Special talent, special dreams: UI recruit Jereme Richmond binds a city

Check out our video story on Jereme Richmond by clicking here.

Check out our 2006 story when Richmond committed to Illinois by clicking here.

WAUKEGAN – The sandwich slides across the countertop, just as the out-of-towner ordered.

It's called The Original. Stacked with ham, salami, American cheese and sticky with Italian dressing, it's the hoagie that made Leno's Submarine Shop famous in this gruff suburb north of Chicago.

The woman behind the counter sports a purple-and-green W.H.S. T-shirt. She talks in Bulldog.

"I wear Waukegan stuff every day. Every day!" shouts Lisa Papandreou, a mother of three students there. "The joke at my job is, 'Do you work here or at Waukegan High School? Well, if more people wore Waukegan stuff, maybe we wouldn't have the problems we got.'

"Have a little pride in your school, you know? But no. You only hear negative, negative, negative."

That changed in March. The city went bananas for the Bulldogs. Police escorts for the bus that carried the boys basketball team to the Class 4A state tournament. An anonymous donation of $5,000 – "From someone within the community," WHS principal Dr. Steve Hamlin says – to fund students traveling to Peoria. A parade to celebrate their runner-up finish, the finest season in the 109 years of Waukegan hoops listed on the IHSA Web site.

"I really like the way you work together," Washington Elementary fourth-grader Jajaira scribbled in a handwritten letter to the players. "I hope you never give up."

"I've had people tell me they've never cried at a basketball game," coach Ron Ashlaw says. "And their purple-and-green face paint was smearing."

If an out-of-towner didn't know better, they might think this is normal at WHS.

It's anything but.

Normal is the metal detectors that were reinstalled this academic year, the drug-sniffing dogs that roamed the hallways on a random Friday, the graffiti that Ashlaw scrubs from the desks in his classroom.

"I keep my own bottle of 409," says Ashlaw, a government teacher. "If they carve their tags into the desk I call maintenance and get the desk removed."

"The issues are not unique to Waukegan," says Hamlin, the school's seventh principal in six years. "But there's been a lack of success in a variety of areas."

For a fleeting three-week blur, a successful team helped a community forget its trials.

Smack in the middle was star junior Jereme Richmond, The News-Gazette's boys' basketball All-State Player of the Year, an enigma in his own right.

* * *

A 6-foot-7, 200-pound prodigy, Jereme Richmond rarely ceases to surprise you. Not with his basketball gifts – he was the first prep freshman to commit to Illinois, so the surprising stage ended there – but with his refined intellect. It's like talking to a grown-up, a really interesting grown-up, except that grown-ups usually aren't as interesting as he is.

On this afternoon at his Waukegan home, Richmond wears a gray Utah Jazz hoody and explains why he's watching ESPN Classic – the Duke-Kansas national title game from 1991 – during spring break.

"This is what I think. In order to be good at the game, you have to be good to the game. You know what I mean?" he says. "You have to study those that came before you. By no means did I invent basketball because of my few press clippings from a few good games. I know that. So I watch older guys."

This is how Richmond operates, with a big-picture view. To him, high school is simply a required step toward "the ultimate goal," he says, of playing in the NBA. For example, he tires of the school policy that forces students to wear visible identification. Of the 4,200 students at Waukegan, it's pretty damn obvious who he is.

"A lot of the guys in the game this morning, the ('91) Duke game, went on to play in the NBA. Grant Hill was on that team. So you watch older guys to understand the game, past what we think the game is about," he continues, motioning his huge hands for emphasis. "I have my own perspective and my own views on what the game is like, but when you watch older players, that gives you a different outlook. It gives you a different sense of motivation, a sense of work ethic. By watching that game, you see that in order to get where they are – an NCAA championship game in front of 20,000 – you have to work. It's something that inspires me."

Conversation comes easy to the 17-year-old, so easy you want to check his birth certificate. He's equally comfortable rapping with 52-year-old Illinois coach Bruce Weber or the woman behind the counter at Leno's Sub Shop as he is with best friends Colin Nickerson and Crandall Head, a pair of News-Gazette All-Staters.

He uses un-teenager words like "ulterior" and "sporadic" like he uses "cool." He asks for the correct word usage – "Further? Farther? Further?" – when predicting how far Illinois will advance in the 2011 NCAA tournament. He can discuss the details of Deron Williams' NBA contract – or the crossover dribble used by his favorite player – as easily as he discusses Waukegan's gang problem or the future of Illini basketball.

"At least a Final Four appearance. At least. I wouldn't put a national championship past us," says Richmond, who would be a UI freshman for the 2010-11 season. "I think we can compete for a national championship. Depending on who we bring back from the team now, that makes it even better."

