ETHS Spring Sports Preview

ETHS Harvests Homegrown Athletic Director

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Shani is Coming to Town

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ETHS Spring Sports Preview

Stories by Ronnie Wachter

The boys track team opens its season Friday at home, hosting the Dan Phillips Invitational. For a young squad, coach Willie L. May said this should be the best way to start.

"We're in what I call the base phase, where you're going slow," he said March 3.

Evanston Township has been in five warmup meets so far, and though scores were not kept at any, May said he had seen good performances. He said he had been moving racers in and out of various distances, looking to see which of his many new pairs of legs would fit best in each.

But once the Dan Phillips – and the first scored competition – arrives, May said he will focus on checking his team's conditioning level.

Three teams – all strong – await the boys lacrosse team in the first week of their season.

"Tough first week," coach Dave Allen said March 3, one month before an opening salvo that includes New Trier, Lyons Township and Glenbrook North begins.

The Wildkits went 11-5 in 2005, earning the eighth seed in the State tournament. Allen spoke of his hopes to go further in 2006, possibly to the championship.

"We'd like to be in that game this year," he said.

"This year, I think we're going to have a fantastic team."

The coach who has led four recent boys volleyball teams deep into the Illinois tournament in recent years has high expectations for the latest model.

Chris Livatino is coaching his last season for the Wildkits before moving behind the athletic director's desk, and he could go out strong: Four of last year's six starters are back.

"Everybody is a huge threat offensively," he said March 4. "We've got also a pretty stable passing group, so we'll have some better ball control, I think, than the year before."

The challenge for the early season should be finding a starting setter, he said. Evanston begins play March 22 at St. Rita and hosts its tournament beginning at 9 a.m., March 25.

The coach who led the baseball team to a regional title is back for his second season in the dugout. The two leading hitters are gone, though, and Ed Toledo said he was looking at many new faces for their replacements.

"The key for us is seeing how the young guys adjust to playing at the varsity level," he said. March 3. "Right now, that's one of the question marks."

Toledo plans to play sophomores in both the infield and outfield March 20, when they take on Gordon Tech. He said the Wildkits' strengths should be in their pitching and catching.

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ETHS Harvests Homegrown Athletic Director

By Ronnie Wachter
After years of looking, Wildkit fans may have the man they want in the athletic department.

Beginning this fall, an Evanston native and alumnus will try to convert his passion for his alma mater into victories, scholarships and turned tassels.

The Board of Education hired Chris Livatino, boys and girls volleyball coach and history teacher, to become Evanston Township High School's athletic director toward the end of February.

After having four ADs in the past three years, ETHS will have, beginning July 1, a coordinator who once wore the orange and blue himself. "I've grown up in Evanston," Livatino said March 4.

He comented that he understood the expectations that are bound to come once a bred Wildkit is leading the sports again.

He also said he would be ready for them. The former ETHS volleyball and football player said he knows the school's community, cultures and coaches – some of whom were there during his student days.

He also knows the school's reputation and tradition – and expects to build on both.

"We've got kids that are very dedicated to their sports," he said. "We've got an incredible winning tradition at Evanston."

Fans should not expect drastic changes in 2006-07, Livatino said, as all coaching positions look secure at the moment and no program cuts are on the horizon.

Opportunities for improvements abound – but all will require money, which Evanston Township is just as short on as most other Illinois schools.

Budget crunches forced the erasure of 20 paid coaching positions last year, and Livatino said finding a way to compensate the now-volunteer coaches was near the top of the priority list.

"That's a drastic cut," he said. "That's one of our biggest areas that we want to try to solve, is how do we get those coaches back and paid."

Other quandaries will include upgrading the bathrooms in Beardsley Gymnasium, maintaining one of the oldest fieldhouses in the area and promoting the lesser-known varsity sports at Evanston's middle and elementary schools.

The most important focus, though, could be on the football field's far sideline.

"One of the real important things for us to do is to put in a visitors'-side bleachers," he said.

Livatino will replace Richard Mahoney and John Riehle, the 2005-06 co-directors, who both decided to return to retirement.

The school had two other ADs in the two prior years. Livatino will leave his teaching and coaching posts for a one-year contract with the athletic department but promised this will be the first of several.

"One of the key changes is really just having someone there that's going to be there year after year," he said.

He said he had not had time to sit down with Riehle and Mahoney to study the ETHS budget.

With whatever resources he finds, though, Livatino said he wants to use athletics to build a greater sense of community at his alma mater, as when a recent boys basketball team rolled deep into the state tournament, and Wildkit students, parents, alumni and supporters all caught fire for them.

Such success lends itself easily to such excitement: Livatino said he wanted to create the kind of excitement that would put more students and teachers in the seats for the everyday competitions.

"It's just a matter of showcasing our talents," he said.

And athletics is a medium for students to learn about their talents, as they relate to competition, to teamwork and to education.

He said he felt Evanston Township's academic standard was "probably one of the toughest in the state," and that sports would remain, above all other considerations, a tool used to evoke classroom success and – for a talented few – a springboard to college.

"Athletics provides a wonderful opportunity," he said.

Livatino said he wants to maximize that opportunity, one Wildkit to another.

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