Sooner or later, Waukegan is going to have a new varsity boys basketball coach.
It was the last week of May when Mike Wasielewski resigned after two years at the helm to accept a teaching job at Stevenson.
It’s a month later, and Waukegan neared the end of its summer season by playing games against Zion-Benton and Guerin in the summer league Thursday night at the College of Lake County in Grayslake without a new coach in place.
KT John Reeves, who has been a fixture in the Waukegan basketball program for years, helping out whenever and wherever needed while remaining in the background, was at CLC to guide the team in Thursday’s games.
Reeves and former Waukegan assistant coach Mike Springs helped the players through the important month of June, along with other volunteers.
Reeves sympathized after a loss to Zion-Benton about the situation facing a player such as senior Cameron Miller.
“Some of these guys, like Cameron, this will be his third coach,” Reeves said. “You learn something, and then you come back the next year and it’s completely different.”
When Miller was a freshman, he was coached in the system run by Ron Ashlaw. Ashlaw left Waukegan to become head coach at Bloom, where he lasted just two years.
At Waukegan for those two years was Wasielewski, who came to Lake County from Evergreen Park and then departed for Stevenson after back-to-back six-win seasons.
“They’ve handled it well,” Reeves said of the players having no coach. “Camp went really well. We had 25-30 at the varsity camp. Not having a coach hasn’t discouraged them even a little bit.”
Maybe a little.
“It’s tough to go through the summer without knowing who your coach is going to be,” junior guard Carson Newsome said.
The best player in the program added that, “We have a lot of talent and everybody seems to like each other. When we play team ball, we look pretty good. Then, there are times we play too much one-on-one.”
Ironically, Newsome was a freshman with varsity talent when Waukegan was in the exact same no-coach spot it’s in now.
After Ashlaw left for Bloom, the School District 60 Board of Education didn’t hire Wasielewski until August, meaning the important month of June came and went without a head coach in place.
Having been there and done that, Newsome was in a unique position to offer advice to a highly regarded group of freshmen Bulldogs.
“Just play hard, and listen to the guys who are ahead of you who’ve been playing varsity ball,” Newsome said when asked to share advice.”It’s clear they can get frustrated with the strength and speed of the varsity game.”
Reeves indicated the freshman group has been progressing, and offered that highly touted ninth-grader Bryant Brown caught the attention of many while playing the Stevenson summer league.
“Guys who did not know us were asking if we had a transfer,” Reeves said. “I’d answer, ‘No. That’s one of our freshmen.'”
Bryan Bonato is a freelance writer for the News-Sun.
