Rich South protests Head's move to Crane
Crandall Head came to Rich South in 2006 prepared to carry on his family's basketball legacy. His brother, Luther, flush with money from his Houston Rockets contract, had moved his family from Chicago's West Side and onto a Matteson block where homes now list close to $500,000.
A crowd-pleasing dunker, Crandall would earn all-area status as a sophomore at Rich South, averaging 16.4 points and 9.4 rebounds per game over the season in which he announced his intent to enroll at Illinois. But an announcement during his freshman year raised eyebrows.
(Scott Powers/ For the STNG)
In a Dec. 25, 2006, interview, Head's stepfather Bo Delaney addressed the possibility of Crandall and his older brother Jeremy transferring schools.
"When Jeremy gets his driver's license, they're free. Once they start driving, they can go where they want," Delaney said.
Eventually, Rich South athletic director Mark Hopman said, that led to a "raiding party" of Public League coaches at Rich South games.
Now Head is at Crane in Chicago and Rich South is protesting the move.
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In the athletic offices at Rich South, they may always view basketball phenom Crandall Head's departure after his sophomore year as The Great Crane Robbery.
While it appears there was lawlessness all around them, however, Head and the staff at Crane, where Head and his brother Jeremy went to play, are unlikely to suffer repercussions from a looming Illinois High School Association investigation into the transfer.
"I used to coach ... I know the IHSA rules," Delaney, told the SouthtownStar last week.
Perhaps not well enough, though, to avoid a raft of improper visits by Chicago Public League coaches to the family's Ogden Avenue home.
"When the season ended, we had maybe eight to nine coaches visit our home on Ogden," Delaney said.
Those visits were, IHSA executive director Marty Hickman said, "absolutely against our rules." Of course, Delaney was quick to point out that Crane coach Tim Anderson, a long-time friend of Crandall's older brother and NBA player Luther Head, wasn't among the visitors.
"That's the honest-to-God truth," Anderson said. "I didn't have any contact with Crandall. I haven't seen Crandall since he was in eighth grade." Unless evidence to the contrary is produced, Crandall Head, already verbally committed to the University of Illinois, will almost certainly suit up for Crane this season.
"I don't think we're going to hold Crane accountable for what somebody at another high school does," Hickman said.
Nor, Hickman said, would Head be penalized for engaging in illegal contacts with a coach as long as he ended up at another school.
"But, again, that's why we'll look into it," Hickman said. "That's why there'll be an investigation. Probably the sooner that gets started, the better."
Rich South takes issue
First, Crane must respond to Rich South's refusal to agree with the transfers of Head and his older brother Jeremy on the standard Principals' Concurrence Regarding Transfer form issued in such cases. Crane athletic director Bennie Horton insisted Rich South had concurred and said he'd passed the form along to CPS' sports administration office.
"I'm through with Rich South," he said. "I don't have to talk to them about anything." Rich South's Hopman disagreed, saying, "Rich South High School completed the principals' concurrence form as prescribed by the IHSA and did not concur with the transfers." CPS director of sports administration Calvin Davis, in an e-mail Friday, said, "My office received the request for eligibility ruling packet from Crane ... yesterday. I have not had the opportunity to review it as of yet.
"A ruling will probably be made on Monday if the packet is complete." Hickman said Davis would "undoubtedly" declare the Heads ineligible based on South's non-concurrence.
Regardless of how the paperwork shuffles out, Hopman, a 14-year administrator at Rich South, had to concede, "I've protested many of these moves, but the IHSA always signs off on them." So why bother?
"It's become clear to me at this point that boys basketball, specifically, has become pretty much of an open marketplace in Chicago and the suburbs," he said.
'I would stay at Rich South'
In a 2006 Sun-Times interview, Delaney spoke of being happy to leave the West Side for a home that Luther purchased in a town the family picked.
"We felt at home down here in Matteson right away," he said.
In 2008, from the family's portion of a multi-unit building in Chicago on West Ogden Avenue, he painted a different picture.
"It was something we forced the kids to do because we wanted to look out for Luther's home in Matteson," he said. "But he found somebody else who's going to house-sit for him, then we could move back to our old home." Even so, Delaney said he wanted Crandall to stay at Rich South.
"I told Crandall, 'It would be best for you to stay at Rich South. You started as a freshman, they treated you good,'" he said. "If it was me, I would stay at Rich South." Head is not the first to leave. After three years at Rich South, Tai Streets transferred to Thornton and played on juggernaut Wildcats football and basketball teams before leaving for the University of Michigan in 1995 en route to an NFL career. His younger sister, Jade, was a Rich South graduate.
In 2004, Jeremy Winters left Rich South for Rich Central. The IHSA investigated that one, sending former assistant director Anthony Holman to the school.
"He ... took down all the facts, he knew the younger sibling was still going to school here, he knew the parents didn't move, and yet [Winters] was approved for competition," Hopman said.
Repeated attempts to reach Winters through the sports information office at the University of Illinois at Springfield, where he is a member of the basketball team, were unsuccessful.
Hickman said he could not recall the specifics of the Winters case, but noted, "At the end of that situation, we must have concluded that there wasn't evidence." In most conflicts over transfers, Hickman said, that is the case.
To expedite transfers, it is not uncommon for parents to cede guardianship of their children to another adult, to use a relative's address as their own or simply rent an apartment in the appropriate district.
"By and large, I think when people make those decisions they're sending a horrendous message to young people," Hickman said. "But, if people move, there's not a whole lot we can do bout it. We don't have a rule that says, 'You can't transfer from one school to another because you don't like the coach.'"