Manny's Mission

By Ben Joravsky

Manny Weincord is the dean of Chicago’s public school basketball coaches. For more than 30 years, he has coached and taught gym at his alma mater, Roosevelt High School in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago. Chicago Reader staff writer Ben Joravsky has been hanging with Manny and his Rough Riders for almost a decade. What follows took place in the 1991-92 season. It is adapted from Joravsky’s recently completed book manuscript, Tomorrow’s Still Sunday and Other Tales from Manny’s Gym.

Every year, Roosevelt made a 30-mile pilgrimage to the suburb of Northbrook for an exhibition against Glenbrook North High School. No one was sure how the tradition started—Manny knew someone who knew someone who knew the Spartans’ athletic director—but the game had become a high point of the Rough Riders’ schedule, if only because of the large and enthusiastic crowd. Northbrook is home to many Roosevelt graduates of the ’50s and ’60s, prosperous professionals who left the city years ago for bigger houses and better schools. They came out for the game each year, filling several rows in the bleachers and turning the event into an unofficial reunion.

Beyond that, there was the thrill of playing the Spartans, a carefully assembled and groomed powerhouse perennially ranked among the state’s best teams. This year’s squad was even better than usual, as it featured Chris Collins, the son of NBA great Doug Collins and an All-American guard who would go on to Duke University and...