Some day early this week, the Illinois High School Association could deliver the state basketball championship to King High School when it declares 6-foot-8-inch Kevin Williams eligible to play.
Williams, a transfer student from New York City, is expected to step into the starting lineup of a team that already is 18-1. In fact, he could be the dominating player on a team already blessed with great talent.
Coaches in Chicago are likely to look upon this news with awe–but not surprise. It`s just the latest in a series of roster controversies that have drawn attention to King`s Jaguars for years.
Each season, coach Landon ”Sonny” Cox`s team is among the city`s best. And each season Cox seems to be in the eye of another hurricane. One year, it`s the use of ineligible players or accusations of grade-changing; in another, it`s finger-pointing about the recruiting of players, or charges of
”stealing” players from other high schools.
Things aren`t much different this season. The Jaguars are ranked among the top teams in Illinois, yet Cox has been accused of trying to recruit Crane guard Joe Daughrity, and more than one eyebrow was raised when it was announced during the summer that Williams would attend King.
”I never cheated. I`ve never done anything against the rules,” insists Cox, who over the years has coached Efrem Winters, Laurent Crawford, Tracy Dildy, Marcus Liberty and Levertis Robinson. ”I`m not just a recruiter, and I`m not a loser.”
Cox admits his off-court job as a counselor at King gives him an opportunity to bring in some of the city`s best basketball players as freshmen.
King offers a special ”Options for Knowledge” curriculum, with courses in radio-TV and business computers not generally offered elsewhere. Under this government-backed desegregation program, academically qualified freshmen living anywhere in Chicago can attend a high school with specialized courses not offered in their neighborhood high schools. The government even pays carfare.
As a counselor, Cox travels to nearby grade schools on the South Side and seeks out students interested in King`s academic program. Basketball players, of course, are not exempt from applying.
”I didn`t make the rules; the government did,” says Cox, who points out that Simeon coach Bob Hambric is also a counselor. ”Nobody gives me credit for knowing a basketball player, but I`m no dummy. I use the system.”
When it comes to bringing in players from other high schools, however, Cox says that`s a different story. He insists he doesn`t keep in touch with players at other high schools, as some coaches allege. In the past, such talented players as Crawford, Liberty and Reggie Woodward have transferred in. ”I have never made a phone call,” says Cox. ”I just don`t have enough time for something like that. But a lot of players keep calling me, asking if they could come to King High School. The kids have their own pipeline. It`s all word of mouth.
”There are days where I get four or five calls from kids who want to transfer.”
Dildy, a varsity guard for four years at King who`s now a freshman at San Diego State, recalls hearing players from other teams ask if they could come to King. ”They always thought they could get a college scholarship if they played at King,” Dildy says.
That may be true. Cox brags that all his regulars ”wind up in college someplace.” The list includes Illinois, Cincinnati, Miami of Ohio and Indiana State.
Of the 12 players on King`s roster this season, four transferred from other schools. Senior Jesse Bailes left Phillips before his sophomore year, junior Richard Smith left Kenwood last year, Liberty moved from Crane after his freshman year and Williams left New York ”because of gangs,” according to Cox. Williams is living with his cousin`s family in Chicago under a legal guardianship. His cousin is Robinson, the team`s 6-7 senior forward.
The idea of basketball players` switching schools is nothing new in the Public League. Mark Aguirre transferred from Austin to Westinghouse after his sophomore season when his coach, Gary Peckler, was relieved of his job. Nelison ”Nick” Anderson and Deon Butler — two players starting for this season`s undefeated Simeon team — transferred from Prosser and Mendel, respectively.
Still, when other coaches talk about the evils of recruiting, King`s name often comes up first.
King High School, at 45th Street and Drexel Boulevard on the South Side, is set among a neighborhood of older homes, ramshackle tenements and vacant lots. Cox, an accomplished jazz musician, became the King basketball coach in 1981, the school`s third coach in four years. He had been the sophomore coach at Robeson and to this day considers a triumph over the Phillips sophs (”the first time they had been beaten at home in years”) as his finest coaching effort.
Cox`s first team at King was led by Winters, a budding superstar, and Woodward, a long-range gunner. The trouble was, Woodward started his high school career playing for Cox at Robeson, then transferred to a parochial school, Hales Franciscan, before coming to King.
During that first season, the IHSA received a complaint about Woodward, questioning his eligibility. At issue was the IHSA residency rule that requires an athlete to sit out a year if he transfers from a public school to a private school or vice versa–unless his family moves from outside the district into the new district.
