This would be the defining moment for Westinghouse’s storied basketball program, and it had nothing to do with a last-second shot or game-saving steal.
In the midst of a frenzied Springfield Lanphier rally in the Class AA title game last month, with 11,000 fans screaming for the improbable, Westinghouse coach Chris Head stared hard at his players.
They were on the brink of going where no Westinghouse team had gone before–on the precipice of achieving what Mark Aguirre, Eddie Johnson, Hersey Hawkins and all the great Warriors of the past had failed to accomplish.
And it was slowly slipping away.
Even as Lanphier’s relentless Richard McBride buried his sixth three-point shot from some other ZIP code and helped the Lions wipe out a 19-point deficit, Darius Glover never lost his poise.
The 6-foot-4-inch senior met his coach’s penetrating gaze head-on, and pounded a fist into his chest.
“I was telling Chris: `Don’t worry, I got it,”‘ Glover said. “I wasn’t going to let my team lose.”
If anyone could have such confidence it would be Glover, who saved the best basketball of his life for the final three weeks of the season. He steadied his teammates with eight points, five rebounds and a game-saving block in the fourth quarter of Westinghouse’s 76-72 victory that produced its first state title.
In his final six games, Glover averaged 19.3 points and 10 rebounds. In the Public League championship game, he had 26 points and 12 rebounds in his battle with 6-6 All-Stater Elliott Poole of Farragut. In the state title game, Glover finished with 28 points and 10 rebounds.
Glover stood head and shoulders above his high school sports peers in being named the Tribune/WGN-Ch. 9 Athlete of the Month for March.
“It’s a great personal honor,” Glover said, “second only to winning the state championship. But I’m still a little mad because I wasn’t picked to play in the Wendy’s All-Star Game.”
Being snubbed by every all-state team until the Tribune made him a second-team All-State selection provided Glover with motivation throughout March.
“A lot of people underestimated me and my talent,” Glover said. “Only my coaches and my teammates knew what I could do. Jamaal Brown had carried us most of the year, so I knew it was time for me to step up and become a leader.
“What other teams found out is that I fear no one. I might only be 6-4, but I have a big heart.”
New Trier coach Rick Malnati described Glover as “a monster” after a semifinal loss to the Warriors.
“Did he play bigger than his 6 feet 4 inches?” Malnati asked. “He was about 8 feet against us. He played with a relentless attitude and closed down anything inside for us. He was somebody I had never heard of until the last several weeks of the season.
“The difference between Westinghouse this year and the Westinghouse that was second in 2000 was having a big, strong presence like Glover in the middle.”
That inside force transferred from Westinghouse to Julian for one semester during his freshman year, but came back to the West Side because of his close friendship with Warriors assistant coach Ormon O’Quinn.
“I was upset because there were all these rumors that Coach Q was leaving to coach at another school,” Glover said. “So I left too. When Q told me he was staying, I had to come back. Coach Q and his wife, Diane, they’re like my second parents, and I love them.”
During the Public League playoffs, Head had issued a challenge to his team to find a leader. He said the 2000 Warriors had seven team leaders.
Glover thrust that mantle upon himself, though Head still had a few doubts.
“The talent has always been there,” Head said. “I was waiting for him to mature and become a consistently dominant player. When he took over and began playing well game after game, I knew he had become our leader.”
Glover has a qualifying grade-point average of 2.5 but needs to improve his ACT score by a point to earn a Division I scholarship. Ball State, Southern Illinois and Temple have shown the most interest, while Glover still hopes Cincinnati and Connecticut will make offers.
“It seemed like Darius improved all of a sudden,” said Von Steuben coach Vince Carter, who watched Glover lead the Warriors to a city semifinal victory over his team. “He certainly pulled them through some close games down the stretch.
“In the end, he was the main reason why Westinghouse won a state championship.”
