Despite makeshift training facilities, Chicago high school track team wins state championship

Jet, July 17, 1995

Good ol' fashioned ingenuity, courage and determination enabled Chicago's Leo Catholic High School boys track team to hurdle over the obstacle of having makeshift training facilities so they could dash to a state championship.

Leo's coach, Edward Adams, has orchestrated a fine-tuned balancing act between using hallways for running, the school auditorium for high jump practice and the dark damp basement underneath the swimming pool for throwing the shot put and discus.

Don't feel sorry for the Leo Lions, though. As Coach Adams puts it, "It's a motivating force for us. They don't complain or cry about it. They just go out and compete against teams with multi-million dollar training facilities."

It was that kind of attitude which inspired the Lions to roar to a state title--the first Catholic school in the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Class AA's 21-year history to win the track and field championship.

"Our team goal since our first meeting in January was to win a state championship," Adams recalls. "We thought we had a chance to win it going into the meet."

In four seasons as track coach at Leo--16 overall--Adams molded a band of talented seniors, juniors and sophomores into champions with the hearts of their team name--Lions. Their IHSA feat was accomplished at Eastern Illinois University's (EIU) O'Brien Field in Charleston. Leo won by a 47-40 score over second-place finisher Wheaton-Warrenville South.

One of the team's stars was senior sprinter Chris Watson. Watson won gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters and anchored the champion 400 meter relay team. He also won the silver by anchoring the 800 relay.

"I was really nervous," remembers Watson, a two-sport phenom, who signed a letter of intent to play football and run track for EIU. He plans to major in industrial technology.

"When we won, it was a big relief and a lot of joy," the soft-spoken Watson added.

It had to bring great joy to the 67-year-old, all-male Catholic school of meager means as well, considering what the team has to endure while training for meets.

Watson and the other sprinters use a second-floor hallway to prep for speed races.

Distance runners can be seen circling a third floor hall. Starting blocks and hurdles become the decor of the fourth floor hallway when silver medalist senior Fletcher Boyd and the other hurdlers attempt to evoke visions of Edwin Moses.

The school auditorium provides a nice spot for the high jumpers to practice.

Meanwhile, the state's top shot putter, sophomore James Turner can be seen tossing the heavy shot ball and discus sphere up a stairwell padded with old soiled mattresses from a basement underneath the school's pool. The pool hasn't been used in four years.

Assistant coach Pete Doyle tells JET the school hopes to purchase one of several abandoned properties near Leo, and transform it into a track facility. But that may be years away.

Until then, the way the graduating Watson and a consensus of his teammates see it, "It's just another hurdle (we) have to jump."