Jan. 19--A basketball game between two South Side powerhouses is on hold after parents of one of the teams threatened to refuse to let their sons play.
Players on Morgan Park High School's No. 1-ranked team are frustrated because their gymnasium is too small to accommodate crowds for big games. That means the team has to play the season's most intense matchups at a different school, sometimes far from the school's neighborhood. The team loses home court advantage for the most important games.
That doesn't seem fair, does it?
Most of the season, it's not a problem. Home games are played on Morgan Park's court. But when the coach and the players recently learned they would have to use the gym at nearby Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy for a home game with archrival Simeon Career Academy, they rebelled. The game has been postponed while the schools figure out what to do.
We feel their pain. Morgan Park is proud of its basketball program. The players are accustomed to their home gym, which seats only about 250 people. Other Chicago high schools can accommodate three times that amount. And then some.
The Morgan Park parents want a new gym. They point to a $17 million addition under way at Walter Payton College Prep on the North Side, funded with tax increment financing dollars, that includes a gym, locker room, fitness area, classrooms, student lounge, cafe and multipurpose theater. Chicago Public Schools officials say the expansion at Walter Payton is needed to increase the number of kids who can attend the school, one of the city's top selective-enrollment high schools. It serves a diverse student body from all over the city.
Morgan Park is a sought-after school, too, with a rigorous international baccalaureate program and a 79 percent four-year graduation rate. It sends a high number of graduates to college. The school's enrollment, however, has dropped in recent years.
Of course CPS has much more profound problems than small gyms. The school system is teetering on bankruptcy. Massive layoffs could be announced this week. Its credit rating is junk. Even Morgan Park officials concede a new gym probably is not in the cards. The principal and the local school council have been focused on directing resources toward the classroom.
Morgan Park has gotten CPS attention in recent years: new lockers, new lighting, upgraded science labs, air conditioning and a new roof, at a total cost of nearly $30 million.
The quickest, fairest solution: schedule all big games at neutral sites, even when Morgan Park is the away team. That way no one gets home court advantage. It would help if officials choose one site for the big game, rather than force the teams to rotate around the city.
The South Side offers plenty of possibilities: Kroc Center Chicago, a state-of-the-art community center; several public high schools that have larger gyms; local universities; and a half-dozen Catholic high schools that could extend an invitation to use their gym.
This shouldn't be that hard to figure out. The students and parents of Morgan Park shouldn't be ignored.
Their young men want to play basketball. They have a great team. Let's get on with the games.
