Coaches share stories, Bureau County hoops history

MINERAL - High school basketball hasn’t been played in six decades in Mineral, but it came to life Saturday afternoon.

Two Hall of Fame coaches, one who will be a Hall of Famer and an all-state basketball player shared their experiences in front of a group of 65 people filling the Mineral Methodist Church, many wearing Mineral Leopard’s green, for a special Bureau County Basketball History event sponsored by the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association.

Between them, featured speakers Brad Bickett, who played for Ohio’s 1986 state runner-up team and coached at Western, Bureau Valley and Rock Falls; Chuck Blake, who played for Neponset and coached at Atkinson, Neponset, Wethersfield and Kewanee; Jason Burkiewicz, who played for Hall’s 1998 state runner-up and coaches the Annawan girls; and Val (Wancket) Van Hyfte, who played for Atkinson; have more than 5,000 career points and nearly 1,400 career coaching victories.

The event was held in Mineral as a salute to native son Dave Nanninga, who founded the Illinois High School Glory Days website to recognize more than 1,200 schools in Illinois, including Mineral, that are now closed.

He was joined by four former Mineral players - Don Miller (’52), Ron Childs (’53), Stan Gingrich (’53) and Eddie Morey (’55) - who shared their glory days playing for the hometown Leopards and beloved coach Ollie Jochums. Their district championship teams were inducted into the Bureau County Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.

Miller told the story how Jochums used to preach to the players to avoid all distractions the night before games, including hanging around girlfriends, so he used to sneak around through alleys to visit his girlfriend, who was a neighbor of the coach.

Blake started his career with the boys team at Atkinson for two seasons, lured back into the coaching ranks to coach his hometown Neponset girls team upon request of their kids’ baby-sitter, a team member. That led to a long successful run which saw the Lady Zephrys win three straight sectional championships (1991-93), eight regionals and 259 games over 13 years.

The Lady Zephyrs took on all schools, no matter their size, once defeating Class 2A powerhouse Immaculate Heart of Mary, taking the floor to John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Smalltown.” The next year, they rode the Zephyr, of course, to play in the Chicagoland Classic. When a scheduled photo op with then Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was canceled, Blake, who was the mayor of Neponset at the time, quipped that he told Chicago City Hall that if Daley ever visited Neponset to tell him that Blake was unavailable.

Blake, who had an overall record of 602-298 in 32 years, said the “stars were aligned” for Neponset’s success, including the arrival of future all-stater Jolene Bair in the fifth grade when her parents picked a place to live between their job sites and it happened to be Neponset.

Bickett said basketball was the only game in town growing up in Ohio, describing it as “basketball or bust.” He honed his game shooting hoops in the hayloft on the family farm and relayed he would have played for Princeton, who the Bulldogs beat in the 1986 sectional semifinals, before moving into the Ohio district.

Knowing he was in the Annawan school district at Mineral, Bickett joked that former Braves star Jody Junis, whose son, Jake, played at Rock Falls, always liked to remind him that the Braves twice beat the Bulldogs during the 1986 regular season. The Braves lost to Kewanee in a separate supersectional, however, and the Bulldogs won the DeKalb Supersectional to advance to state as the smallest school (69 students) in state history to reach the Elite Eight, finishing second.

Bickett, who compiled a 473-298 record with 15 regional championships, last coaching at Rock Falls in 2019, landed his first job out of Eureka College at Western High School in 1990. Bickett thought he might be too young to start out as a head coach, but Western superintendent Larry Marsh, who had been at Ohio when Bickett attended school there, told him he’d do just fin.

He took over the Bureau Valley job when it opened in 1995-96, leading the Storm to an unprecedented run of three straight Class A third-place state finishes from 2000-02. He said the Storm’s second state squad was probably their best team and was disappointed not to win state.

Bickett will be retiring as Dean of Students/AD at Bureau Valley at the end of the upcoming school year. He suggested that he may coach again, adding “You never know.”

Burkiewicz fell in love with the game as a kid following the Hall Red Devils, hardly missing a game and crying when the season was over. He later played for coach Eric Bryant’s Hustlin’ Red Devils, a member of their 1998 state runners-up.

The sudden death of his fiancee led to a change of career plans, sending him to Annawan to coach the girls in 2010. He has had an incredible run of success, posting a 317-85 record, including two state championships and a third-place finish, nine regionals and six sectionals.

He said he never thought he’d become a girls coach, but it’s been “one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.”

The former Val Wancket was an all-state player for nearby Atkinson, among the state’s all-time greats for scoring (2,644, 15th) and rebounding (1,606, 7th). She led the Lady Tigers to two state appearances in 1984, as a freshman, and 1986, scoring 10 or more points in every game (103) of her career.

Van Hyfte, who wore her old Atkinson warm-up and brought her mom’s “game sweater,” said it was the “small town pride and community” that brought her and husband, Ted, an Annawan graduate, back home to raise their family. She first coached at the junior high level and then joined Burkiewicz’s staff.

Her three daughters - Celina, Morgan and Jade - have all played on the Bravettes’ state championship teams and between the four of them have scored 9,622 career points, a probable state family record (it’s more than 10,000 points when you include dad, Ted, and brother, Drake). Jade topped her mother with 2,775 points with Celina (2,492) and Morgan (1,711) right behind.

BCR Sports Editor Kevin Hieronymus shared his experiences covering Bureau County basketball for 37 years, including Bickett’s Western Rams and Bureau Valley Storm state teams, and Blake’s Sweet 16 Lady Zephrys. He shared Bureau County sports trivia, mentioning Bureau County all-time scoring leaders, DePue’s Ron Zagar (2,515) and Hall’s Kailey Klein (2,496), and Neponset’s Roger Cannon (1,809), who was in attendance.

Bruce Firchau of the IBCA opened the event and promptly reminded Bickett that the Harvard team he coached beat his Ohio Bulldogs in the 1985 supersectional.

Kev Varney, Cody Cutter and Roberta Van Briesen also spoke on their contributions to the Illinois High School Glory Days website.

The farthest traveler for the event was Mike Matthews of Chicago, who played for Chicago Hirsch’s 1973 state champions.