A couple of columns from when I worked at The Southern.
SCOTT LAMBERT: GARY WILLIAMS, ALL BY HIMSELF ON THE FOUL LINE, COMES THROUGH
Gary Williams knew the score.
And not just the one that read Cairo 69, Benton 67.
The junior point guard from Cairo was standing at the foul line with just over 10 seconds remaining in the game. He'd just hit one free throw to give Cairo a two-point lead.
He had one foul shot left and Benton called time-out to ice him.
While the rest of the Cairo players gathered around coach Larry Baldwin, Williams stood out on the foul line and kept going over what he had to do.
Williams knew what was riding on this foul shot. He knew that the hopes of Cairo rested on his 5-foot-6 inch shoulders. He knew that a technical foul had opened the door and let Benton back in the game and it was up to him to slam that door shut.
He knew about the legacy of Cairo, a team expected to make it to state, but always found a way to lose somehow.
He remembered last year's sectional loss to Pinckneyville.
And he also knew that the game was going to be decided on a simple fundamental. All he had to do was hit his free throw.
"Yes, sir, I was thinking about it," said Williams. "We were going to win the game or we were going to lose the game with our free-throws."
Shadow-shot after shadow-shot went from Williams' hands to the basket as he prepared for the most important shot of his life.
"I'm the guy at the foul line and I knew I had to stay focused," said Williams, explaining why he stood out on the line. "So I just blocked all the other things out and thought about how much I needed to knock down the shot."
Williams' shot bottomed out the net and Cairo went on to win a 73-69 thriller over Benton and earn a trip to the IHSA Class A state tournament.
What went through Williams' mind?
"Thank God," said Williams. "That's what went through my mind.
"This feels very good. I thank my coach, I thank the guys on the team, I thank the junior varsity team, because they're the ones that got us ready to play every single day.
"This feels so good. We really wanted to go to state. We felt we deserved it and we went out and earned it."
Williams wasn't the star of the game. That honor would go to Deovaunta Williams, who sparked a Cairo rally in the third quarter that led to six points, a swing in momentum and Ryan Fraulini's fourth foul.
But Williams was the spark plug. He was the guy they all had to believe in and, when things got dark at the end, he was the one standing all alone at the foul line with the game in his hands.
And Cairo goes to state. The Pilots deserved it.
They beat Du Quoin and Nick Hill in the sectional.
They beat a Benton team that was playing as well as any team in Southern Illinois through February and into their March run.
Give the Rangers credit, they took on Cairo and pushed the Pilots as hard as they've been pushed in their postseason run.
It took every ounce of discipline the Pilots could muster to hold on to this win and they found it.
This is Cairo's year. And coach Baldwin gets the last laugh on his critics and the statewide respect he deserves.
"This win means everything to the town of Cairo," said Baldwin. "These fans have been on my back for the last years. My critics, I want to say to you all, scream all you want, I want to thank you anyway because you made me a better coach."
Tuesday night at SIU Arena, a group of kids from the very tip of Southern Illinois earned their way to state.
They were supposed to get there, they've spent the year ranked as the state's No. 3 team.
And they got their the hard way - riding the shoulders of a 5-6 guard who stood at the foul line all by himself - and gunned down the Rangers.
SCOTT LAMBERT: LEARNING THE HARD WAY THAT YOU GOTTA BELIEVE
"I'm mad at you," said my friend, after punching me in the arm with all the might her 110-pound frame could muster.
I started to wonder what I'd done this time when she continued.
"You don't believe in Southern Illinois University's football team enough," she said. "You keep waiting for them to fold don't you."
I tried to explain to her that I was willing to jump on the Saluki bandwagon after SIU smoked SEMO in week two and I still believe that the goal line stand in that game led to the confidence that helped SIU defeat Western Illinois.
And, I gently reminded her, she was the one that didn't believe in SIU then.
"That's because they weren't a good team yet," she said matter-of-factly. "I was waiting to see them play a team that was good, a team that would stare them right in the face and see if they blinked.
"Western was that game and SIU proved that it wasn't going to blink. How could you not jump on the bandwagon?"
I agree with her completely. SIU proved to the world that it was a top 10 football team last week. Beating Western at their place in that kind of football game takes a solid effort and guts galore.
I'm extremely happy for the Salukis and the only questions I have left pertain to whether or not they'll get a home playoff game.
"You picked Western to win that football game," she said. "Where was your faith?"
OK, I admit, I picked Western to win that football game.
It didn't mean that I didn't think SIU was a playoff team. In fact, I've been pretty convinced the Salukis will be playing in the playoffs since they knocked off Indiana State.
