After 20 years at Neuqua Valley, steering the Wildcats boys basketball program from it’s inception to the present day – Head Coach Todd Sutton has 600 career wins.
How Did Sutton Get Here?
Dijon Knight: Can’t argue with the results. He has 600 wins now… under 300 losses. Those results really speak for themselves.
Dijon Knight is just one of hundreds of athletes who have come through the program. Like his former coach, he now dons a whistle and clip board as an assistant coach at North Central College. That’s where he coaches two other Neuqua alums.
Connor Raridon: “I remember getting to practice early and he was the first guy in the gym sweeping the floor and rolling the balls out. He had that work ethic that made it fun to play for a guy like that – who really wanted to work hard.”
Blaise Meredith: (Coach Sutton was one of the first people to see that I could be a really good player.) I came in freshman year and he just gave me a lot of attention and told me I could be better than I thought I could be. Told me how to improve my game, how to get shots up.
Connor Raridon and Blaise Meredith are now leading the Cardinals in what they hope to be a playoff bound season. But it was the playoffs of yesterday that they both remember as their favorite games under Sutton. For Connor – a birth to the sectional finals. And for Blaise an upset over 4th seeded Minooka, “My senior year sectional games were really exciting. You know the gym just gets so loud and it’s one of those high school atmospheres – it’s awesome. It’s one of the best things in the world.”
Meredith, “We were a play in team and no one expected us to win. And he just told us that we had to go and play defense and execute and we were going to win. And we did it and we were really hyped about that.”
With 11 wins in their last 12 games, Neuqua Valley could be destined for some more playoff memories – no surprise, under Todd Sutton.
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