To be eligible at Hales, Woodward`s parents had to move out of Chicago. Woodward played for nearly two years at Hales, listing a suburban Bellwood residence. When he transferred to King, King school officials insisted that the Bellwood address was a ruse, that he had lived in Chicago all the time.
Public League officials said Woodward was eligible by their standards, but the IHSA ruled Woodward ineligible and told King officials they would have to forfeit all games in which Woodward played.
Joseph Lee, then King`s principal, ignored the ruling and ordered Cox to keep playing Woodward. At the time, Lee said he did so because he was an
”officer of the Board of Education, not the IHSA.”
”He (Lee) felt Reggie was eligible, and he was my boss,” says Cox. ”I told him, `I won`t play him,` but he was my boss and I did what I was told.” The Woodward case became a flashpoint for the community. Rev. Jesse Jackson publicly acknowledged his support of the school and of Woodward.
But the IHSA won out. King, 24-1 during the regular season, was forced to forfeit 18 games in order to be permitted to play in the Public League playoffs — with Woodward on the roster. That meant the Jaguars had to play three games the opening week of the Public League playoffs, and they lost to Chicago Vocational 63-61 in the third game.
That same year, there were charges that Winters` grades were changed early in his high school career. His grade book allegedly was stolen from school files and its contents later publicized. After an investigation by the Board of Education, Winters was forced to attend a summer school art course before receiving his diploma.
No one accused Cox of changing grades. He was just there when the grades hit the fan.
”If I had seen he was in difficulty, I would have done something about it,” says Cox. ”All I know is that Efrem is going to get his degree at Illinois. (According to University of Illinois officials, Winters is on pace to receive his degree in political science after summer school this year.)
That doesn`t sound like a kid who couldn`t get grades in high school, does it?”
From then on, it was one thing after another for Cox.
When Crawford, a 6-10 center, transferred from Simeon two seasons ago, Simeon coach Hambric was angry. According to Cox, Crawford, then a senior, transferred because he was dissatisfied with the program at Simeon. That season, King was 21-8.
Last season, Liberty, then a 6-6 sophomore, entered King after attending Crane his freshman year and helped the Jaguars post a 23-3 record. Cox says Liberty was only following the lead of his older brother, Darryl, who first enrolled at King, couldn`t get along with Cox and then transferred to Crane and took Marcus with him. Darryl then switched back to King, and Marcus followed.
”They knew they made a mistake, and Darryl told his brother he wanted to come back to King,” says Cox.
There also were persistent rumors that Jerry Jones, a 6-6 standout who was graduated last year from Hillcrest High School in south suburban Country Club Hills, would transfer to King. In fact, before his senior season, Jones played on a summer league team with many of the King players, reinforcing the rumors.
This season`s controversies have centered on Williams and Crane`s Daughrity.
The IHSA investigated Williams` transfer from New York and held up his eligibility until it was proved that he was Robinson`s cousin and that there were ”compelling” personal reasons for the transfer. The IHSA was awaiting
”one last letter from the school” before declaring Williams eligible.
”That letter is on the way,” says Cox, who hopes Williams will be eligible to play in Wednesday`s home game against Lindblom.
Daughrity created a bigger stir when he was enrolled at King one day by his parents and then transferred back to Crane the next. Daughrity apparently decided he`d rather stay at the old high school.
Crane coach G.K. Smith insists Cox wooed Daughrity through his parents.
”Joe made the first contact,” Cox answers.
Daughrity`s one-day transfer to King prompted Crane principal Robert Collins to issue a complaint to Public League athletic director Bill Harden.
Collins said he complained about Daughrity`s transfer but not about Liberty`s because of a difference in their residences. ”Liberty lived south. If you spit out the door at Crane, you`d probably hit Daughrity`s house.”
Oddly, Crane was involved in a controversy over players some years ago when first Cory Blackwell of Evanston High and then Robert Thomas of Loyola Academy moved from the north suburbs to the city to be eligible to play for the Cougars.
Cox understands he rubs people the wrong way sometimes. ”Everyone wants me to stumble,” he says. ”That doesn`t bother me, but it might bother some of the kids on the team. I know what people say about me, but they don`t know what they are saying.”
Cox also has his share of defenders, including Lynn St. James, the first- year principal at King. ”I`ve found Coach Cox to have the best interests of all the students,” she says. ”He is a counselor who cares for every student in the school.”
