Purnell wins Illinois state championship

Former Linn-Mar Coach Greg Purnell guided Wheaton St. Francis Academy to the Illinois Class 5A state football championship Saturday morning in Champaign. The Spartans beat defending champion Metamora, 49-35, in the championship game.

It was the Catholic prep school’s first state championship and came in Purnell’s second year as head coach. Purnell directed Linn-Mar to state titles in ‘85, ‘89 and ‘90 during a sucessful 19-year run at the Marion school.

Here is the Chicago Tribune’s story on the championship game, although it makes no mention of Purnell.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/highschool/chi-081129-class-5a-title-game,0,1960542.story

2009 Iowa Mr. Basketball

The 2008-09 boys’ basketball regular season begins Monday, and it looks like the season could produce one of the tightest votes in recent memory for Iowa Mr. Basketball. The award is voted on by sportswriters and editors from Iowa Newspaper Association member papers at the annual all-state meeting in March. Matt Gatens of City High (now at Iowa) was a runaway winner last year.

This year there are at least eight viable candidates, in the view of My Back to the Door. Remember the recipient must be a senior, which excludes standout juniors Harrison Barnes of Ames, Jordan Dykstra of Rock Valley and Chanse Creekmur of Marshalltown, all eligible in 2010.

Here are the top candidates, not in order, with size, current school and college commit, if applicable:

Eric May (6-4, 215), Dubuque Wahlert, Iowa; Brennan Cougill (6-8, 260), Sioux City Heelan, Iowa; Zach Bohannon (6-7, 205), Linn-Mar, Air Force Academy; Nate Hutcheson (6-7, 185), Linn-Mar, Western Michigan; Gabe Knutson (6-8, 215), Waukee, Lehigh; Reece Uhlenhopp (6-7, 235), Urbandale, Drake; Matt Morrison (6-1, 180), Solon, Northern Iowa; Trevor Wolsterdorff (6-5, 190), Hull Western Christian, uncommitted.

The preseason front-runners are May and Cougill. Voters seem to like kids who have committed to the Hawkeyes. It will be difficult to push for one of the Linn-Mar standouts over the other because it’s likely they will finish with comparable numbers on another successful team. Wolsterdorff will emerge as a favorite if Western Christian wins its third straight 2A state championship. The voters, mostly from weekly papers, tend to have a fondness for small-school players.

Let the discussion begin.

Ames’ Harrison Barnes

The most highly recruited high school basketball in the state of Iowa these days – and maybe ever – is 6-7 Ames junior Harrison Barnes. Barnes averaged 17 points, 7 rebounds, and roughly 1.5 assists, steals and blocks for the Little Cylcones as sophomore last season.

It’s just doesn’t seem likely Iowa State coach Greg McDermott will be able to keep this phenom in Ames for his college career. Here, according to www.iowapreps.com, in affiliation with www.rivals.com, is Barnes’ current offer list:

Iowa State
Indiana State
(Offered on 5/23/2007)
Iowa
(Offered on 6/26/2007)
TCU
(Offered on 5/29/2008)
Indiana
(Offered on 5/29/2008)
Maryland
(Offered on 5/31/2008)
USC
(Offered on 6/8/2008)
Kansas
(Offered on 6/15/2008)
Texas
(Offered on 6/16/2008)
Minnesota
(Offered on 6/16/2008)
Oklahoma
(Offered on 6/16/2008)
Illinois
(Offered on 6/23/2008)
DePaul
(Offered on 6/23/2008)
Tennessee
(Offered on 6/28/2008)
Florida
(Offered on 7/2/2008)
Kentucky
(Offered on 7/3/2008)
Duke
(Offered on 7/13/2008)
LSU
(Offered on 7/14/2008)
UCLA
(Offered on 7/17/2008)
Louisville
(Offered on 8/13/2008)
North Carolina
(Offered on 10/2/2008)

One word: Wow!

Happy Thanksgiving, Cubs fans

It’s a beautiful Thanksgiving Day in Cedar Rapids and the door’s propped open at Mahoney’s Irish Pub on the near northeast side. There’s a big spread of traditional Thanksgiving food – turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, scalloped corn, deer ribs (?), the whole works – layed out on the table-cloth covered pool table. The beer’s cold, the music is low key, the company’s great, the pitiful Detroit Lions are playing football on one TV sceen, there’s college basketball on another and the turmoil in India on yet another.

