Class Of 2026 Set For Hall Of Fame Induction

Four athletes, two coaches and a couple of state championship boys track teams are set for induction into the Evanston Athletic Hall of Fame this weekend.

A committee of administrators, coaches and community members chose Lance Jones (basketball), Natasha Foreman (track), Tiaira Scott (wrestling) and Sarah Thompson (swimming) along with veteran coaches Kevin Auger (swimming) and Don Michelin (track).

The 1970 and 1971 boys track teams will also be included in the Class of 2026.

The inductees will be recognized at Lazier Field Friday night during Evanston’s first home football game of the season versus Palatine. A luncheon will be held at the school in their honor on Saturday.

LANCE JONES, BASKETBALL

Lance Jones finished his basketball career as the No. 3 all-time scorer at Evanston with 1,306 points and no Wildkit player collected more victories in their varsity careers.

But his signature moment probably came on defense, sealing his legacy as one of the school’s best all-around players ever and leading to his Hall of Fame induction in the Class of 2026.

Jones delivered Evanston’s second straight trip to the Illinois High School Association Final Four in 2019 --- the only time ETHS has accomplished back-to-back Final Four appearances --- by rising to the occasion at both ends of the floor in a 57-45 overtime win against Stevenson as a senior at the super-sectional.

That moment came after Evanston fell behind by 10 points at halftime, then rallied to make it a one-possession game down the stretch.

With about a minute remaining in regulation play, Stevenson led by two points and had possession, hoping to earn bonus free throws that could cement the win. But Jones and running mate Ryan Bost had other ideas. They double-teamed Stevenson guard Matt Ambrose near the halfcourt line, and when Jones took an opportunity to tie him up, the ETHS guard slapped his palm onto the ball and forced a “held ball” possession back to the Kits.

Jones tied the game himself with a twisting shot in the lane, then netted 7 of his game high 18 points in the overtime period to punch a return ticket to the finals.

He went on to enjoy a stellar career at Southern Illinois University, leading the Missouri Valley Conference in steals twice and averaging 12.7 points for the Salukis in his career. He then went on to reach another Final Four playing fifth collegiate season at Purdue.

Jones himself won’t forget that Stevenson game.

“I remember gambling to get the ball against the coach’s son (Ambrose). Nowadays, that might have been called a foul,” he said. “But luckily I got us that possession and then made a shot. I’ve always felt that steals just come by instinct. That was definitely a defensive highlight for me. I’m a very competitive person --- even in pickle ball or video games --- and I felt if we didn’t make it back to State my senior year, that would have been a failure.”

At Evanston, Jones’ teams posted a win-loss record of 108-21 in four years, making him the winningest player in program history. ETHS head coach Mike Ellis had no doubt that Jones was a winner since he first put on a Wildkit uniform.

“I’m very grateful to Lance and all he has invested in our ETHS basketball program,” Ellis said. “He will go down as one of the all-time greats here.

“As a coach, I learned quickly to call less (structured) plays with him on the floor, because his talents were more productive than my plays! He was almost unstoppable at driving all the way to the basket, and I’m sure the other teams on our schedule saw Lance Jones in their nightmares when they had Evanston next up on the schedule.

“He could play all over the court, so he presented many matchup problems. He was a superior rebounder from the guard spot and he played defense at such a high level.”

Jones had a cup of coffee with the varsity as a freshman, then split playing time with Bost and Jaheim Holden before coming on strong in the second half of his sophomore season.

He was part of a postseason run that year that ended with a super-sectional loss to Whitney Young. Jones injured his tailbone in the sectional finals at Waukegan and didn’t play in the second half of the Young contest.

“I think that team my sophomore year was the best Evanston team all-around that I played for,” Jones said. “I think we lost because I was hurt that year. I’m the reason we didn’t win it all. That year was the year that instilled a winning mindset in me. We played a national schedule. I just wasn’t myself after I got hurt in that game. I thought that was our year, and to fall short like that was really disappointing.”

Jones didn’t disappoint anyone after that. He led the Wildkits to four straight Central Suburban League South division titles and as a senior served as captain of the highest scoring team in ETHS history.

Jones was selected all-conference as a junior and senior, made the all-tournament team at the Centralia Holiday Tournament, and was named All-State both years by the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association.

