Chicago Demons Basketball Program

(click on link for Merrillville HS webpage)

Merrillville HS 276 East 68th Place Merrillville, IN 46410

From Chicagoland area:  I-80-94 East to Interstate-65 South. I-65 South to 61st Ave, exit 255. Turn right onto east 61st Ave.  Turn left onto Broadway/Rt. 53 south 1 mile to 68th Pl. The high school is on the left. 

History does repeat itself. Billy Donlon is proof:  “When he was a little kid, maybe fourth, fifth grade, my wife Maryann used to take him after school to the Patten Gym on the Northwestern University campus,” Bill Donlon said of his son, Billy.  “There were all these college guys — everybody was older — and they’d be playing games and he’d walk in and tell ’em, ‘I got next ... I’m next!’ ”

Sometimes Billy’s older sister, Heather — by then a budding high school player who’d go on to college fame — was in the gym: “Everybody would turn and see this little kid. At the time I’d think ‘What are you doing?’ It was kind of annoying. But he was so hard-working, so self-assured, he had no doubt he could handle it.”  Some 20 minutes earlier, Wednesday morning, April 14, Billy Donlon had stood at the press conference podium as Wright State’s new basketball coach, replacing his longtime friend and mentor Brad Brownell, who’d just left for the Clemson job.

At 33, Donlon is the youngest head coach in the Horizon League and one of the youngest in NCAA Division I basketball. And while it was a proud moment for the family, it almost made for some heartfelt irony.  Although he acknowledged many in the crowd Wednesday, Donlon showed the most emotion — his voice wavering once — when he spoke of his dad and sister, who had made the trip from Illinois, and of his mom, who was back home under the weather.  Bill Donlon spent more than two decades as a high school coach, then five years as a Providence College assistant and seven more at Northwestern. “My dad’s the smartest basketball mind I have ever been around,” Billy said. “He’s just an unbelievable teacher. No one was more deserving to be a college head coach, but he never got that chance.”

As Bill, who recruited most of the Providence team that made the Final Four in 1987, then took an assistant’s job at Northwestern, explained it:  “As an assistant, you can’t afford the luxury of making too many mistakes. The most important thing is what I’ve always told Billy: ‘You have to stay with a winner. A winner will take you to the promised land.’ ... I left a winner to go to Northwestern — that was my mistake.”  Heather said their dad made sure his kids understood all variations of that concept: “Dad would tell both of us, ‘If you want to become better, you have to play against the best.’ ”

Growing up in Queens, N.Y., Bill took the same approach to his own playing career and rode the subway to some of the toughest neighborhoods in New York City, places where he found some of the best playground basketball competition.  Once at Northwestern, with his family living in the suburbs, he wanted Billy to hone his skills the way he had.

“When Billy was in junior high, Dad found an inner-city AAU team in Chicago that practiced in and around Cabrini-Green,” Heather said in reference to one of the most dangerous housing projects in America.

“Dad was working, so Mom had to take my brother and I remember the first times they went, she — and I don’t know if she’d want me to tell this — put pillows in the windows.”  Bill smiled: “She was worried about shootings.”

Instead of casualties, Billy and Maryann found something special. Vince Carter was the coach and he ran an after-school program that helped neighborhood kids with academic work and ACT/SAT preparation while using basketball as the carrot.

Maryann eventually joined the program’s board of directors and Billy — finding a grittier, more challenging style of hoops than back home — honed his talents while finding a lifelong friend in Carter, now a Chicago high school coach.

Billy went on to play at North Carolina-Wilmington, where Brownell was then an assistant. After brief stops as a college assistant at American and St. Peter’s, he played professionally for Avitos Giessen in Germany.

Brought in as a backup guard, he soon was playing 30 minutes a game and helped lift a 10th-place team into the playoffs. He was about to sign “a lucrative, two-year contract” with them when he got a call from Brownell, who was taking over as head coach at UNC-Wilmington in 2002. He wanted Donlon to join his staff. Facing what he calls “one of the toughest decisions of my life,” Billy called his dad.

Bill said: “I asked him just one question: ‘Billy, what do you want to do the rest of your life?’ He said he wanted to coach. My advice was that he had to give up playing. He had a chance to go with someone he knew. Someone who could be a winner.”

Billy remembered all this Wednesday, which is why his emotions welled up:

“Look, this isn’t just a son speaking highly of his dad. He’s a man whose ability to teach the game is second to none. My sister was 5-foot-2 and she went to Fordham and became an NCAA record-holder. She holds the all-time, single season mark for 3-point field-goal accuracy — over 56 percent.

“With me, I wasn’t a gifted athlete, but my dad showed me how to get the most out of my talent and taught me to work hard and from it good things happened.”

And so, Monday night, when he got the news from Athletic Director Bob Grant that he’d be Brownell’s replacement, Billy’s first call — same as it had been in Germany — was to his dad and mom.

“I call him all the time for advice,” Billy said. “I’ll certainly call him daily now. The only thing is, he might start getting tired of taking my calls.”

That will never happen. In this family, history repeats itself.

Just as before, Bill Donlon will be there for his boy.

The Demons 8th Grade team who won this weekend at Eisenhower HS in Blue Island.  The championship score was 39-30 over the Chicago Go-Getters.

The team includes: Lavandric Kirkwood, Nick Zartler, Ohiji Scott, Isaac Cuford, Darius Wesley, Dion Mayfield, Terrance Jones, Marquise Smith, Devin Weathers, LaVontae Sutton, David DJ McDaniel, Malachi Evans.

Please get fees paid!  All levels play in 5 Tourneys

There will be a change in tournaments for April 10-11

March 27-28  17U, 16U, 15U Illinois Spotlite,  Eisenhower HS/Blue Island

April 10-11  (A TOURNAMENT WILL BE ADDED LATER)

April 24-25  17U, 16U, 15U Nike Showdown, Merrillville, IN

May 14-15 16U Derrick Rose Spring Classic, Curie HS/Chicago

May 14-15 17U, 15U Midwest City Classic, UIC/Chicago

May 28-30 17U, 16U, 15U Nike All Ohio Red Showcase, Columbus, OH

Please get fees paid!  All levels play in 4 Tourneys

March 27-May 14U Beidler Spring League

April 10-11 14U, 13U ICON/Jaguars Tourney, Eisenhower HS/Blue Island 

April 24-25  14U, 13U, Play Hard Hoop Spring Slam, Libertyville Sports Complex 

May 14-15 14U, 13U Derrick Rose Spring Classic, Curie HS/Chicago

June 4-6 14U, 13U Old Gold Run N Gun Classic, Marist & Hales HS/Chicago