Public League searching for success

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:22AM

David Whitaker knows as well as anyone that the road to the state wrestling

tournament in Champaign has its share of twists and turns.

Like most Public League wrestlers, the Simeon senior got a late start in a

sport that many suburban kids get into years before high school.

He qualified for state as a sophomore, only to draw an opening-round match

against eventual 160-pound state champ Kyle Czarnecki of Buffalo Grove.

Whitaker was pinned in that match and lost his first wrestleback bout.

His bid for a return trip to state ended when he missed weight by eight

ounces at the sectional last season, but now he's heading back to Assembly

Hall this weekend after gutting his way to a third-place finish at 215 in

last weekend's Leyden Sectional.

It wasn't easy, wrestling with stitches in a lip split open at the Public

League tournament last week and with two state-ranked opponents in his path.

But after losing 2-1 to Lyons' Joe Gonzalez in the semifinals, Whitaker beat

Evanston's Andre Laden 3-1 in overtime to clinch a trip to state. Then he

knocked off Morton's Giovany Chacon 9-3 to take third and maybe gain a

little more respect for city wrestlers.

"Yeah, I did it for the Public League," Whitaker, who was one of seven from

the city to qualify for state out of the Leyden Sectional. "It's definitely

a good thing to see the Public League represent for each other. People get

down on us, say we've got no technique, but we showed [otherwise]."

Whitaker's was just one of the success stories for the Public League in its

quest for relevance in Illinois prep wrestling. The days when a school like

Tilden would dominate the state are long gone and city wrestling went into a

long, slow decline after the Blue Devils' heyday in the '40s and '50s.

Since the IHSA went to a dual-team format to select a state champion, only

twice has a city school won a match at the state tournament (Lane in 1993

and 2002), and since the Public League's automatic state berths for

individuals and teams were taken away, no city team has qualified for the

state quarterfinals.

That could change this year, because Lane has another talented squad. A win

over Niles West at next Tuesday's York Sectional will send the Indians to

state and a victory over the Harlem/Dundee-Crown winner in the Class 3A

quarterfinals on Feb. 26 would give Lane its third state trophy in the

dual-team era.

That would be one more sign that the Public League has shaken its image as

the weak link of Illinois wrestling. More evidence of progress is the city's

representation at this weekend's individual state finals. Whitaker is one of

11 Public Leaguers to advance, four more than last season.

Lane leads the way with four qualifiers (Danny Carlson, Johnny McCarthy,

Matt Finnegan and Chase Wilson), even without defending 145-pound champ Max

Schneider, who's sidelined by a left shoulder injury suffered in December.

Mather (Nikko Liotta, a four-time state qualifier) and Austin (Nate Smith)

also are represented in Class 3A, while Bowen advanced Ronzel Darling and

DeQuence Goodman in 2A and Uplift twins Jameel and Jamal Carter qualified in

1A.

Lane coach Mark Miedona has seen the steady progression of Public League

wrestling since the millennium.

"The teams we had at the beginning of the decade weren't as strong as the

teams we have now," said Miedona, who believes the 2009 Lane squad that lost

the Public League title to Kelly would have easily won city a few years

earlier.

vHe credits a group of coaches for raising the expectations and the success

level: Kelly's Joe Joyce, Bowen's Ron Wilson, Uplift's Rick Alboyd and

Fenger's Chris McFarland, among others.

"I think the numbers [of state qualifiers] are starting to speak for

themselves," Miedona said. "Maybe in the beginning, qualifying a kid seemed

like a big deal. Now we have kids who have a shot at placing and earning a

medal."

The progress has come as the result of effort not just during the winter,

but the summer, too. More Public League teams are holding their own summer

camps and sending their wrestlers to college clinics.

But there's still work to do. Wrestling still has a hard time attracting the

best athletes and it doesn't help that the feeder programs are so few and

far between in Chicago.

"Wrestling could be better in the city if the Park District supported it

more," Miedona said. "There's only a few parks that have it."

But despite all the obstacles, Miedona and his counterparts keep plugging

away, sustained by the little victories.

"Finnegan's a good example," Miedona said. "We put him in his freshman year,

he was 112 or 119. He was literally the only guy we had at that weight. He

lost like his first eight matches; four were against state-ranked kids.

"I know he had thoughts of walking away. Now he's a two-time state

qualifier."

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.