Jones averaged 15.7 points per game as a senior, including a high of 30 points against St. Joseph, and contributed 3.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.8 steals per contest while sparking the Kits to a runnerup finish at State with an overall record of 31-5.
“When I came into the (ETHS) program, I was a 13-year-old kid just trying to figure things out,” he recalled. “I just tried to be a sponge and tried to learn as much as I could from the older guys like Chris Hamil and Nojel Eastern. They took me under their wing and helped instill the winning habits I needed.

“I just wanted to leave the program better than when I got there. It’s a surreal feeling for me to go into the Hall of Fame.”

NATASHA FOREMAN, TRACK

She clipped the second-to-last hurdle in the final race of her high school career, but she wasn’t going to be denied a state championship at the 1998 Illinois High School Association girls state track and field finals.

Natasha Foreman was just a few steps away from glory --- and overcoming hurdles was nothing new for the Evanston senior.

Foreman finished off that sizzling run in the 300-meter hurdles by claiming her only state title, recording the second fastest time in state history. It was the climax of a brilliant high school career that saw her earn a total of 11 sectional gold medals and 12 state medals.

She didn’t stop there, capturing two national hurdles crowns while competing at Central Arizona Community College in the 400 hurdles and earned all-conference recognition in her final year at Wichita State in 2003.

Overcoming hurdles, however, was nothing new for the Jamaican-born Foreman by the time she got to Charleston for her final state finals. Her spot in the ETHS Athletic Hall of Fame is also shared by the members of the coaching and support staffs at the high school who helped her earn her success.

“She came from a rural part of Jamaica, so right there it was an adjustment for her to come here. And she wasn’t an athlete when she came here,” said Evanston head coach Fenny Gunter. “She wasn’t here when she was in grade school or junior high and she had a lot of adjusting to do. She didn’t speak very good English, either, so there was a language barrier. She had a lot to overcome like many of our kids who come here from the island.

“She had outstanding opportunities once she came here --- and she took advantage of them. She had a good support system and just kept maturing and maturing into one of the finest kids who’s ever come through here. Every day, she worked her way through different situations.

“Natasha really had a great senior year. In that last race, she was strong and determined to keep her balance when anyone else would have fallen. Thankfully, she wasn’t denied a title. She had really earned the right to have that kind of success. She exemplified what it means to be a hard worker.”

Foreman came a long way for a runner who showed up for her first day of practice and ETHS intending to run barefoot.

“I guess I didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” Foreman recalled. “I was so new to everything and when I started competing and practicing, and for the first month I didn’t know if I could do it. But the coaches kept telling me we see more in you than you see in yourself, and that helped me work my way through it.

“That first day I showed up without shoes because that’s how I felt most comfortable. I was used to running on grass at home and I thought I could do the same thing here. It was a little shocking at first when I put on spikes. It felt so different.”

Foreman started out as a sprinter and ran mostly relays her first two seasons, along with the 100 and 200-meter dashes. She transitioned to the hurdles as a junior and senior, placing 3^rd at the IHSA state finals in the 300 hurdles in 1997.

The ultimate team player, she took on a big load for the Kits at the 1998 state finals as captain and succeeded former teammate Tameeka MacFarlane as the hurdles champ. She placed 4^th in both the 100 and 200 and also ran with the first place 800-meter relay unit.

“People should appreciate what Natasha did for us,” Gunter told the Evanston Review newspaper. “Just like last year, she ran three tough races in 90 minutes. She really did the job for us.

“I think she was inspired by the fact that Tameeka was there to watch her. Natasha was up against a field in the 3000 that was way, way tougher than what Tameeka faced. She was just coming off the 4 x 200 and she was dead (tired). But she performed when she had to.”

“I just kept focusing on us getting points and getting on to the next race,” Foreman said regarding the physical challenges in front of her that day. “I really wasn’t that tired until I got to the back stretch in the hurdles. I was so nervous, I almost went down when I hit that hurdle. But I told myself c’mon, there’s just one more hurdle to go.”

Years later, Foreman said her postseason success was driven by a desire to keep Evanston’s girls atop the standings every time.

“Every time I just wanted to put my best out there,” she said. “I always felt I had something to prove, that I belonged with the best.”

TIAIRA SCOTT, WRESTLING

Tiaira Scott’s curiosity got the best of her when she heard the public address announcement urging individuals to try out for wrestling as a freshman at Evanston.

