A year ago, Latosha Donson was a cheerleader with nothing to cheer about.
Senn High School’s cheerleading program had folded for lack of a faculty sponsor. To Donson, who had cheered for the school’s football and basketball teams as a freshman and sophomore, sports without cheerleaders was like soda without bubbles.
“I really missed it,” she said. “They said we could be on the pompon squad, but that’s not my thing.”
Three days ago, Donson not only had a cheerleading squad again, but she was also its captain.
“I feel special,” she said, unable to stop smiling after leading the squad’s initial practice. “Cheerleading is wonderful. You really need it at games to keep the crowd going.”
And that, it seems, is the way things are going in Senn’s athletic program. The impossible has become possible; no has become yes. Even girls tennis and girls and boys cross-country, dead for a decade, have sprung to life again.
It isn’t always pretty. Randy Bay, the new cheerleading sponsor and girls tennis coach, knows as much about organized cheering as he does about organized labor, which is why he lets Donson coach the routines. And he had never coached a day of high school sports in his life until the start of tennis practice Tuesday.
But at Senn these days, providing opportunity is more important than providing glittering resumes. In the best of worlds, every team would have a fully qualified coach, but sports in the Chicago Public League-with the exception of basketball-have long since stopped being the best of anything.
That’s why to understand Senn is to understand the Public League, and why the Tribune is spending the 1994-95 school year there.
The biggest sports story of that year is likely to be the effort to add teams in boys and girls cross-country, girls tennis, girls gymnastics and girls soccer. It’s what Principal Christine Clayton had in mind when she made Percy Kerrens athletic director in February.
“There were some things I wanted to see happening that were not,” said Clayton, who started teaching at Senn in 1970 and was named principal in 1992. “For instance, I support all sports. All sports are important.
“Students want to see more activities. The more you have going, the more kids get involved, but it has to flow from the top.”
To start that flow, Clayton formed an extracurricular activities committee, chaired by Kerrens. One member was the 38-year-old Bay, starting his second year at Senn and third year in teaching after a career outside education.
“Mr. Kerrens said there were some things they needed sponsors for, including tennis and cheerleading,” Bay said. “My response was those are necessary things. If they need someone, I’ll do it. I really believe activities are an important part of kids’ high-school experience.”
Bay was a three-sport athlete in high school, but tennis wasn’t among them. His tennis experience is strictly recreational.
“I was always interested in coaching,” he said, “but I guess you could say I never thought I’d be coaching girls tennis. But if we have girls interested in putting in the time, then I ought to be out here helping them.”
They need all the help they can get. Of Bay’s nine players, seven are starting almost from scratch.
That’s not their only handicap. Like most Public League schools, Senn has no tennis courts, so its athletes must walk about 2 miles to Loyola Park or catch a bus there. When they stay at school, they’ll practice, without a net, in a small gym.
Like Bay, cross-country coach Ed Key is off to a late start (tennis and cross-country teams can begin practice Aug. 15), and like Bay, Key is not blessed with polished performers.
At his program’s organizational meeting Thursday, not one of the six boys or three girls in attendance raised a hand when Key asked who had cross-country experience. About half had no track experience, either.
That’s where the similarities end, though. Facilities aren’t a real problem in cross-country because you can run almost anywhere.
And in Key, Senn has one of the most accomplished cross-country coaches in the city. He coached boys track and boys and girls cross-country at Kenwood from 1978 until 1993, leading his track teams to two top-10 finishes in the Class AA state meet and developing two individual state champs.
Key also was on Senn’s extracurricular activities committee and eagerly filled the cross-country vacancy. At age 59, he has lost none of his passion for track and for helping young people develop.
“I didn’t coach last year, and I really missed it,” said Key, who was transferred out of Kenwood after the 1992-93 school year and landed at Senn last May. “I was like a fish out of water.”
Neither Key nor Bay is coaching for the money. Bay will make about $465 this fall, Key perhaps double that because he is coaching girls and boys teams.
Those laughably small amounts reflect the generally subpar pay Public League coaches receive, a big reason that a coaching shortage plagues many league schools.
The two men’s willingness to coach was a blessing for Kerrens, who is so committed to adding sports at Senn that he would, if necessary, have coached their teams in addition to his fall duties as athletic director, assistant varsity football coach, head of the physical education department and physical education teacher.
“I’m going to try to supply an opportunity for every student,” said Kerrens, a veteran Public League coach who started teaching at Senn in 1993 after having started to coach there two years earlier. “If kids want to participate in any type of team, if there’s any way they can have a team, I will do my best to do that. I believe kids should have a chance to participate in athletics because high school is a one-shot deal.”
Clayton has committed additional funds to make that happen. Last winter, she and Kerrens even started providing buses to transport teams to all off-campus contests. Before that, players reached most game sites on their own.
“There is no way a school can function without sports,” said Clayton, a regular at Senn games, often with a green-and-white pompon in hand. “They help students’ spirit, discipline, their whole view on life. If kids are involved in any activity, they are more likely to stay in school and be more productive. We really stress it.”
Jacinta Mcneil is glad they do. A year ago, the junior was watching tennis on TV and wondering why she couldn’t play it in high school.
“I would watch the tournaments and wish we had a team so I could play,” she said. “I thought it was great they started tennis.”
Walter Maza feels likewise about cross-country, though he has one complaint.
“I like running, so I feel good about this,” he said. “The disappointing thing is it’s my senior year and they’re starting all these teams. I wish they could have done it sooner.”
