get their facts straight, instead of tossing spitballs across cyberspace. For the most part, their lack of historical knowledge and perspective about the Illinois sports programs is embarrassing. And amusing.

Yes, I'm an Illinois graduate. Class of 1962. LAS-English. I was sports editor of the Daily Illini as a junior and senior and covered Illinois sports (during the Dick Butkus era) for four years after graduation for the old Champaign-Urbana Courier.

And I'm as loyal as anyone else who bleeds Orange & Blue and hopes the football and basketball teams, in particular, will someday rank among the top 10 in the nation on a consistent basis. I was inducted into the the first class of the Illini Media Hall of Fame last year and I donate annually to the University of Illinois Foundation, LAS, the library, Illini Media Company and the Illinois Alumni Association. I have a paving stone (with my mother, class of 1939) on the east side of the Campbell Center.

But I'm not an unabashed cheerleader. I'm an objective journalist. You don't get inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame for being a cheerleader.

Did you expect to read any critical remarks in the News-Gazette or Decatur Herald & Review about the Jerrance Howard hiring, from people who author books with Illinois coaches?

Is it the job of Chicago Public League coaches--or coaches anywhere, for that matter--to send players to Illinois?

Illinois hater? Only a fool would make a remark like that. Anonymously, of course. I wrote long and hard in defense of Deon Thomas in his fight with the NCAA and gave a deposition to his lawyers on his behalf. But when confronted with evidence that Efrem Winters' grades were changed to allow him to qualify for a scholarship to Illinois, I printed the facts and was vilified by Illinois fans but was proven correct by a Chicago Board of Education investigation.

I'll stand by my record.

I only wish Illinois could stand by its record.

Taylor Bell

Posted by Taylor Bell at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

Illini Nation is overjoyed with Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber's decision to hire former Illini point guard Jerrance Howard as his new assistant coach, replacing Tracy Webster. Howard is loyal and popular, young and energetic, and has the endorsements of several former players and two well-known AAU coaches who are based in the Chicago area.

But can he recruit Chicago? Can he succeed where Illinois has failed in the past? Can a Peoria product who admits to having no recruiting experience accomplish what former Illini assistants Tony Yates and Jimmy Collins and former Illinois coach Bill Self did in a short period of time? Public League coaches are skeptical. In fact, they are outraged by Weber's choice.

"Who is Jerrance Howard? He has no credibility and no stripes in Chicago. He'll get no rhythm in Chicago, no love," one coach said. "The fact that he is black and played at Illinois cuts no mustard up here. It's all about disrespecting Chicago."

Another coach said Howard's hiring is a slap in the face to Chicago. "We have no clue who (Howard) is. Now (Weber) has two Peoria people (the other is former Peoria Manual coach Wayne McClain) on his staff and nobody from Chicago. It makes no sense," he said.

In selecting Howard, who backed up Frank Williams, Deron Williams and Dee Brown at Illinois and has served on Billy Gillespie's staffs at Texas A&M and Kentucky for the last three years, Public League coaches arge that Weber overlooked several candidates with Chicago roots.

Former Whitney Young star Dennis Gates, now an assistant at Northern I