And after she stepped onto the mat for the first time, she was hooked. She emerged as a pioneer and a trailblazer whose success led to the formation of the first ETHS female wrestling team in the decade after she graduated in 2013 and her induction into the Evanston Hall of Fame in the Class of 2026.

Wrestling mostly against boys, she piled up 60 mat victories in her four years for the Wildkits, and also won the national championship at the USA Nationals after her senior year, pinning four opponents in a combined 5 minutes and 58 seconds.

She joined the fledgling program at Campbellsville University in Kentucky and captured two national championships at 191 pounds. Later, she represented Team USA at an international competition in Romania in “beach” wrestling on the sand.

Scott wasn’t the first female grappler to suit up at Evanston, which has long had a tradition of inclusion in the wrestling room. She is the winningest female wrestler to date, even though matches were hard to find when she first donned the Orange and Blue.

Her best moments came before the creation of an Illinois High School Association state tournament series for girls, but she is the only Wildkit girl to earn a top finish at the Central Suburban Leage tournament after placing 6^th as a senior in 2013 at 190 pounds.

Scott wrestled against a mix of girls and boys during her career --- mostly boys --- and demonstrated her tenacity and her skill by compiling a 27-8 won-loss record against the opposite sex.

It all started for her with that PA announcement.

“It’s amazing to be included in the Hall of Fame,” said Scott, who now coaches at a wrestling club in Louisville, Kentucky. “Wrestling is a tough sport and it was very challenging for me. I couldn’t imagine at the time how popular girls wrestling would get to be world wide.

“Don’t laugh, but at first I thought wrestling was going to be like WWE. But I was trying to lose weight --- I was also a borderline diabetic --- and I was trying to figure out a way to stay healthy. And wrestling’s all about self-discipline, so I thought I’d try it. I was just looking for something challenging, something physical like boxing, but Evanston didn’t offer anything like that at the time. Wrestling was something similar and I didn’t want to give up, didn’t want to be a quitter. I saw all the accolades on the wall (in the practice room) and I knew that I’d see the work I put into it would be what I’d get out of it.”

“It’s a male-dominated sport in general and it was tough for me at first. I always felt welcome, though, and when the boys saw that I was there and working hard every day there really weren’t any issues.”

The lack of female opponents meant that Scott had to compete against different weight class foes --- some heavyweights, some 220-pounders and some 190-pounders --- but she thrived and rose to the occasion.

But one of her first encounters with a male foe ended in embarrassment --- for the boy she beat.

“We only had a couple of girls on the team when I started at Evanston,” Scott said. “I remember it was one of my first matches as a freshman. Guys would get embarrassed losing to girls, I get that. But we had just started this match and I head-locked this guy (what would turn out to be a go-to move for Scott in her career). He got so mad he bit me, he broke the skin.

“When he saw what happened the guy’s Dad started yelling at him from the sidelines. I was upset that he bit me, but I felt so bad for him because his Dad was so embarrassed.”

Scott added three state titles in folkstyle wrestling, then seized the opportunity for a college education --- she’s now studying for her Master’s degree in criminal justice --- after being recruited by the small Christian school in Kentucky.

The head coach at Campbellsville was a retired veteran who clinched his recruiting pitch by flying Scott to campus in his own plane.

“Wrestling helped me bridge that gap, helped me get my education,” Scott said. “I was excited to get there because I knew I wouldn’t have to wrestle out of my weight class so much. That first year we only had 7 or 8 girls on the team. We had a lot to learn, and we grew up together.”

SARAH THOMPSON, SWIMMING

Sarah Thompson had a confession to make after winning three national championships in the 1,650-yard freestyle event swimming for Williams College.

“I never once woke up and said oh boy, I get to swim the mile today,” Thompson said.

But it was Thompson’s determination to go the distance that made her a star in the pool. Characterized as the best distance swimmer for the Wildkit girls by Hall of Fame coach Kevin Auger, Thompson kept progressing after leaving ETHS and secured her place in the Hall of Fame by winning the NCAA Division title three straight years in the mile (1,650 yards).

She also captured national crowns twice in the 500 freestyle and once in the 200 freestyle, and in 2015 sparked Williams College to a third place team finish at Nationals.

At ETHS, Thompson improved every year and had her best season as a senior, when she finished 2^nd in the 200 freestyle and 3^rd in the 500 freestyle at the Illinois High School Association state championship meet. She still holds the school record in both events.

