By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
Brad Dalton doesn’t often wish for anything but the best for his high school alma mater.
That could change this weekend.
Dalton is the volleyball head coach at Decatur St. Teresa, which is one of the four schools that have qualified for the Class 2A state tournament.
His high school alma mater is St. Joseph-Ogden, which is another of the four schools that have qualified for the Class 2A state finals.
The two-day tournament will be played at Illinois State University’s Redbird Arena, starting on Friday.
St. Teresa and SJ-O are on opposite sides of the bracket, so if they play this weekend, it would be in a Saturday trophy game, either for the state championship or for third place.
The topper: Dalton is still a St. Joseph resident.
“I love St. Joe,” Dalton said. “Years ago, I wanted to coach at St. Joe.”
That quest came when he was just getting into coaching and didn’t yet have a resume that included three consecutive 20-win seasons at St. Thomas More and now back-to-back state appearances at St. Teresa.
Dalton hasn’t kept track of how he has fared against his alma mater, but said, “we’ve had pretty good matches over the years.”
One of those came in the season-opener for each school back in August. St. Teresa posted a come-from-behind three-set victory at SJ-O.
If a rematch occurs on the final day of the season, Dalton said, “I don’t know that there would be a lot of (additional) pressure.”
The stakes will be plenty high as each school would be seeking a successful end to the season.
Coaching wasn’t in Dalton’s playbook after graduating from SJ-O, where he was an all-conference baseball player.
“I started playing with some friends in my early 20s,” Dalton said.
The group participated in weekend tournaments, often venturing into the Chicago area.
Soon the destinations were expanded.
“We played all over the country,” Dalton said.
One of his teammates was ex-Illini Sandy Scholtens Hamilton.
Through that connection, Dalton entered the world of coaching when Hamilton and ex-Parkland College coach Brenda Winkeler started the Champaign-based Prime Time club program in the late 1990s.
Dalton even helped serve as a director for a short stint after Winkeler was hired as head coach at a Division I program.
While raising his children, Dalton stepped aside from coaching.
“I quit until my nieces were in school at Heritage,” Dalton said.
He was asked to assist at a practice with a fifth- and sixth-grade team, and shortly thereafter was given a chance to take over the high school program.
“It took a while for them to talk me into it,” Dalton said.
Once he was convinced, he hasn’t stopped. In the fall of 2008, Dalton started a four-year stint at Heritage.
This season marks his 12th as a head coach and the 11th in a row with a winning record.
His teams have won more than two-thirds of their matches. Last year’s St. Teresa squad placed third at state.
“Coaching is more than teaching girls how to play volleyball,” Dalton said. “You develop relationships and make an impact on some kids for life.
“I still have communication with some girls I coached in the late 1990s.”
Entering the state semifinals and a Friday 1:30 p.m. match against Rockford Lutheran (35-5), Dalton’s high school career coaching record is 285-139.
St. Teresa’s match will follow one at noon between SJ-O (36-4) and Breese Mater Dei (30-9). Both are schools that Dalton’s 35-5 Bulldogs have beaten this season.
He doesn’t have a timetable for how much longer he will remain active on the sidelines.
“It’s about time for a new challenge,” he said. “I don’t foresee myself coaching a lot longer, but I’ve got two great sophomores who have started from Day 1 as freshmen that would be hard to leave.”
Another of Dalton’s interests is bowling, a pursuit he hopes to return to more in the off-season. He has a number of 300 games to his credit.
Dalton’s day job is as the director of transportation for the Decatur Public Schools.
The keys to coaching include an inner desire.
“To do it, you have to have a passion for the sport,” Dalton said. “It’s a new challenge every season to build a team up to a high caliber.
“You put a lot of time in and get rewarded when you have a good group that makes it worth it, but (some years), it can be a burden on you psychologically.”
Once the high school season ends, Dalton won’t have much of a break from the gym.
He still coaches a club team for Champaign-based Peak Performance. Among his players is recent Bradley University recruit Kayla Hunt, from Tri-County.
