What do Isiah Thomas, Cazzie Russell, Mark Aguirre, Johnny Lattner, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Garnett, the Judson twins and Yolanda Griffith have in common?
What do Red Grange, Lou Boudreau, Otto Graham, Alex Agase, Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, George Wilson, Doc Rivers and Quinn Buckner have in common?
Their numbers haven't been retired.
It is an uncommon practice for high schools to retire the numbers of their most celebrated athletes. Most schools don't have a policy regarding the matter. Some schools do not permit numbers to be retired.
''It was my decision,'' said Farragut basketball coach William ''Wolf'' Nelson, who personally retired the jerseys of Garnett, Sonny Parker, Ronnie Fields and Michael Wright.
''We talk about numbers around the city that should be retired. Sometimes it's just a matter of who is coaching at the time. They think only of current players and forget about the past stars.''
For example, Manley has retired the jersey of Luther Head, a star on Illinois' 2005 NCAA runner-up, but hasn't retired the number of Russell Cross, who led Manley to the 1980 state championship.
''I wanted to retire the numbers of some of my players ... Jamie Brandon, Efrem Winters and Rashard Griffith,'' said former King basketball coach Landon Cox, who produced state championship teams in 1986, 1990 and 1993.
''But they kept changing principals and never came to a decision. In fact, they even tried to do away with the history of King athletics. I don't know where the state trophies are.''
It all began in Centralia, an old coal-mining and oil-producing town in southern Illinois that has a rich history in high school sports and provided the impetus for Illinois' reputation as a basketball state.
Arthur Trout, the first of Illinois' great high school coaches, launched the town's grand tradition. For years, two basketball jerseys once worn by the legendary Dike Eddleman and Bobby Joe Mason and a football jersey worn by Lowell Spurgeon hung in the trophy room at old Trout Gym.
In recent years, two others were added--former major leaguer Gary Gaetti's jersey and Scott Engel's football jersey. Soon, all five jerseys will be hung in Centralia's new gymnasium.
''There is so much tradition in the area, including Mount Vernon and Pinckneyville, going back to the 1930s,'' said Centralia athletic director Roger Steig. ''They meant a lot to the school and the city. You can go back and understand that a lot of great athletes have come through here.''
But Centralia is a special place. Many schools don't even have halls of fame to recognize athletes who have earned All-State or All-America recognition. It took Fenwick more than 55 years to finally decide to retire Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lattner's jersey.
''There never was a policy prior to this,'' said athletic director Mike Curtin of Fenwick, which opened in 1929. ''The school has a hall of fame. It is a significant piece of what we do here, honor graduates, non-athletic and athletic. But we never had a big discussion about retiring numbers.''
Until the school's new president, the Rev. DePorres Durham, suggested that a policy should be formulated. Lattner was a no-brainer. In the future, Curtin said Olympic gold-medal winning diver Ken Sitzberger and NBA star Corey Maggette will be considered.
''Johnny is the touchstone of athletic achievement here. And he has stayed close to the school over the years. Sometimes we forget how big a celebrity he is. He stands for what we do around here,'' Curtin said. ''It is reasonable to retire the number of extraordinary athletes.''
Joliet Catholic, Providence, Evanston, New Trier, Thornton, St.Rita, Elgin, Proviso East, Oak Park and Lane Tech, which have long and rich traditions, have never retired an athlete's number. Neither has King, which has won three state basketball titles.
Mount Carmel has retired the numbers of two football players who died of heat exhaustion, Jim Barda in 1961 and Kevin Dowling in 1994, and basketball stars Antoine Walker and Lloyd Walton. Simeon has retired only one number, basketball star Ben Wilson, who was killed in 1984.
At Marshall, boys basketball coach Lamont Bryant retired Patrick Beverley's number, and girls basketball coach Dorothy Gaters, who has produced 17 All-Americans, retired the first one -- Janet Harris.
''I am in the slow process of establishing a hall of fame for our athletes,'' said Gaters, who succeeded the late Luther Bedford as athletic director. ''Not retiring George Wilson's number wasn't an intentional slight.
''We've had coaching changes. We'd start with Lou Weintraub's junior team that won 98 games in a row. Beverley was done without any consultation.''
In the early 1990s, then football coach John Thorne of Wheaton Warrenville South ''honored'' two numbers -- legendary Red Grange's No. 77 and Ron Grego's No. 31 -- but neither was officially retired. Both are worn today.
Grange didn't wear a number in the late 1910s and early 1920s and there were even times he didn't wear a number at Illinois. But his No. 77 was retired by Illinois after the 1925 season and he wore the famous number when he joined the Bears in 1925.
''The problem with retiring numbers,'' said WW South athletic director Bob Quinn, ''is you don't have enough numbers. Last year, we had 226 kids in the football program. You're starting to see varsity teams with 100 kids.''
WW South has retired only one other number, soccer star Charlie Fajkus, who was a high school All-American in 1973 and 1974 and a college All-America at Indiana in 1978. He later played for the U.S. National Team and was drafted by the Chicago Sting.
Carver, St. Joseph and tiny Hebron each has retired six numbers, more than any other school.
Last December, Hebron retired the numbers of the entire starting lineup of its 1952 state championship team -- Phil and Paul Judson, Bill Schulz, Ken Spooner and Don Wilbrandt -- and also the number of Howard Judson, the twins' older brother who led Hebron to the Sweet Sixteen in 1940 and later pitched for the White Sox.
Carver retired Russell, Terry Cummings, Tim Hardaway, Nick Irvin and Yolanda Griffith in basketball and Jason Avant in football. St.Joseph retired Isiah Thomas, Daryl Thomas and Deryl Cunningham in basketball, Andy Frederick in football and Jeff and Scott Berndt in soccer.
''High school is too early to retire numbers,'' said Thornton athletic director Billy Manning, who said District 205 (Thornton, Thornridge, Thornwood) has a policy prohibiting the practice.
''At a school like Thornton, which is over 100 years old, we'd run out of numbers with so many All-State players in football and basketball. I went to Grambling, which has four football players in the [Pro Football] Hall of Fame. But coach Eddie Robinson had a policy against retiring numbers.''
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