Prep Zone: Patton honored to be marshal

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Former Woodstock wrestling coach Jim Patton has an idea what will happen at the University of Illinois’ Assembly Hall on Feb. 20.

Patton has been selected as one of the grand marshals for the Grand March into the arena for the championship bouts.

“I’ll lead one of the groups in, then you step out into the spotlight,” Patton said, “and receive 10,000 boos.”

Patton, 74, was kidding of course. Seeing the coaches and competitors file in during the march is one of the greatest spectacles in IHSA sports. Having Patton, a member of four halls of fame, as a grand marshal seems only fitting, although he says he never thought about being picked to do it.

“It’s quite an honor,” Patton said. “There are a lot of outstanding coaches. I was shocked [when I found out]. I’ve been out [of coaching] for 12 years and didn’t even think about it.”

Harvard wrestling coach Tim Haak and former Woodstock athletic director Doug Smith, who now works at Naperville North, nominated Patton to be a marshal. Patton is in the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame, the Springfield High School Hall of Fame, the Illinois College Hall of Fame and the Woodstock High School Hall of Fame.

Patton coached the Blue Streaks for 34 years. His teams were 400-176-6 in dual matches. Toward the end of his career he had his first wrestler win a state title when Matt Huebner finished a 33-0 season by winning the Class AA 189-pound championship in 1998.

Patton also coached football and softball at Woodstock, but was best-known as a wrestling coach.

“I had good athletes over the years,” Patton said, “and I had great help from Greg Walkington at the junior high level and assistants Jerry Swedberg and Fred Tessler.”

Big bout: The four District 155 schools will compete in a quadrangular wrestling meet starting at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Crystal Lake Central.

The coaches at Central, Crystal Lake South, Cary-Grove and Prairie Ridge thought it would add excitement for local fans, while assuring that the district schools all compete against one another. The FVC switched to divisions for wrestling this season and were not required to wrestle teams on the opposite side of the conference. Now the rivals all will see each other.

“[Prairie Ridge coach] Trey Breeden brought it up that a lot of conferences around the state do that with schools in the same district,” Central coach Justen Lehr said. “The way we set it up, now we’re guaranteed to wrestle each other. We don’t get a lot of people at meets sometimes. It’s disheartening with 30 people in the crowd.”

The four teams will draw a lot more than three duals would.

“We’re trying to create some excitement for wrestling, and we think this will do it,” C-G coach Dan Cysewski said. “Hopefully we can draw a good crowd. We want to keep doing this in the future.”

Cysewski said under the new FVC format, two division champions will be crowned, then the overall champion will be determined from the FVC Tournament. In the past, dual meets and tournament results were factored into determining the overall champion.

“This way helps make the dual meets more important,” Cysewski said.

Jacobs tournament adds Huntley: Jacobs boys basketball coach Jim Hinkle said that Huntley has left the DeKalb Chuck Dayton Holiday Tournament and will play in the Jacobs Holiday Classic next year.

Huntley will replace Chicago Lindblom, which is not returning to the 16-team tournament. Hinkle had not heard of any other teams not returning and that those 14 teams have received contracts for next year.

• Joe Stevenson covers high school sports for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at 815-526-4513. He also can be reached by fax at 815-459-5640 or by e-mail at jstevenson@nwherald.com.