I plugged in the the laptop (Wi-Fi rules at Mahoney’s), and immediately went to MLB.com. I love baseball. The Hot Stove League hasn’t been real hot this offseason, but I stumbled across an article on the site that warmed my heart on this unusually warm Thanksgiving Day. It’s about Steve Goodman, the late singer-songwriter from Chicago who wrote “City of New Orleans”, a classic train song that Arlo Guthrie made famous, and numerous other folk songs recorded by the likes of Jimmy Buffett, John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker and countless others. My favorite Goodman piece is “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” which he  penned while dying of leukemia in the early 1980s. Here’s the story I found on MLB.com: 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081125&content_id=3693523&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

One last comment on INA all-state football

It’s behind me now, sort of like The Flood and the rotten bratwursts I ate on consecutive days at the UNI-Dome last weekend.

I’m talking about the INA all-state football meeting held Sunday in Des Moines. The day is National Guard checkpoints and indigestion all rolled into one.

It’s an imperfect process (as I’ve blogged about before) but I actually walked out of Sunday’s meeting feeling better than I have in recent years. The kids I wanted recognized in Class 4A (the group that I vote in) were mostly cited. There were some disappointments, to be sure, but there always are.

Kennedy Coach Tim Lewis, a real trouper when it comes to attending this meeting and trying to represent the Mississippi Valley Conference, and myself were the only representatives from the eastern side of the state. No other reporters from the Quad City Times, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald or the Iowa City Press Citizen (not to mention the Burlington, Clinton or Muscatine papers) were on hand. Kelly Beaton from the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier sat in for the first half of the meeting, then had to leave. Coach Lewis was the only MVC/MAC coach in attendance.

Coach Lewis and I were forced into a situation where we had to talk about deserving players from the MVC and MAC without having seen a lot of those kids play. There were a couple of other young writers from central Iowa papers in attendance – both of whom I met for the first time Sunday, and this was my 18th all-state meeting – and finally the venerable and honorable Steve Allspach from the Sioux City Journal lended a helping hand. Steve used to work at The Gazette, back when saddle shoes (his favorite attire), were all the rage.

I think the group did a pretty good job of getting the right kids recognized, but there was a definite CIML bias. That’s because the head coaches from WDM Valley, WDM Dowling and Waukee were also in the room. I can’t fault them for trying to get their kids recognized and, overall, I thought the proceedings were conducted fairly.

I just wish Coach Lewis (who does an outstanding job) and I were offered a little more help from other eastern Iowa coaches and sportswriters. It would make a trying Sunday a lot more enjoyable and equitable.

Now, on to basketball

I just put the INA all-state football story to bed and am finally turning my attention to boys’ basketball (a little late, as usual).

This should be another terrific year for basketball in the area, with dozens of outstanding teams and D-I players strutting their stuff. Linn-Mar has two such players, Air Force Academy-bound Zach Bohannon and Western Michigan commit Nate Hutcheson. As good as the Lions have been the last five years, they may be at their best this year.

Here are The Gazette’s preseason No. 1s, by class. (Complete top 10s will appear in Monday’s paper):

4A – Linn-Mar; 3A- Sioux City Heelan (yes, the Crusaders can play basketball, too); 2A – Solon (yes, the Spartans can play basketball, too); 1A – Rock Valley.

By the way, The Gazette’s preseason No. 1 football picks were 4A West Des Moines Valley (correct), 3A Sioux City Heelan (correct), 2A Solon (correct), 1A Aplington-Parkersburg (wrong), A Southern Cal (correct) and eight-man Stanton (wrong). Not bad for a guy sitting in his low-income apartment in The Hood in Cedar Rapids. Thank god for the Internet.

Spartans in a dominating rout

Solon totally blasted Central Lyon/George-Little Rock, 60-14, in Saturday’s Class 2A state championship game, one of the largest margins of victory in a championship game in the 37-year history of the state playoffs. The Spartans scored the game’s last 53 points after trailing 14-7 early.

What’s left to be said about a highly successful program former Solon star quarterback Kevin Miller inherited from Ed Hansen nine years ago? Miller was Hansen’s starting quarterback on the 1988 Solon state championship team, and it’s believed he’s the only man in state history to win a championship as both a player and a coach. Miller has two state titles now and will be heavily favored to win a third next season with almost everyone back.

Solon is 38-2 over the last three seasons with two state titles and one state runner-up to show for it. Can we go out on a limb here and say there’s something really special working extremely well down in that Johnson County town of Solon?

“These guys work exceptionally hard in the offseason,” the exceptionally classy Miller told me after the game. “They put themselves in a position to play at the highest level and compete in state championship games. That’s kind of our philosophy, to be honest with you. Everything you’re going to get in life, you’re going to earn it. In our program, all the success that’s going to come your way, you’re going to earn it.”

Miller’s name will be mentioned for any Class 4A job that might come up next season – two are open in Dubuque – and seasons beyond. It’s hard to picture the Solon grad leaving. Like Hansen before him – “It all comes down to blocking and tackling, Jeff, that’s all it is,” he used to tell me – Miller seems destined to retire at Solon. Call it a gut feeling. A bigger school (or college) will be missing out if that’s his ultimate life decision.

