The similarities are eerie.

A head coach who wants to push the basketball.

A sophomore point guard on a senior-laden team.

A senior who’s attracted Division I interest.

A team that’s won at least 20 games and will try to win a regional on its home court.

The Rantoul Township High School boys basketball program hasn’t experienced a season like the current one since the winter of 1989 and 1990.

That’s when head coach Mike Novell’s “Nasty Boys,” a slogan the gregarious Novell coined before the season, played to near-capacity crowds every night using a style of play that energized the community and its players.

Much like current RTHS head coach Brett Frerichs is doing now as the Eagles approach their regular-season finale on Friday night at Pontiac.

Frerichs, of course, has personal experience he can lean on from that 1989-90 team that went 21-7 and won the school’s first regional since 1971.

He was a senior guard on the team, the Eagles’ three-point marksman who was third on the team in scoring behind senior standout center Donnell Bivens and a talented sophomore guard in Kareem Richardson.

“I was one of those role players,” Frerichs said. “We had Donnell and Kareem. We scored a lot of points. With that being said, we were driven. I don’t think I really looked back on the season until a year later because if it wasn’t the holiday tournaments we were trying to win, it was the Big 12 (Conference) championship.”

‘Everybody was talking about RTHS basketball’
The Eagles finished in a tie for second that season in the Big 12 behind eventual league champion Bloomington, but RTHS avenged that by defeating Bloomington 70-57 in a Class AA regional semifinal on the Eagles’ home court.

Ironically, that game took place Feb. 28, 1990. Twenty-two years later, the Eagles will open up with a regional semifinal on that same date on the same court.

“It was one of those environments where everybody was talking about RTHS basketball,” Bivens said of his senior season. “Even members of my family, when they went places, people would mention me or the team to them, and how they thought our next game was going to go. It was one of those things where everybody was talking about it. It’s interesting because little things like that actually pull a community together. The common denominator becomes the love for the school and the team.”

The same has happened this season. Frerichs, in his second season leading the program, said he can hardly go anywhere in town without either getting asked about or hearing a comment about the 2011-12 team.

“I get positive comments about how it looks like the team has fun on the court and how we play hard,” Frerichs said. “A lot of positive comments, not just about my coaching — because who knows if those people will be around next year — but what’s encouraging is everyone has a positive comment to make. They have fun at the games, and our players are really representing the school. The average fan knows that a lot of this is talent, but the good thing is they’ve bought in, and we’re doing this together and making a positive impact on our community.”

‘He bleeds purple and gold’
The ‘89-’90 team’s regional title triumph against Normal Community was the Eagles’ final regional championship until last year’s team put on a stirring run all the way to a 2A sectional championship appearance.

While last year’s run was exhilarating for the town and crowd support was overwhelming, the Eagles struggled through the regular season with a 10-16 record.

Not so this year. This year’s team is 20-5 heading into Friday’s game at Pontiac and has not had a losing streak of any kind this season.

The Eagles won the Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley Thanksgiving Tournament and have practically never stopped with a few exceptions along the way.

It’s made Bivens, a program coordinator in Dallas, and Richardson, an assistant coach on the Xavier men’s basketball team, keep tabs on their former school and what their former teammate in Frerichs has done to resurrect the program.

“I’ll be quite honest, I have a big bias for the head coach,” Richardson said with a laugh. “Brett’s a really good friend of mine, so I’m just really happy for a guy like himself. He bleeds purple and gold. For him to be able to get that program going in that direction is really exciting.”

Bivens agreed.

“What I like most about it is the fact that Brett’s doing it,” he said. “I think it would mean less if it was another coach, to be honest. I’m more connected to their success because of Brett. He’s actually coming full circle. He was there as a student, and now he’s a coach, mentor and father figure. I bet for him it’s pretty special.”

Frerichs said he pretty much had tunnel vision during his senior season on the court. Two decades later, he’s trying to take in what the Eagles have accomplished the past three months a bit more while also staying on top of preparing RTHS for its next opponent.

“I don’t think these guys realize how much fun it is right now and how much they’re doing for this community,” Frerichs said of his team. “They’ll look back one day and cherish it.”

‘It was really the hot ticket in town’
If RTHS can win its postseason opener next Tuesday against either Champaign Centennial or Urbana, it will play for a regional final on Friday, March 2.

Yes, 22 years ago, the Eagles played on that date in beating Normal Community 89-68 to win a regional.

“It was huge just in the sense the school hadn’t experienced that success in such a long time,” Richardson said. “Coach Novell did such a great job of transforming the style of play. It was really the hot ticket in town. He had the community behind it, and to be able to (win a regional) at home was definitely an awesome feeling.”

The Eagles’ season ended in their next game, a 95-81 sectional semifinal loss to Peoria Manual at the old Robertson Fieldhouse in Peoria. Bivens had 25 points and Richardson had 23 points in the losing effort.

Bivens wound up earning Big 12 Most Valuable Player honors for the season after he averaged 26.6 points and 13.2 rebounds.

Richardson earned special mention Big 12 All-Conference accolades after he averaged 13.7 points. Richardson is the school’s career leading scorer with 1,819 points while Bivens — who went on to play four seasons at Iowa State under head coach Johnny Orr — is second with 1,584.

‘It was all home-grown talent’
A few years after the ‘89-90 season, Chanute Air Force Base closed, forever changing the town’s and the high school’s dynamic. Enrollment dipped, and the diverse group of students at RTHS waned as well, Bivens said.

“Half of my friends were Air Force kids,” Bivens said. “I think about had they eliminated the base while I was still playing, the guys I grew up with wouldn’t have existed. They robbed the area of a lot of culture. I had friends from around the world because they were Air Force kids. Our team was always extremely diverse because of that, too. There were always new people coming.”

Frerichs said it was always interesting on the first day of school to see who the new students would be that had just moved in because of the base.

“Rantoul was almost like two towns with the base,” Frerichs said. “You were always curious which athletes were going to leave and what athletes were going to move in. You always waited until that first day to see who was going to be the next great football of basketball player. What was special about the ‘89-’90 team is it was all home-grown talent. Even with the base still open, it was a lot of guys that had played throughout the years together.”

‘They have to find a way to maximize the moment’
The ‘89-’90 team wasn’t just Bivens, Richardson and Frerichs. Seniors Kevin Chipman, William Calbert, Darren Wilkins, Danny Meece, Chad Ideus and Kalvin Manning, along with juniors Meko Miller, Derek Busboom, Quenting Sprague, Kent Irwin, Tim Jackson, Rod Norman, Danny Galassi and Larry Mullins, helped springboard RTHS and the community to high levels of basketball fever.

“Considering how fast things were moving and how young, and sometimes immature, we were, we probably didn’t think as much about the community until the game was about to start,” Bivens said. “Then we’d see how crazy and packed the gym was. It was always a constant reminder because that gym would get extremely loud to the point where you can only see a person’s mouth moving.”

The current crop of RTHS players — like seniors Travis Britt, C.J. Morris, L.C. Franklin, Darian Dorsey, Jackson Carver, Ryne Worthington, Kelly Foster and Rashad White and sophomore point guard Johnny Jones — have experienced that sensation before.

They’ll most likely experience it again next week in probably the most-anticipated games RTHS will host since that ‘89-’90 season.

“They’ll never be this age again. They’ll never be with this group of guys again. They’ll never have this moment again,” Bivens said. “They have to find a way to maximize the moment, or they’ll be regretful later in their lives. It’s a chance for them to be able to tell their sons, daughters and grandchildren what they did.”
mdaniels@rantoulpress.com