Lee Turek, 21-year leader of the Elgin High School girls basketball team, never intended to be a girls basketball coach.
To Turek, the job was an opportunity to coach at his alma mater. He had no experience working with girls, though he was a boys middle-school coach for seven years.
“Certainly it wasn’t in my mind that I was going to coach girls,” Turek said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
Now, after building Elgin’s girls basketball program into a powerhouse, Turek is retiring as the winningest girls basketball coach in Fox Valley history.
Turek, 51, who announced his retirement last week, said he knew before the season started that this would be his last.
“I just felt it was the right time for me,” Turek said. “There’s no real one specific reason. It’s just time. There are a lot of things at this point in my life I would like to do.
“Twenty-one years is a long time. There have been a lot of great moments, a lot of great highlights.”
Turek leaves Elgin with a career record of 359-236. He guided his 1995-96 team to a second-place finish in the Class AA state tournament. He won seven Upstate Eight Conference titles, three sectional championships and six regional crowns.
Turek’s teams won 63 straight games at home between 1993 and 1996, a streak that ties for second on the girls state list.
“For Elgin, Lee has been the symbol of girls basketball,” said Streamwood High School coach George Rosner. “That will be real strange, not to see him out there. Whoever comes in has some big shoes to fill.”
Turek became one of the area’s biggest proponents of sex equity in high school sports and ceaselessly promoted his girls basketball program.
The Maroons’ program began to fade in recent years as participation and wins dropped. But Turek said his final season was one of the more gratifying years, as he led Elgin to a 22-9 record and a second-place finish in the conference.
“This was a special year,” Turek said. “We didn’t have a superstar, but we worked our tails off. … The last week since I made the announcement has been tough on me. I’m going to miss the super kids coming back next season.”
Turek said he told only a couple of friends about his retirement plans because he didn’t want the season to be about him.
“When you do something for so long, it’s always next year, next year,” Turek said. “It’s never the right time; that’s why I made the commitment early. I never got a chance to recharge my battery. I needed to get away for a short period of time–or a long period of time.”
Turek, who will remain at Elgin as the boys golf coach and a physical education teacher, said he has not closed the door on coaching basketball again.
Turek graduated from Elgin in 1969 and played basketball for legendary coach Bill Chesbrough. He said he began attending Elgin basketball games when he was 10 and stayed in the community ever since.
“The only time I’ve been away from Elgin High School was my four years at [University of] Illinois,” he said. “There have been some extremely, extremely positive memories over the years. The ride has been good.”