I was sure of it after they dismantled Illinois State, but that didn't mean that I thought they would beat the No. 2 team in the nation.
"Well, that just shows that you were WRONG!," she said, an assessment she takes great joy in pointing out.
I should have believed in the Salukis, but my brain has been distracted by the Cubs and their stupendous collapse and I couldn't help but compare SIU and my Cubbies.
"Wrong again," she said. "This team has nothing to do with that team in Chicago.
"Anyway, this is football. There aren't any billy goat curses and if a fan is stupid enough to get on this field, Tommy Koutsos may just run him over."
True, it's a completely different situation. I should have believed.
"And, you haven't given nearly enough credit to coach (Jerry) Kill for turning this program around," she continued. "This is his third year and he has turned a team that lived in the dog house into a team that is now ranked fourth in the country.
"His offensive scheme is almost unstoppable and just when you think you have him figured out, he pulls some kind of trick out of his hat.
"And defensively, this team does what it has to do to win. The defense doesn't have to stay on the field very long because the offense does its job and when they are on the field, they seem to take advantage of every opportunity they get.
"Coach Kill should get credit for that.
"And I like that cute little sweater vest."
I agree, Jerry Kill is an outstanding coach and has turned around the football program. I also like the fact that he seems to look at his student athletes as more than just parts to plug into a program - he seems to care for them.
And, I like the vest too.
"So then why don't I believe that you're a true believer," she questioned. "What else do they have to do?"
Nothing, I think this team is more than just outstanding. I think the Salukis have already made one of the most spectacular turnarounds at any level of college football. I think coach Kill should be the NCAA Division I-AA Coach of the Year and I think the Salukis could be a serious player when it comes to the I-AA playoffs.
"There's only one thing left for you to say," she said.
I know, I know - Go Dawgs.
KILL WENT FOR TWO POINTS, AND MADE THE RIGHT CALL
Scott Lambert
[Tue Sep 14 2004]
Was it the right call?
People have wondered that since late Saturday afternoon when Southern Illinois University's football team rallied from 14 down against Northern Illinois to within one point with less than a minute remaining in the game.
The decision was to kick the extra point and try to win it in overtime or go for it right there.
SIU coach Jerry Kill made the call -- go for two.
The play at the end was there but the ball fell incomplete and SIU lost to the Huskies 23-22.
But was it the right call?
I'll tell you this much, I'd hate to be playing poker with coach Kill. He had the guts to make an extremely tough decision and put his opposition to the test Saturday. In poker terms, he went all in with his final call.
He looked at his team and felt it was time to go. His defense was worn out (NIU was extremely physical and they had more numbers than SIU), his offense was on a roll (two touchdowns in 14 minutes) and it looked like his best bet was to go for it.
After all, he knew that the Huskies would have to pack the line to protect against Brandon Jacobs pummeling his way into the end zone.
And he had Joel Sambursky at quarterback.
For Kill, it was a no-brainer.
And that's the way he presented it after the game in post-game interviews. Kill didn't apologize or fret over his decision. He stood up at the podium and very simply said that his defense was tired and that he knew his team better than anyone else in the country.
And he felt it was the right call.
His players felt it was the right call.
Good enough for me.
But don't think that this was just a spur-of-the-moment decision. He planned this out during the week, talking with his coaches over what to do if this situation came up.
The answer on Friday was to go for the win as well.
The Salukis put it on the line Saturday and proved to an awful lot of people that they're for real in a big way.
That's why they only dropped one spot in The Sports Network poll Monday.
How do you drop a team that lost to a very good Division I-A team after taking a gamble like it did?
Saturday's game will go down in the loss column. And it was a loss. SIU didn't beat Northern and if you go and ask coach Kill or any of his players, they're unhappy that they lost that game.
But they earned an awful lot of respect around the country with that loss.
This wasn't a matter of a team getting hot and almost beating a superior team.
This was a matter of a team standing up and trading blows with another team. A team that SIU felt that it was competitive against.
SIU went up to Northern Illinois to get tested. The Salukis wanted to see where they stood against a very good I-A team.
The result was that SIU went up north and tested NIU. And the Huskies passed the test.
They took SIU's best shot and held on for a win.
Gamble or not, this was a test of two outstanding football teams.
Both passed.
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A superb article! Very well-written. SIU played a terrific game and should be very proud.
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This guy's a good columnist. I enoyed reading his articles the past couple of weeks.
