With Flaherty, Mt. Carmel hopes to put hoops on top

When you think of Mount Carmel, the sport that pops into your mindis usually football. The Caravan has won 10 state championships andproduced such NFL players as Philadelphia Eagles quarterback DonovanMcNabb and Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive end Simeon Rice. Theprogram is one of the legendary football ones in the state.

But if you ask Mount Carmel football coach and athletic directorFrank Lenti what the school is known for athletically, he'll be thefirst to tell you that Mount Carmel isn't all football.

"It's a matter of one sport enhancing the others," Lenti said."Outside people see this or that, but I want us to be a strongathletic program."

The Caravan also have had success in hockey, wrestling andbaseball.

The Caravan's baseball team was a state runner-up last year andalso went to the Elite Eight in 2003. The wrestling program won threeconsecutive Class AA team titles from 1992-94, and were runners-up in1998 and 2002.

And now the South Side school is gearing up for success inbasketball after hiring Mike Flaherty, an Illinois Basketball CoachesAssociation Hall of Famer and a coach who has won 592 games, lastweek.

Flaherty comes from Thornridge, where he compiled a 414-191 recordfrom 1984-2006, and recently announced his retirement as the school'sassistant athletic director and head boys basketball coach. He ledThornridge to the Elite Eight in 1989.

Flaherty replaces coach Mike Angelidis, who resigned after fourseasons to move to Seattle with his family.

Before his stint at Thornridge, Flaherty coached at defunct MendelCatholic, and was an assistant at St. Rita in the 1970s. Mendel was astate runner-up in 1982 under Flaherty.

Flaherty the man for the job

For Lenti, Flaherty was the only one on his wish list.

"I've known Mike since he was at Mendel, and I was leavingDistrict 205 [the Thornton, Thornridge and Thornwood school district]when he was going in," said Lenti, who coached football and baseballfor five years at Thornton.

"There was no selection process," Lenti said. "Mike was the onlyperson involved."

Mount Carmel has had success in basketball. The Caravan was thefirst non-public school to win a Class AA state championship in 1985.And in the mid-1990s McNabb, who played football and basketball atSyracuse, and current Miami Heat forward Antoine Walker molded theCaravan into a Catholic League power.

The pull of the past is not lost on the current Caravan basketballplayers, most of whom were sophomores this season. They are usingFlaherty's hire as motivation to do better than Walker and McNabbdid.

"Walker and McNabb are two special people who became successful atwhat they play," said Caravan sophomore power forward Steven Filer,who also plays football. "Even though Donovan plays football now, hewas a very good basketball player. I would like to be like them andbe good at both."

Sophomore guard Chris Heaney has heard the stories of Flaherty'scoaching success at Thornridge and knows it will rub off on the youngsquad.

"Our goal is always to win state, so those goals will stay thesame," Heaney said. "Bringing him in here with 500 wins, that alonewill help us greatly."

The past Mount Carmel greats of Walker and McNabb aren't lost onHeaney, either.

"We talk about how McNabb and Antoine Walker were the best playersto come out of our school," Heaney said.

Flaherty isn't one to come into Mount Carmel and start talkingabout changing the perception of Mount Carmel being a football schooland morphing into a basketball one. He wants the two programs to feedoff one another to have the basketball players look at the footballplayers and say, "I'd like our team to be just like theirs successfuland winning."

Stability the key to success

"There are schools that have both [football and basketball]backgrounds and we'll be able to do that," Flaherty said. "Successbreeds success. When you start losing, you expect to lose and thatmentality permeates a program. Sometimes when you have success, youexpect to win."

Flaherty thinks consistency is going to be the Caravan's key tosuccess. Turnover every few years doesn't help a program grow. Hewants to stay at Mount Carmel and build something they'll be proudof.

"You want to see kids be the best players and citizens," Flahertysaid. "I don't know the league that well anymore, but I'd like to seethe kids playing hard and unselfish. Winning will take care ofitself."

The players know, too, that Mount Carmel is known generally forproducing football championships. They want to change that as soon aspossible, and having Flaherty at the helm is only going to help.

"I want to have people come here for basketball, too," saidsophomore small forward Desmond Young. "I think he is really going tohelp us because we're young and we want to get to know him."