Auger identified Thompson as a promising distance freestyler early in her career after she also competed as a youngster for his club team, the Wildkit Swim Organization. She emerged as one of the most versatile swimmers the program has ever seen, even with her focus on the 200 and 500 for most of her prep career.

“For distance swimmers, the training is a little more demanding, especially mentally,” Auger pointed out. “You have to be really mentally tough day to day to handle it.

“The thing that made Sarah great was that she also had the speed (51 seconds plus split in the 100 freestyle). You have to take it to a different level when you’re swimming distance in college, and you have to have that metronome in your yed in order to know how to keep pace.

“The times she put down in college were incredibly impressive. She progressed and progressed and progressed every year, and that’s rare.”

Thompson’s confidence built slowly through her years at ETHS. The climax came in the 2010 state finals after she placed 6^th in State in the 500 as a sophomore, and earned 4^th in the 200 (1:52.15) and 5^th in the 500 (5:05.87) as a junior.

At State in her last two races, Thompson was edged out at the finish of the 200 by a margin of 1:49.49 to 1:49.69 against meet favorite Rebecca Stoughton of Peoria Notre Dame, then added a 3^rd in the 500 free behind Stoughton (4:49.86) and Lake Forest’s Rachel Stoehr (4:53.40) with a sterling time of 4:55.66.

“Making it into the Hall of Fame is something that never crossed my radar as a possibility,” Thompson said. “I had the competitive drive and the desire, but I never really had the confidence when I was in high school. I always felt like I left something (more effort) in the pool whenever I got to the finals.”

“I think her confidence built up through those four years, but not until her senior year did Sarah really feel comfortable,” Auger added. “I remember a practice where we did 10 sets of 500s, all of them under 5 minutes, 10 seconds, and the last set she swam was a 5:04. That was pretty impressive.

“We had a meet that weekend and we talked about her breaking 5 minutes. She said oh no, I can’t do that! Of course she did it and I couldn’t believe she still doubted herself after that workout.

“Her senior year was definitely her best year. I felt she could go 1:49 and in the 200 --- and she almost did it. The 500 was loaded that year and the time she swam would have won the gold the two years before that. She was such a versatile swimmer and her attitude was just awesome. She made our whole team so much better. It was really a joy for me to coach her.”

Thompson continued to blossom and helped turn Williams College into a small school force to be reckoned with at the Division III level.

“There was more weight lifting, more time in the pool and a lot more responsibility,” Thompson noted. “But I really felt prepared for it after swimming at Evanston.

“I started out swimming the 200 my freshman year, but I didn’t peak at the right time and I didn’t really go much faster than my senior year in high school,” she said. “I swam more of the 500 and the mile after that and just continued to build.”

Thompson set an NCAA Division III record in the mile in 2015 with a time of 16 minutes, 21.44 seconds.

But her take years later? “The nice thing about swimming the mile is that you

don’t have to do it that often.”

KEVIN AUGER, COACH

Taking athletes to the next level is what coaching is ideally all about.

That’s a skill set that Kevin Auger has displayed through two decades of coaching both the boys and girls swimming and diving programs, plus the boys water polo team, during his tenure at Evanston.

Wildkit swimmers are consistently at their best under Auger’s guidance when it matters most --- at the end of the season --- and have been ever since he took over both programs in 1997. He joins the Evanston Athletic Hall of Fame after previously being chosen to the Illinois Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Midwest National High School Hall of Fame.

Auger led the ETHS boys teams to Illinois High School Association state championships in 2001 and 2005 and a total of eight top 10 finishes overall at State. On the girls side, ETHS has placed in the top 10 nine times, including a fourth place showing in 2009.

Auger also served as boys water polo coach and guided the Kits to both of their Elite Eight appearances in program history, claiming third place in 2005. Evanston had only one losing season during his era as he compiled a won-loss record of 383 victories, 192 losses and 6 times before he stepped down in 2024.

That’s what’s called making a splash. But while ETHS has enjoyed plenty of team success with Auger on deck, the veteran coach still takes the most satisfaction watching boys and girls improve and get to the next level.

The Canadian-born Auger first came to Evanston when he was hired to be club coach for the Wildkit Swim Organization, a position he still holds, after excelling as a swimmer at Indiana University and 13 years as a club coach in Canada.

And he’s one of the few high school coaches in the state of Illinois who leads both girls and boys programs at the same time.