SCOTT LAMBERT: DEPPE OVERCAME LARGE ODDS TO ETCH HIS NAME INTO HISTORY
Some stories reach out through time.
They're the stories that make a region proud, stories that define people and places.
They're the stories that get turned into movies.
Miracle, the story of the 1980 USA hockey team is one of those stories, a tale about a group of young men who overcame odds and lifted the spirits of a country.
Hoosiers, the story of a small school Indiana basketball team that went on to win the state title, is another.
This is a story that could be made into a movie just like those two.
It's the story of a young man, a young coach and an incredible race.
The young man was a sprinter.
He stood at 5-foot-6 inches and weighed 140 pounds during his senior season.
He battled a case of mononucleosis during the winter.
He was a baseball player and he was talked into going out for track as well.
The problem - Trico High School didn't have a track to practice on. So, he worked out in a pasture when he got the chance.
He was coached by a young, former trackman out of Southern Illinois University.
The man was a teacher and a basketball coach by trade, but his roots were in running and when he looked at this young man, he saw talent.
And he turned in a performance that has not been forgotten by any of the people who ever saw it.
His name was Butch Deppe. The year was 1966 and his coach was Loris Lambert, my father.
Although I never saw this performance, it's been burned into my memory as strongly as any athletic performance I've ever seen or heard of.
While others were told fairy tales as children getting put to bed, I was regaled with stories of Butch Deppe and his run to glory.
Deppe was a flash of lightning. It didn't matter that he was from a small school, he was running down everyone in sight.
He managed to make it to state in the 100- and 220-yard dash, back in the day when there was only one state track meet.
No one thought this small-town athlete had a shot against the big boys. Especially when he severely strained his hamstring at the state meet.
But, he managed to pull away and get out of the first heat of the 100-yard dash.
Between races, my father feverishly worked on his leg so he'd be able to go back out and race in the semifinals, as well as in the 220.
He won his 220 quarterfinal heat and semifinal heat, putting him in the finals of the 220-yard dash. But, the problem was the 100, where a quick burst out of the gate was needed and a strained hamstring was a big problem.
Still, he managed to overcome the slow starts by making up ground down the stretch and advanced through the semifinals and into the final race.
Before that race, my father begged him to scratch out. The injured leg may not be able to make it one more race, let alone two, and Deppe was a lock to win the 220.
All he could think of was what if he didn't even get the chance to win one state title. After all the work, it would be almost wrong for him not to get at least one.
But Deppe, a competitor to the end, wouldn't think of scratching.
"I'm going to win them both," Deppe said.
He came out of the blocks slow in the 100. At 60 yards, he was in fourth place. At 70 yards, he was in third and gaining steam. He moved into second place with 10 yards to go and edged out the defending state champion at the wire.
It was one of the most memorable races in the history of the IHSA track meet.
Friday night, Deppe was honored at Trico High School for his accomplishments, along with this year's state champion in golf, Zach Barlow.
I was lucky enough to meet Deppe Friday night.
It was a moment that could only be described as surreal.
It was also an honor. It's not often you get to meet someone whom you've heard stories about all your life.
Especially stories that remind you that sometimes things that happen in real life are just as exciting as those that happen in the movies. Or in bedtime stories.
SCOTT LAMBERT: HURRICANE SHOWS US WHO THESE KIDS REALLY ARE
Frank Johnson was more than a little worried.
The junior safety grew up in a little town called Wabasso, Fla., a town that was right in the path of Hurricane Frances.
Johnson had a little scare during the hurricane. He couldn't reach his parents by phone or by cell phone.
It's something the SIU coaches had to worry about.
"Frank Johnson couldn't reach his parents for a while and he talked with coach (Tracy) Claeys about that a lot," said Salukis coach Jerry Kill. "It's always tough when that happens. It's hard on the kids and it's hard on us."
Johnson's parents ended up OK. A few shingles got blown off their roof and the visit from Frances wasn't a pleasant one, but they came out of it healthy and that's all you can ask for.
There were numerous other hurricane stories from the SIU team.
All-American safety Alexis Moreland hails from Sarasota.
"They went through it," said Moreland of his parents. "Actually, the first one, Charley, was worse for them.
"But they're kind of used to it."
Moreland still kept an eye on what was happening as Frances did its number on the Sunshine State.
"I wasn't glued to the television but I paid attention," he said. "I let the Lord take care of it.
"I do try to call home and make sure that everything was OK and see how they're doing."
In all, 14 players on the roster are listed as living in Florida. Others have relatives and family down there.
It's been quite a week for the Saluki football players with family down south.