He's bold, but it doesn't come across as bravado, just what he believes.

"Is Tizzy there when I'm there?"

Mike Tisdale would be a senior when you're a freshman.

"So Tizzy will be there. Mike Davis will be there?"

Yeah, he'd be a senior, too.

"Wow. Will Demetri be there?"

For one season, with you.

"See what I mean? That's crazy. Even if I don't go there and start right away, we're reloading off the bench. You can sub me in for Mike Davis. You can sub Brandon (Paul) in for Demetri. You can do anything you want. Coach Weber, he's going to have options. We're just going to reload with talent. It's just scary, man. It's just scary what we can do. I think nothing less than a Final Four appearance. Nothing less."

* * *

The Waukegan gym was built in 1921, and the old crackerbox is awesome with age. The vast, dark locker room next to the gym was not so awesome – until supporters took baby steps to remake a basketball program that's seen three coaches in the past three years.

What is now the coach's office is simply an extension of the showers, with a sheet of paneling used as a partition. Players used to hold pregame meetings next to the toilets, until a volunteer assistant built 20 wooden lockers by hand.

"We had team dinners just about every Thursday in the locker room, except when our basketball budget was flat broke," Ashlaw says. "A couple times some people in the community chipped in and said, 'Let me buy it this week.' All that stuff helps."

Waukegan finished 27-5, a school record for wins, with a loss to Chicago Whitney Young in the Class 4A state championship game. The Bulldogs became the community's team.

"The city felt like it had lost its edge," says Richmond, who averaged 20.1 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.3 blocks. "We had a mission to transform the city."

The new locker room is an example of what the program is and what it wants to be.

A clipped basketball net from a Class 4A sectional – the universal sign of a championship won – hangs in Richmond's locker next to his No. 23 jersey.

But as a lone cockroach scurries over a sneaker on the floor, you're reminded there's a long way to go.

"In any community you see problems. The basketball team, I can say, we represent the community, whether that's the good Waukegan or the bad Waukegan," says Richmond. "That's us. That's a part of who we are. After we did have some success, you kind of feel that the town isn't so grim. It's not so gloomy and gray. There was some joy. People that are into some negative things, I think it gave them a different perspective."

* * *

Celebrity arrived early for Richmond, who "signed my first autograph after my first varsity game," he says, shaking his head. "I was 14. It was my freshman year of high school."

Veteran talent evaluator Joe Henricksen of Chicago's City/Suburban Hoops report calls him the most influential Illinois recruit in two decades, and Richmond can sign a national letter of intent in November.

"I'm firm. I'm solid," Richmond says of his commitment. "You don't find family like the Illinois family. It's crazy. A lot of players I know on the circuit, they tell me about their experiences with their colleges, and they tell me they only visit colleges a couple times, and they talk to coaches on a sporadic basis. But one thing I've really learned about the Illini fan is they're actually a family. The players, the coaches, the trainers, the former players."

His pledge didn't waver when the man who recruited him to Illinois – former UI assistant Tracy Webster – became an assistant at Kentucky.

"I swear," he says. "I have not talked to Tracy one single time since he left."

Webster's replacement at Illinois, 28-year-old assistant Jerrance Howard, glued the relationship when it could have been severed.

Richmond says Howard is "like a brother to me" and he refers to Howard's newborn son as "my nephew."

"Coach J is a part of my family," Richmond says.

And he says the only way his commitment would be in jeopardy is if Howard left for another job.

"That's something where I would have to sit down with my family and reconsider," Richmond says. "I still love the Illini. I still want to have success with them in the future. If coach Jerrance left, I would have to reconsider. Not that I will totally switch or totally stay, but that's something I would have to reconsider. He's one of the biggest reasons why I actually do love Illinois so much."

On an unofficial visit in the fall, Richmond and Howard whizzed through the UI campus on a golf cart. One talking point was how long Richmond will stay at Illinois.

"I always talk to 'J' about it. We think about two (years). One would be great, if I'm in a position to go. And I think I would go," Richmond says. "At the same time I want to get that polished game from college. You know how college seems to polish peoples' games? You see it in guys like Hasheem Thabeet, Tyler Hansbrough. They really polished their game in college. For me, two or three or maybe even four (years), that wouldn't hurt. But if I have the chance to go, I would take the opportunity, because it doesn't come around too often in life."

A frightening incident to start his junior season showed why he wants to reach the highest level ASAP. Richmond woke up with a sharp chest pain, and his mother rushed him to the hospital. He says there was a tear in his esophagus – "The doc told me it happens in tall, thin males" – and Richmond was hospitalized overnight.