“I didn’t start out to be a high school coach. But I knew I wanted to coach --- that was my goal --- because I get just as much enjoyment helping kids get to the next level and getting them to believe in themselves as I did winning those state championships,” Auger said. “You have to get them to understand that they’re capable of being good --- or great --- or incredible. They have it in them and I try to get them to be the best they can possibly be.

“Coaching is coaching. If you want to be a successful coach, you have to ask three things ---- do you care more about the kids than winning? Can you inspire kids? And are you willing to put in the work to make that happen?”

Auger has checked all of those boxes during his career. His 2001 boys team won a mythical national championship, and Auger has coached two Wildkit individuals (Doug Lennox in the 100-yard butterfly in 2005) and Terry Silkaitis (200 freestyle in 2001) and the Kits have also claimed four state relay titles.

Julia Quinn (100 breaststroke in 2002), Jane Munro (2008) and Lucy Hogan (diving in 2018), and the ETHS 200 medley relay teams in 2001 and 2007 also won state crowns on the girls side.

Auger’s career path was altered when he qualified for the Canadian National team in both the 200-meter butterfly and 800 freestyle relay back in 1980. He had registered the sixth fastest time in the world in the butterfly. But Canada joined a United States-led boycott of the Olympic Games that year to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

He kept swimming and won two Big Ten conference titles before an arm injury prevented him from qualifying for the 1984 Olympics.

Auger will be inducted into the ETHS Hall of Fame at the same time as one of his former swimmers, Sarah Thompson.

“Kevin knows his stuff, and I definitely credit him for turning me into a distance swimmer. He saw something in me,” said Thompson, a three-time national champion at Williams College who started out with Auger in the WSO age-group program.

“His training program was a perfect fit for me. He doesn’t overload you with tons and tons of yardage like a lot of coaches do. You’re not in the pool six hours a day. And he helped me figure out what swimming in college would look like.

“He loves and knows more about swimming than anyone else I know. He gives you that ‘I can learn this, I can do it’ mentality. He has to juggle so much but he’s still able to tailor workouts for everyone. That was very impressive to me.”

DON MICHELIN, COACH

Don Michelin served as an educator in District 65 for three decades and impacted more students than perhaps anyone in Evanston history as a teacher and principal. That’s one reason there’s already a street named after him in the town he grew up in.

Taking pride in where you come from --- and pushing student-athletes to new heights --- put the cherry on top of the ice cream dessert last spring, however, when the Evanston boys track team broke through and ended a 47 year-old title drought by capturing the Illinois High School Association state championship.

No one who knows him had trouble believing his quote after finally leading the Wildkits to the top. And that championship accomplishment sealed his entry into the ETHS Athletic Hall of Fame in the Class of 2026.

“There are three things that are important to me --- my God/creator, my wife, and Evanston boys track and field,” Michelin said. “And it’s not always in that order.

“I’m so grateful to get into the Hall of Fame. It says my body of work has been appreciated by the powers that be. I just see myself as part of a distinguished group (of ETHS track coaches). First there was Bob Trevarthen, then Ron Helberg, then Willie May, and now Don Michelin. I like to think I kept the program up like they did. They all had great coaching staffs, too, because you’ve got to have great people with you --- or it doesn’t work.”

Michelin’s pride in the Orange and Blue has kept him in the coaching ranks far beyond his retirement as an educator. At age 75, he still enjoys his interactions with teenage athletes --- although the long bus rides are getting a little harder to take --- and hasn’t found the right individual to turn the program over to and fully retire.

“I still enjoy helping these kids be the best version of themselves,” he said. “I like being part of a process that helps put young people in the best situations possible. I’m always looking at ‘what else can we do to succeed’ and I think the kids like that. I really enjoy watching them take the information you give them, then dig deeper for more ways to get better, and applying those lessons.

“Am I a no nonsense coach? Just give me what I expect you to do.”

“Mich really bleeds Orange and Blue,” said assistant coach George Woolridge, who joined the staff in 1985. “And just like Willie May, he believes in performance. What happened this year couldn’t have happened to a better person. I think track transcends a lot of other sports and our guys performed so well this year. There aren’t many other sports where the guys who jump, who run and throw have to come together as individuals to get that team score.

“You have to have enough guys who are willing to be accountable to come up with that (championship) team score. Mich is the one who held us all accountable.”

With Michelin providing the leadership, the focus for the Wildkits has been on individuals peaking at the end of the season, although ETHS did tie for 2^nd place in the Class AA team standings in 2015. He also guided the cross country squad to a 4^th place finish at State in 1999.