It's a good reminder that even though fans cheer for them and the media covers them because they're athletes, these are also young men who are learning a lot of different things.
"I think we all have to understand that these are young people who, in many cases, are away from home for the first time when they come here," said Kill. "There are a lot of things going on in these young people's lives other than playing football.
"They're coming to school, they have to worry about their grades, about their families, a lot of different things."
We expect so much, the fans and media. We expect athletes to be consistent, to entertain us, to compete hard, to win.
We forget that they have families at home who may be suffering through a hurricane. We forget they may have other worries. Kill doesn't. He makes sure his players know they have someone to talk to if necessary, be it him or one of his assistants.
He knows that players are more than just the numbers that go out and light up the field on Saturdays.
They're young men with all the problems that your typical college kid has.
But somehow, he still manages to keep them focused on the game as well as on their lives.
And he's noticed that even though many of them had hurricane worries earlier in the week, it didn't have too big of an impact on the way they've practiced in preparation for Northern Illinois.
"I'm sure it does have an effect on them," said Kill. "They don't let on like it does though. It's (the hurricane) not the best thing for them but they've handled it very well."
SCOTT LAMBERT is the Sports Editor at the Southern. You can reach him at scott.lambert@thesouthern or call 618-529-5454 x15084.
SCOTT LAMBERT: THE STORYLINE CHANGED A BIT, BUT SIU GETS SAME RESULT
Same old story, but this time the Salukis cut it a little shorter than usual.
Southern Illinois University build a 22-point first half lead, let it slip away and actually trailed with two seconds left.
It seemed like the Salukis' penchant for building leads only to lose them later in the game was finally going to come back and bite the Dawgs.
But then Darren Brooks threw the ball the length of the court to Sylvester Willis, who beat Bradley's James Gillingham to the ball and laid it in the basket to claim a 72-71 win Saturday night.
What do you say about this win?
Exhilirating, exciting, exhausting.
This one felt different. When Bradley was making its run against the Salukis on Saturday, you didn't get the feeling you got in most games.
Maybe it was because SIU Arena was so hot, giving off memories of the Charlotte game (it wasn't quite as hot as it was when the Salukis lost to Charlotte, but then again, SIU didn't quite lose this game either). Maybe it was because Bradley kept making plays to answer the plays SIU made at the end.
With Bradley down four, Marcellus Sommerville went up for a shot to cut it to two.
LaMar Owen blocked the shot. Seconds later, Owen scored on the other end to give the Salukis a six point lead.
But Bradley came back and scored.
A minute later, Tony Young came down and scored on a great play for a lay-in.
Even when Stetson Hairston scored and drew a fourth foul on Sommerville, the Braves came back and answered and eventually tied the score.
But on that play, Sommerville picked up his fifth foul, Brad Korn hit a pair of foul shots to put the Salukis up two and then came back and hit a turnaround 10-footer to make it four.
It wasn't over. It wasn't over when Sylvester Willis hit a tip-in with 25.3 seconds left to give SIU a 69-65 advantage.
Gillingham hit a 3-pointer and then Michael Suggs' trey gave the Braves the lead.
Unlike every team SIU has played down to the wire this year, after building a lead and losing it, Bradley kept coming up with answers to the big plays SIU made.
But there was no answer to Willis' final shot. There wasn't enough time left.
Yes, this one was different.
"I don't want to say we deserved to win and I don't want to say they deserved to win," said SIU coach Matt Painter. "We were both able to put together outstanding halves.
"Bradley is a very good team. This wasn't a case of us letting up, it was a case of them playing a great second half."
SIU put together a great first half Saturday. The Salukis were flat out on fire and they slammed the door shut on Sommerville, who scored just two points on two free throws in the first half.
But the Salukis couldn't keep Sommerville shut down in the second half and with Gillingham and Phillip Gilbert, the Braves had players who could answer the Salukis.
But give SIU credit. This team isn't a team of destiny, like many would want to believe after such a wild and wooly finish, this is a team of hard work.
That final play was a play the Salukis work on every night in practice.
It was a case of a good call by Painter and good execution by Brooks, who made the pass and Willis who caught and finished.
It was the experience of Willis and the cool of Brooks that gave SIU this win.
The undefeated Missouri Valley Conference run is still alive. The Salukis dodged a bullet Saturday.
But it wasn't luck. It was the same thing that has helped this team dodge bullets all year long.
This team wins because it's prepared to win.
SCOTT LAMBERT is the Sports Editor at the Southern. You can reach him at scott.lambert@thesouthern or call 618-529-5454 x15084.