"It was scary because I didn't know what was going on," he says. "I couldn't eat anything. It came to the point where all I could do was put water in my mouth, swish it around, spit it out. It was the hardest thing, the most pain, I've played through."

Richmond plans on returning to Waukegan as a senior. That could change if academic concerns threaten his college eligibility and turn him to prep school. He's taken notice that fellow UI recruit D.J. Richardson seems to have benefited from a year of prep school and high-level basketball.

"School's good now, man. The first two years were extremely tough," he says. "I was caught in this mode of 'superstar athlete.' I was caught in this mode of waiting to see if my name was in the paper and getting down to school and being 'J-Rich.' These last two years are the biggest years for me.

"Situations may arise where I may have to take a different path. But as of now, I'll be back at Waukegan."

* * *

With the spotlight of being the state's premier prospect came a new set of challenges. He's criticized as often as he's praised. His drive has been questioned, partly because he's so smooth it appears he's not trying. And take this article, for example. Even as Richmond is honored with the state's oldest Player of the Year award, he's asked why he earns so many technical fouls.

"It depends on what the (technical) is for. Sometimes I get techs on purpose," he says. "I watch how the game is going and if one of my players is getting beat badly and we're not receiving the call, I'll just put something in the ref's ear. Not to be arrogant or malicious, just to show my teammates I'm there for them.

"For instance, the Maine South game (Richmond had 29 points and 14 rebounds). One of their players was elbowing Colin (Nickerson). I picked him up and gave him a little toss. I knew that tech was coming. I told Coach Ashlaw, 'This one's on me.' And I'm fine with that. I didn't want them to think they could come into our gym and attack us. I would never do anything malicious or to show people I'm a badass."

Richmond acknowledges the criticisms – justified or not – are part of the deal.

"If they don't criticize you, that means they don't expect anything from you. If they point out your flaws, that means they know you know the right way to do things," he says. "When I hear my name in a negative light, it just makes me want to prove to people that I'm not that way. I want to prove to them that I am what I am – a good, upstanding 17-year-old kid. I don't hate the criticism. I enjoy it."

Says Hamlin, the school's principal, "You put that kind of pressure on a kid, and it's going to come out at some point. In general I think he's handled it very well."

"From a pure talent perspective, Jereme Richmond could certainly be on the list of the all-time greats in this state before he's through," says Henricksen, who has covered the Chicago prep scene for 15 years. "However, to be considered as an all-time great in this state and mentioned in the same breath with those type of players. ... Does he have the fire inside to maximize those abilities? Those all-time greats did, and their teammates would feed off that."

The on-court persona is what the public sees. What the public doesn't see is Richmond being forced to change his cell phone number "every three months" to avoid Chicago's basketball leeches.

"Sometimes it has been a college recruiter saying, 'Call so-and-so,' and then they'll hang up," he says. "I don't want to take any chances. I just change my number so the people that have my number are good people. They're people that don't have any ulterior motives."

The agendas are many, the motives sleazy. Close friend Crandall Head, another UI recruit, has witnessed the same. Head was looking to transfer out of Rich South after his freshman season. One coach in the Chicago Public League promised he would play on ESPN last season – if he transferred to their school.

"A lot of people have offered me things. Nice things. I don't want that. Gifts, rides. That's why I change my number," Richmond says. "It's never been any agents or colleges offering me anything. Guys in Chicago will say, 'I can do this for you. I can get you here.' Those are the kind of people that don't have a place in my life.

"People who try to get in your life early, most times, are in it for the wrong reasons. You have to weed those people out."

* * *

Principal Hamlin describes the scene as "organized pandemonium."

Before a packed crowd of 4,000 – "Let's say 3,500 to keep the fire marshall happy," Ashlaw jokes – Richmond had drained a halfcourt buzzer beater to beat Warren 71-69 in a sectional final March 13.

"He had one foot on either side of the halfcourt line," Hamlin recalls, pointing to the spot on the court inside the Waukegan gymnasium.

"All I could think was, 'Get to the spot on the court where I know I can make it,' " Richmond says. "And that's the exact spot I was looking for."

The immediate impact: Waukegan students rushed the floor and soon sold out their allotment of state tournament tickets in 45 minutes. The overall impact: "There was real joy on students' faces," Ashlaw says. "They felt like they were a part of something bigger, something successful."

Really, Waukegan mirrors its star athlete. There's good and there's bad, the new lockers with the cockroaches, the title-game run with the drug-sniffing dogs, the mature intelligence with the iffy grades, the NBA promise with the technical fouls.

Mostly, there's so much potential on both fronts, and it makes you want to see them succeed.

pklee@news-gazette.com

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