The Sun-Times’ high school basketball Mount Rushmore project highlights the sport’s biggest names and greatest stars.
With the prep career as the criteria’s centerpiece — with a sprinkling of post-high school success and overall stature used as a separator — we’ve created a Mount Rushmore for 10 geographical regions throughout the Chicago area.
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Today, private-school basketball programs across Chicago are having their day. They’ve upped the ante in recent years with unprecedented success in the state tournament, particularly in the state’s two largest classes.
But decades ago, it was big-name players who provided headlines and spearheaded team success among the private schools.
In a 17-year period from 1988 to 2005, the Chicago Catholic League produced seven McDonald’s All-Americans. Though there hasn’t been another one since, that’s a healthy stretch of star-studded talent.
That doesn’t even include Providence St. Mel’s Lowell Hamilton. He was a McDonald’s All-American, but the school wasn’t part of the Chicago Catholic League at the time.
This is the era that produced some real heavyweights when it came to prized talent.
Eric Anderson, St. Francis De Sales
As a 6-5 eighth-grader, Anderson was one of those must-have schoolboy stars. Fresh out of St. Columba grammar school, all the local private high schools were after him back in the 1980s.
He chose St. Francis De Sales, and the program instantly thrived.
Anderson led De Sales to three consecutive regional championships, including a 29-2 campaign in 1987-88 that ended on the final night of the season. And what a memorable night of high school basketball it was.
In one of the more heavily anticipated individual matchups in years, the two best big men in the state — and two of the best in the country — went head-to-head. Anderson collided with LaPhonso Ellis of East St. Louis Lincoln in the state championship.
With the state’s eyes on the title game in Champaign, Anderson, who was the leading scorer in the state tournament, had 23 points and 17 rebounds in the final. But it wasn’t enough as De Sales fell to Ellis and Lincoln to finish second in the state.
Anderson was named a McDonald’s All-American and Mr. Basketball in Illinois as a senior while leading De Sales to its greatest season in school history. He headed off to Indiana to play for Bobby Knight, where he enjoyed a stellar four-year career and was a first-team All-Big Ten selection in 1991.
Anderson died in 2018 at 48.
Lowell Hamilton, Providence St. Mel
Even as a small Class A school, Providence St. Mel was one of the most exciting teams and biggest names in high school basketball in the 1980s. It had a colorful head coach in Tom Shields, outrageous success with three straight Elite Eight appearances and a star attraction in Hamilton.
An athletic 6-7 big man who could gracefully run the floor and finish with one rim-rattling dunk after another, Hamilton put on a show for fans. He and the team were dominant during a four-year run, going 116-14 and winning a state championship in 1985.
Led by Hamilton at both ends of the floor, the ’85 team toyed with Class A opponents, winning its supersectional 117-69 and beating the three opponents in Champaign by a combined 76 points. Providence St. Mel is widely considered to be the best small-school team in state history.
In 11 state-tournament games, Hamilton scored 165 points and pulled down 94 rebounds.
A two-time all-stater who was named a McDonald’s All-American, Hamilton was one of the most sought-after prep players in the country. He chose Illinois and was part of the 1989 Final Four team.
Tom Kleinschmidt, Gordon Tech
Early in his career, Kleinschmidt mystified coaches and fans alike. He carried the stigma of being too slow and unathletic.
It didn’t matter. He was an absolute force.
Kleinschmidt was as tough and competitive as any player you could find. He was fearless, didn’t back down and dominated.
By the time the 1990 state tournament and his junior season concluded, there was no doubt. Everyone saw he was a player who not only filled box scores at another level but willed his team to wins.
The 1990 tournament might have been won by a star-studded King team featuring Jamie Brandon that finished 32-0. But it was the rough-and-tumble Kleinschmidt who stole the show in leading Gordon Tech to a runner-up finish.
The 6-5 Kleinschmidt was no diva. He put fans in a tizzy with his production and relentlessness. In four state-tournament games, Kleinschmidt averaged 31.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 3.5 steals and blocked seven shots.
He was putting up 28 points a game as a senior year when he broke his foot in the middle of February, ending his and Gordon Tech’s season in the sectional. He was named a McDonald’s All-American and finished his career as Gordon Tech’s all-time leading scorer (1,989) and rebounder (705).
The Northwest Sider was recruited heavily by all the elite programs in the country, but he stayed close to home and quickly emerged as a star at DePaul. He’s sixth on the Blue Demons’ all-time scoring list with 1,837 points.
Today, he’s regarded as one of the top high school basketball coaches in the state. The two-time City/Suburban Hoops Report Coach of the Year has won three consecutive state championships at DePaul Prep.
Antoine Walker, Mount Carmel
The Mount Carmel star was a big name in high school with statistics and accolades to support his legitimacy as an all-time great. But before he became a big thing for a college-basketball “Blue Blood” and an NBA All-Star for an iconic franchise, he was more of an unbeknownst star in high school.
The Chicago Public League dominated the high school basketball scene, not the Chicago Catholic League, during Walker’s era in the 1990s.
Mount Carmel played its holiday tournament 260 miles away in Centralia, not at Proviso West or Pontiac, to where area fans headed in the dead of winter.
Also, the Caravan never achieved a ton of postseason success. Walker never made it out of a sectional in his time at the all-boys Catholic school in the Woodlawn neighborhood, winning regional titles each year but never a sectional.
Thus, Walker and the Caravan, while always recognized as a player and team with star power — future NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb also played with Walker — weren’t seen or heard from all that much.
Perhaps Walker’s landmark moment in high school came while playing four games in three days in the southern Illinois county of Marion.
In leading Mount Carmel to a tournament title at Centralia, Walker averaged 33 points and 17 rebounds in the four victories. He tore apart the host school in the championship game with stunning totals of 43 points and 27 rebounds.
It’s still one of the greatest individual performances in the 82-year history of the tournament. But no one from the Chicago area saw it; they just heard about it.
But make no mistake, the 2,000-plus-point scorer was a gifted all-around player at 6-8 and one of the nation’s best prep stars.
Walker was a two-time all-area selection and the lone player from Illinois named to the McDonald’s All-American team in 1994. That was after he put up eye-popping numbers as a senior: 29.4 points and 10 rebounds per game.
He had his pick of colleges, chose Kentucky and became a star in his two seasons in Lexington. As a sophomore, he led the Wildcats to the 1996 national championship averaging 15 points per game.
The Celtics drafted Walker sixth overall in 1996. In his 12-year career, he was a three-time All-Star with the Celtics and won an NBA title with the Heat. He finished with 15,647 career points in the NBA.