Evanston’s list of individual state champs includes Jaden Jean-Paul (2026 in the high jump), Kalil Johnson (2021 in the 300-meter and 100-meter hurdles), Matt Cless (2022 in the high jump), Jonathan Wilburn (2018 in the triple jump) and Tremaine Gordon (2010) in the 200). The Kits have also captured five relay championships in his tenure.

“Back in 2015 we were set up (for the state finals) the same way as this year, only Malachi Adams and Reggie Murphy just missed out on making it to the finals (in the sprints),” recalled the veteran coach. “We had another good hurdler that year in Roland Amarteifo, too. It was disappointing that we came up short, but we were really happy to get that second place trophy.

“Regrets always come with a job like this, I guess. We would have won State back in 1991 (when he coached the team’s sprinters as May’s assistant) if Howard Jones Junior hadn’t gotten hurt (ankle injury playing basketball the week before the state finals). I should have put Robert Simmons on that 4 x 200 relay even though he was just a freshman. We’d have qualified for the finals and we would have beaten (eventual champ) East St. Louis.”

The successes far out-weigh the regrets, however, in Michelin’s long career. Reaching the pinnacle for the program with the first state title since 1979 leaves the veteran mentor eager for more.

“I’m more relaxed now. But I’m not satisfied,” he said. “We’ve got some wonderful student-athletes here at Evanston and some extremely gifted coaches who are willing to share those gifts. They all knew the power they had inside of them, and they made it happen.”

So did their coach.

1970, 1971 TRACK TEAMS

Howard Jones stole the track and field spotlight for the Evanston boys squad from the moment he stepped onto the track as a 16 year-old freshman.

Decades later, he’s still regarded as one of the best sprinters ever to compete in Illinois, a legendary record-setter dating back to the days track races were measured in yards, not meters.

But while Evanston couldn’t have put together an impressive stretch of three straight Illinois High School Association state championships from 1970 to1972, without Jones, it’s also true that he had a little help from his friends.

His distance friends, that is. The 1970 and 1971 squads got scoring boosts from an unexpected source --- the milers and 2-milers --- to score close victories in the hunt for the first place trophy at State and join the 1972 in the Class of 2026 selected by the Hall of Fame committee.

In 1970, Steve Van Swearingen’s third place finish in the 2-mile run combined with record-setting victories by Jones in the 100 dash (9.5 seconds) and 220 dash (21.5) and the championship 880 relay unit of Ben Bridges, Gary Starks, Warren Allston and Jones to help Evanston outscore Alton 21-17 in the team chase.

Jones was at his best again on the final weekend of 1971, winning both individual dashes again. Dave Ingraham, Larry Bates, Don Franklin and Ron Fick contributed top 5 finishes in the mile and 2-mile in 1971 as ETHS held off East Moline by a 24-21 margin in the middle of the team 3-peat.

While the Wildkits haven’t enjoyed much postseason success in distance races in recent seasons, that state title run came at a time when Evanston challenged the state’s elite in cross country in the fall. The Kits scored a 3^rd place team finish at the 1970 IHSA cross country finals, after Ken Olson joined the staff as an assistant coach and implemented training and racing strategies that tended to be unorthodox. Olson later coached at the University of Oklahoma after his short stint at ETHS.

“I didn’t run cross country my freshman year, but I did run track,” recalled Fick. “I started out running the 440 and then worked my way up to the 880. But when someone in high tops (tennis shoes) beat me in the 440, I decided to move up to the distances because I wanted to win.

“We had good distance runners when I was there and Coach Olson was very motivating. When I was a junior and senior, anybody could beat anybody in those races. It was a pretty balanced team overall.”

Ingraham noted that it was the cross country team and Olson who laid the foundation for the track accomplishments after the Kits faltered in the 1969 cross country sectional and didn’t advance to the IHSA finals.

“We should have easily won that meet, but we missed out on qualifying by two points. We were not as sharp as we might’ve been,” Ingraham explained. “We kept thinking someone else would be there at the end for us, and we just didn’t finish up in the sports we were used to finishing in. We didn’t even have anyone in the top 10 in that race.

“We had such good depth in the program and we were so incredibly dominant that sometimes in invitationals Olson would have us not even finish some races so the JV guys could have a turn at winning. His thinking was that you should push yourself out at intervals and then the JV guys finish it off. But I still think we might’ve been tired at the sectional because of that.”

