Sweet Charlie, Dike, Cazzie, and Bobby Joe: HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL IN ILLINOIS

Chapter 4: The 1970s

4 The 1970s Two-Class System: David vs. Goliath Chuck Rolinski had a vision. Ron Felling admitted that he couldn’t see beyond the city limits of Lawrenceville. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, basketball was king in small towns from Pinckneyville to Pittsfield to Paris. People filled high school gyms on Friday night to cheer their local teams. For many, it was the social event of the week. But something was missing. It was becoming clear that large schools were beginning to dominate the state tournament series and that small schools couldn’t advance beyond the regional or sectional levels. Hebron gave purists something to cheer about in 1952 when it became the smallest school (enrollment ninety-eight students) to win the state championship. It was Illinois’s version of the motion picture Hoosiers that will be replayed as long as the game is played. But it only happened once again. In 1964, Cobden (enrollment 160) emerged as the darling of the state tournament. The team with the endearing nickname, the Appleknockers, lost to Pekin in the state final. More and more,the Elite Eight was filled with teams from Chicago and its suburbs, Peoria,Galesburg,Quincy,Rockford,Collinsville,and the Quad Cities.Small-town folks, the tournament’s chief supporters for years, weren’t buying tickets. No one recognized the problem more clearly than Chuck Rolinski,who joined with Quincy coach Sherrill Hanks to form the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association in 1971.The son of a coal miner,Rolinski graduated from Illinois State University in two years because he wanted to coach at Toluca High School. From 1956 to 1990, Rolinski’s teams won 649 games. He took three teams to the supersectional. His 1966–67 team was 17–10 but lost to Pekin’s state championship team 77–64.His 1972–73 team was 22–6 but lost to St.Anne and Jack Sikma.His 1983– 84 team was 29–1, losing to Hoopeston 51–48 in overtime. “For a small school, it was the ultimate to win a regional,”Rolinski said.“But things tighten up in the sectional. I wanted to fight for a chance to win a regional, not the state title.My argument was the system discriminated against small schools. In many areas, it was impossible for small schools to win a regional against bigger schools.” His plan called for two classes.Class A would include all schools with enrollments under five hundred students. Class AA would include all larger schools. “I wanted to give small schools a chance, some equality, an identity of their own,” 108 / Sweet Charlie, Dike, Cazzie, and Bobby Joe he said.“The power was shifting from small schools to larger schools in industrial areas of the state.You could see the talent gap widening.” Rolinski’s proposal was met with much negative criticism. Some purists still insist it was the worst idea since long pants. Although he initially panned the idea, Lawrenceville coach Ron Felling concedes that the two-class system did more for him and his community than Mickey Mouse did for Walt Disney.“I wasn’t for the twoclass system at first,” Felling said.“When Rolinski had his vision, I would have voted against it.I didn’t want watered-down basketball.But I didn’t have any vision.It came out well.Who has benefited more than me and Lawrenceville and other small towns? The state might never have heard about Jay Shidler without the two-class system.” Felling won state titles in 1972,the first year of the two-class format,1974,1982,and 1983. He finished third with Shidler in 1976. His 1982 and 1983 powerhouses, led by Marty Simmons, won a state-record sixty-eight games in a row. Simmons earned the Mr. Basketball Award as the state’s top player. “Lawrenceville had a rich basketball tradition before I got there,”Felling said.“But it had never won a state title. In 1972, we broke through. It put our town on the map. But it never would have happened without the two-class system. We couldn’t have competed with Thornridge [the Class AA champion] in the state finals.We needed to find our own niche.” Rolinski launched his campaign in the spring of 1968 when the Illinois Athletic Directors Association, an organization that Rolinski helped to form, met to discuss class basketball. Harry Fitzhugh,executive director of the IHSA,attended...