Miller is a special coach. The Spartans are special kids and athletes. And these are very, very special times in Solon.

Off to a good start in football finals

The first two championship games in Friday’s football playoffs were terrific. Lenox beat Armstrong-Ringsted, 34-32, in the eight-man final and Lake City Southern Cal edged North Tama, 22-21 in overtime in the Class A championship. The 4A championship was much more one-sided, with top-ranked West Des Moines Valley whipping Cedar Falls, 27-8.

I covered the Southern Cal-North Tama game. Two very good teams went at it with different offensive styles and suffocating defenses. Southern Cal won it on a two-point conversion using an unorthodox formation – commonly called the “swinging gate” – out of which QB Greg Meyer took the snap and raced straight ahead for the winning two points.

How close was this game? North Tama had 252 total yards, Southern Cal 240. The Mustangs ran 64 offensive plays, the Redhawks 63. North Tama averaged 4.0 yards per offensive play, Southern Cal 3.8. Fourteen first downs for Southern Cal, 13 for North Tama. With numbers like that, it had to go OT, didn’t it?

The Mustangs postgame celebration was one of pure joy.

“I couldn’t breath,” Meyer said. “I couldn’t see already, and all of a sudden people were just diving on me and I didn’t know where anybody was at. But it felt good, to be honest with you.”

The 2008 football season wraps up Saturday at the UNI-Dome with finals between West Lyon and Emmetsburg (1A), Solon and Central Lyon/G-LR (2A), and Decorah and Sioux City Heelan (3A). Those teams have combined records of 77-1. They deserve to be playing for state titles, don’t you think?

The Gazette will staff the 2A and 3A games and Jeff Johnson will live-blog from the 2A game. We’re at your service.

Former Metro players doing well at Evansville; others, too

Two former Metro all-state basketball players are off to good starts for the University of Evansville’s basketball team.

Senior Nate Garner from Cedar Rapids Washington is a starter for the 2-0 Aces and is averaging 7.5 points and 8.0 rebounds while shooting 62.5 percent from the floor with five steals and one block. Former Kennedy two-time first-team all-stater Kaylon Williams is coming off the bench and averaging 8.5 points and 3.0 assists. Garner had six points, eight rebounds and five steals in the Aces’ 75-51 win over Oakland City University Tuesday night. Williams, a freshman, added 12 points and four steals in the win.

Those two are not alone among former Metro all-staters making an early mark in D-I. Or, in the case of Wisconsin junior Jason Bohannon, a continued mark.

Bohannon, a former Iowa Mr. Basketball from Linn-Mar, is averaging 13.0 ppg in the Badgers’ first two games (both wins). He had 14 points and two assists – shooting 5 of 7 from the field – in their 88-58 win over SIU-Edwardsville Tuesday night. Another former Linn-Mar all-stater, Jordan Printy – who red-shirted last season – came off the bench for three points, a steal and a block in Indiana State’s 86-79 loss to Northern Illinois Tuesday.

They were great players in high school. They continue to be very good players in college.

All-state football

The Iowa Newspaper Association all-state football meeting is Sunday in Des Moines. Quite honestly, it’s a day I dread.

The process is long, tedious and, unfortunately, often political. Sportswriters from INA member papers separate into groups – one for each class – and vote on players nominated by coaches.

I have always sit in on the Class 4A committee because I mostly see 4A football teams until the playoffs. There is usually a concerted effort to get the most deserving players on one of the three teams and not just the kid from your circulation area. That’s not always the case in the smaller classes where the voters represent weekly papers who can offer very good local journalism but often feel the need to vote for their kids and their kids only. I know, I’ve been there. You have to return to that one high school town, and visit the barber, or the diner, or the bar and answer to people who want to know why Joe Fullback from their local school wasn’t named all-state.

But you also have to try to sell your kid, and there are always tough sells that shouldn’t be that tough. They often involve athletes who have been injured or experienced academic difficulties.

Keenan Davis of Cedar Rapids Washington was a first-team all-state selection last year as a junior and has accepted a scholarship offer from Iowa. He’s  one of the best wide receivers this state has produced since Adrian Arrington left Washington for Michigan five years ago. But Davis missed four full games and parts of three others this season with a leg injury and his numbers are about half of what they were a year ago. Still, the Warriors don’t make it to the semifinals of the playoffs without him.

He should be named first-team again, but I guarantee you there will be a lot of discussion. It’s the nature of the beast. Several deserving kids from all across the state will be left off all-state teams this year. It happens every year. It’s an imperfect process in an imperfect world. Just try to live with the outcome.