1970

The state of Illinois hadn’t seen the combination of speed and power that Jones used to toy with the competition in the short races. He was an unstoppable force, even as a freshman, as the Wildkits won the prestigious Bloom Invitational to climax the indoor track season, then won the Proviso East Relays, the Waukegan Relays and the Maine East Relays in dominating fashion outdoors.

At the IHSA district meet, the Wildkits tore up their own track and outscored runner-up New Trier East 63.5 to 31 for the team title. Jones set meet records in the 100 (9.8) and 220 (21.9), but ETHS was upset by Oak Park at the Suburban League championship meet and didn’t exactly advance to the state meet in Champaign with much momentum.

They righted the ship and prevailed in the team standings as the points race was evenly split between a half dozen teams all chasing that big trophy.

Van Swearingen’s third place performance provided a big boost. He qualified to compete in the slow heat of the 2-mile, then came on strong to post a time of 9 minutes, 21.3 seconds, a personal best.

He was last in the field in the 8-lap race before turning on the jets.

“I was just enjoying myself for the first three quarters of a mile,” Van Swearingen told the Evanston Review. “I haven’t been running smart races this year, because I haven’t been able to relax. I wanted to run the first quarter (lap) in 68 seconds. I ran the first quarter in the Suburban League in 63 seconds and that was much too fast. I’m just glad I came through today.”

Evanston ruled the 880 relay in 1:27.50 as leadoff runner Bridges was clocked in 21.5 for his split and Jones held off a late surge from East St. Louis on the anchor leg.

1971

Jones repeated as dash champion in both the 100 and 220, and the Kits also counted a 2^nd place finish in the 880 relay, a 6^th in the mile relay, and a 5^th from long jumper Wilbert Covin. But it was the distance crew that really delivered for Evanston, as Ingraham and Bates placed 4-5 in the mile run and Franklin and Fick went 4-5 in the 2-mile.

Franklin had transferred from ETHS to Waukegan after placing second in the 2-mile run the previous year in the Suburban League. He won the Suburban League (9:18.7) and district (9:24.6) meets in record times, and was at his best in Champaign, placing 4^th in 9:02.1. Fick was just behind him in 9:06.7.

“I remember that it was a windy day, so I tried to use the other runners (in the top group) to block the wind and then pass when it was behind me,” Fick said. “The top two guys (Dave Merrick of Lincoln-Way and Craig Virgin of Lebanon) were duking it out up front and the rest of us were just trying to keep up.”

Merrick, who also won the state title in the mile that year, set a state record of 8:48.9 while defeating Virgin.

“You really need sprinters to win in track and field, just because of the number of (sprint) events there are. But I’m really proud of what the distance guys did, too,” Fick added.

In the mile, Ingraham was chasing a goal of 4:10 after winning the district crown without much of a challenge in 4:23.4. He settled for a time of 4:13.2 in pursuit of both Merrick and Mike Durkin of Holy Cross, the top two finishers.

Decades later, Ingraham was just as pleased to recall that teammate Bates scored a 5^th place finish with a PR of his own.

“I don’t really remember the first couple of laps of that race,” he said. “On the third lap I was sorta stuck at the rail (inside) and there was a cluster of 5 or 6 guys. By the start of the last lap Merrick and Durkin had really stretched it out and I remember thinking I can’t out-kick them, but if I can get out of this box, maybe I can get third.

“When they took off I was still stuck on the rail and there were four of us in a pack after that. When I crossed the finish line boom! Right behind me was Larry Bates. I was just so excited for him.”

Evanston’s title, however, wasn’t assured until Covin’s points were added in the long jump and the mile relay team of David McDevitt, Ray Sanders, Ken Hutchinson and Charles Jackson placed 5^th in a season best time of 3:20.2.

Covin would normally have been eliminated in the preliminaries after tying with two other jumpers. But instead of going to the next best distance to break the tie, IHSA officials allowed the top 8 individuals to advance to Saturday.

Given another chance, Covin responded with his best jump of the season at 22 feet, 9.75 inches.

“Last year when we came down here, we didn’t know what was going to happen and no one was the favorite,” said Evanston head coach Ron Helberg. “We had better balance this season, and with so many problems with injuries, it was really great for us to come back and do this again.

“The starting point for us was the 2-mile. When we got three points there, I knew things looked good for us.”