By FRED KRONER
People come. People go.
It is true in all aspects of life, but perhaps more so in the education profession than others.
Some young teachers start in smaller districts to get their foot in the door before they pursue jobs at larger schools.
Others teachers decide, after years in the classroom, to switch to administration, which often necessitates relocating to a different school.
Some coaches learn that, after a period of time, they wear out their welcome at a particular location and need a change of scenery.
This is a story about connections made while on the journey, how two people who happened to be at the same college at the same time from 1989-92 wound up at Mahomet-Seymour together and then – more than a decade ago – moved on to bigger and better things.
During the 2019-20 school year, no M-S athletic team has won a state championship, but a former Bulldog coach earlier this month guided his team to a state title.
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Scott Adreon and Dave Yates were basketball teammates at Elmhurst College before graduating, and going their separate ways in 1992.
Adreon, who is now in his fourth year as principal at Dunlap High School, was ultimately hired in 1999 by the Mahomet-Seymour district, where he was a high school assistant principal and athletic director during his seven-year stint.
Yates had several stops along the path as he was getting established in a career that he envisioned while a student-athlete at Elgin St. Edward.
“I felt since my sophomore year of high school that I wanted to be a coach,” Yates said. “I had a very influential coach (Paul Maggiore) who made me realize that this is what I wanted to do.
“If I didn’t coach, I think I would have ended up as a policeman or fireman.”
Yates spent his first two years in coaching at Chicago Gordon Tech, working with the boys’ basketball team, followed by two years on staff at Lewis University.
From there, he moved to Arizona and coached at the high school level for six years in Phoenix.
Life circumstances changed. He and his wife Kathy became parents and it was more of a priority to live closer to their families in Illinois.
“We had two children in Arizona and, to be honest, we missed family tremendously,” Dave Yates said. “I had been a head coach for a boys’ team in Arizona and wanted to remain a head coach.
“I had job offers in the (Chicago) suburbs, but they were just math teaching positions.”
Yates reached out to his connections, and learned about an opening that enabled his family to return to the Midwest.
“My former college teammate, Scott Adreon, was the athletic director at Mahomet and they had a boys’ head coach opening,” Yates said. “The job at Mahomet gave me a chance to remain a head coach.”
Starting in the 2001-02 school year, Yates stepped in at M-S to replace the person who at the time was the winningest boys’ basketball coach in school history, Randy Sallade.
In Yates’ year on the sidelines, the Bulldogs compiled a 15-11 record.
His arrival brought two coaches into the Bulldog family. His wife, Kathy, was hired as the varsity volleyball head coach. Her team ended with a 16-21 record, an improvement of 10 wins from the previous season.
While the distance to family was drastically reduced, it still didn’t solve the underlying issue.
“What we realized during the year we spent at Mahomet was that we were driving up to Chicago constantly to be around family,” Dave Yates said. “Head coaching jobs in the suburbs are very hard to come by.
“Being an ‘outsider,’ be it from Arizona or Central Illinois, made it very difficult to be considered for open jobs.”
As the family pondered its options, one fact was clear: to live closer to family would mean relinquishing a head coaching position.
“I was very fortunate to be offered a job at (Palatine) Fremd as a math teacher and assistant coach to a newly hired boys’ head coach (Bob Widlowski),” Dave Yates said. “The opportunity was too good to pass up.
“It allowed us to be much closer to family and position myself within the district for future coaching opportunities.”
After one year at M-S, the Yates relocated to the Chicago suburbs.
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With Yates helping Widlowski, Fremd won a regional title their first year together (2002-03), despite finishing with a sub-.500 overall record.
During his four years working with the Fremd boys’ basketball program, Dave Yates did some soul searching and considered alternatives to coaching.
“I had been trying some administrative positions (dean of students and assistant principal),” Yates said. “I was considering applying for the athletic director’s job.
“After some consideration into how much time that would take year ‘round, I decided to stick to coaching.”
Kathy Yates, meanwhile, left the coaching profession for a job as a realtor. She now has 15 years in that venture.
She soon saw a path for her husband to regain head coach status when Fremd’s highly successful girls’ basketball coach, Carol Plodzien, retired after 34 years and 558 victories.
The idea of coaching teen-aged girls had never been forefront in Dave Yates’ mind.
“It was my wife who suggested it,” he said. “It was a great suggestion.”
When the 2006-07 girls’ basketball season began, it was with Dave Yates as the girls’ basketball head coach at Palatine Fremd.
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He had an auspicious start. His first girls’ team won eight games. And lost 21.
Yates wasn’t entertaining second thoughts.
“None whatsoever,” he said. “I knew that Carol had built this program into a state powerhouse. We are not a private school.
“Talent comes and goes at any public school. We had very strong talent in our freshman class. That year was very tough. I was used to winning, but I felt that we lost a bunch of close games, and we were not that far off.”
He was right. Starting with his second year coaching the Fremd’s girls’ program, the team increased its season win totals for four consecutive seasons.
“By the second season, we were competing for the conference championship,” Yates said.
In retrospect, it was a smart move by Yates not to wait for the boys’ basketball job at Fremd to become vacant. The 2019-20 school year was the 18th year for Widlowski as the head coach.
“I could have waited for boys’ jobs to open at other schools in the district, but to be honest, I didn’t want to leave Fremd,” Yates said. “I loved the school. The girls’ job opened and I thought this gave me a chance to stay at Fremd and be a head coach.”
He consulted with other coaches in the profession who had made the switch from coaching boys to coaching girls and was encouraged to make the changeover.
“Most of the coaches I had talked to told me that I would love it and not want to go back,” Yates said. “I think the biggest challenge was understanding that before you can get athletes to implement whatever system you are using, they have to trust you. Trust is earned and it takes time to build it.”
Yates tried to follow the formulas that other suburban coaches were using.
“I think I spent the first few years looking at other successful programs and trying to emulate them,” he said. “I looked very closely at what Derril Kipp was doing at Maine West and what Tom Dineen was doing at Buffalo Grove (while winning nearly 1,600 girls’ basketball games between them), and tried to use some things that were successful in their programs.
“It took a few years to figure out what worked best with girls. I think more structure was added in general. I think I have continued to tweak things as the years have passed.”
In his non-basketball hours, Yates has served as the Math Department Chair at Fremd for the past decade. He teaches Algebra II and trigonometry/pre-calculus.
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In his 14 years as the Fremd head coach, Yates has continued the tradition that Plodzein began.
— Fremd has won 10 Mid-Suburban West championships in the past 11 years;
— Fremd has won at least 20 games in 10 of the past 11 years;
— Fremd has qualified for state four of the past six years and has played in three championship games;
— This year, the unranked Vikings (30-7) ran the table in the postseason, winning the Class 4A state crown. Yates’ career record at the school is 328-115.
Some of those numbers could have been even better.
“Realize we lost in back-to-back seasons in the sectional championship to Rolling Meadows (which finished second at state both years),” Yates said. “Had one of the best teams in the state not been 3 miles from our school, we could have made it down five years in a row.”
His 2019-20 team had a combination of talent and luck on its side. Less than a week after Fremd won state on March 7, the IHSA canceled all remaining winter-sport championships.
When Yates thanks his lucky stars for the results, he is referring to more than the four squad members who have Division I futures or the 11 seniors on the roster.
“Seeing what transpired the following week only made me feel extremely blessed that we got our opportunity,” Yates said. “With what has happened, I feel extremely fortunate that we had the chance to have the experience that we had.”
Yates is confident that Fremd can maintain its position among the state’s elite in girls’ basketball.
“We have a meeting each spring with each varsity candidate and their parents,” Yates said. “We meet and discuss areas of strength and areas to work on. We also discuss possible roles on next year’s team as well.
“Our players, parents, and coaches are on the same page in terms of what each athlete needs to improve on. What has resulted is athletes improving each year. Kids who did not play the previous year burst onto the scene the following year.
“How does this happen? A plan is created and direction is given to our athletes. The key part is that the parents are a part of that meeting. We are all on the same page.
“We are very honest and are willing to accept suggestions to get the best out of their daughters. The most important persons in these meetings are our players. They put in the sweat and work to get better.”
Another major factor, Yates believes, is what was taking place behind the scenes, which he said, “was a ton of attention to our feeder program and camps.”
The coach continued: “We have an amazing feeder program organized by some tremendous parents. I have had the same feeder director (Mike Fullerton) for nearly the whole time I have been at Fremd.
“We have multiple teams at each age level. We run fall, winter and summer camps for our fourth- through eighth-grade athletes. We run shooting camps for our grade school kids.
“We have a sports camp for kids kindergarten through fourth-grade. Last year we had 50 girls participate in that camp. Bottom line, we start them young and give them tons of opportunities to improve. “
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Fremd’s closest call in the postseason this year was a 57-49 super-sectional victory over 2019 state champion Maine West, an opponent the Vikings lost to by 17 points late in the regular season.
All other tournament wins were by double-digit margins.
After reaching the 4A tournament at Bloomington’s Redbird Arena, Yates’ team dispatched Lake Park 46-34 in the semifinals and Lincoln-Way West 58-47 in the finals.
Yates is not worried about a potential drop-off.
“I hate to sound like Alabama football,” he said, “but here it goes: Trust the process. I think we have built a strong program.
“More opportunities will come. We have some really good talent coming up and in our feeder program. The opportunities will be there. With some luck, hopefully we can make it back again.
“We are not a private school. We can’t just collect the best kids within the area. We have to develop them and catch a few breaks along the way.”
His 2019-20 team exemplifies that view.
The players that Yates projected in the off-season would form the nucleus never played one game together.
“During the summer, I felt we could be one of the top teams in the state,” Yates said, “Then, Brianna Wooldridge transferred out a few days before school began.
“I felt like this team could still be very good, but we would have to change some things and roles based on the loss of Brianna. Then one of our top players (6-foot junior guard Ruthie Montella) suffered a knee injury followed very quickly by a bad ankle sprain.”
Based on the talent that he expected to be available, Yates had created a demanding schedule.
“We put together a killer schedule that included games vs. the best in Illinois (including Benet, eventual 3A state champion Simeon, Marist and Maine West) as well as top teams from Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee,” he said. “I did not expect to play those games without Brianna and Ruthie.”
Yates’ concern was the toll that the schedule would take on his team psychologically.
“It took November, December, and parts of January for this group to get healthy and for everyone to settle into the roles that you might have seen down state,” he said. “We do not build schedules to go undefeated.
“We build schedules to challenge our teams on a weekly basis. I was worried that the schedule was going to break us. In the end, I think it did what I hoped. The schedule sent out constant reminders that we needed to improve. It also gave us opportunities to see how good we could be.”
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Remember the Mahomet-Seymour connection?
It didn’t end with the departure of the Yates family from the community.
One of the assistants who worked with Yates on the Bulldogs’ boys’ basketball staff was Dan Ryan.
“The person I have been in touch with the most (from M-S) is Dan Ryan,” Dave Yates said. “Dan allowed me to come down to Mahomet and take a peak at the SAT tutoring program that Mahomet offers.
“We built a very similar system at Fremd with the help of Dan.”
People come. People go. But some things remain unchanged.
The connections that started more than three decades ago between two college teammates are still making a significant impact in the world of education as the networking continues and adds other individuals to the mix.
