When I walked through the doors of the gym at Village Bible Church in Sugar Grove on Monday evening to watch a practice session with the boys basketball team from Crossroads Christian, I was not sure what to expect.
This was, after all, a team comprised of local home-schooled high school students, which was not at all familiar to me. But I’d come to watch them play because they were a talented group. In fact, these young athletes are leaving on Sunday for Springfield, Missouri, where they will compete all week in the National Christian Home School Basketball Championship Tournament.
They are entering the competition at Missouri State University as the number one seed in 6A and number two seed in the 64-team Division One after winning regionals a couple weeks ago in Indianapolis.
Still, I have to admit at being blown away by the basketball I saw as I watched 15 or so varsity and JV players run through drills and scrimmages in that increasingly sweaty gym.
I was even more impressed after meeting head Coach Linton Ellis, a tall 45-year-old North Aurora man who came to this country at age 20 to escape a “dirt-poor” life in his native Jamaica, and whose frequent deep, rich laugh seems to belie the serious approach he takes toward his coaching duties.
“I hold their feet to the fire,” he said of his athletes. “I want to create a winning culture. I want to compete against the best and I want to win.”
Ellis insists he uses this “military-style” intensity as a coach because of the “love and respect I have for basketball” that took him out of a “rough situation and gave me the life I have now.”
After graduating from high school, Ellis was playing on a local Jamaican team “that was helping me stay out of trouble,” when a fellow countryman who had a basketball scholarship to Cedarville University, a Division II Ohio school, approached him about opportunities at his college.
That conversation paved the way for Ellis, at age 20, to enroll at Cedarville, which eventually led to three degrees, including an MBA from Michigan State University and a great job in Chicago with an international corporation.
His oldest son JD, now 18, was a freshman at Glenbard South High School when Ellis and his wife Jennifer, director of professional development in the accounting department at Northern Illinois University , decided to home school after DJ’s grades began declining from too much “gaming time” spent on the school-issued iPad.
After the couple and their three children moved from Wheaton to North Aurora a few years ago, Ellis took that leap of faith and started his own business, Tattyoou, which makes athletic compression sleeves and leggings featuring inspirational messages and logos. That, in turn, allowed him to take on the role of head coach for Crossroads, which has been around for over four decades, according to Athletic Director Doug Pearson, who has been with this home school group for 25 of those years.
Since Ellis took over boys basketball — the program last year rebranded and changed its mascot from Crusaders to CRU (Christ Reflected in Us) — the team has been on fire. Last year the varsity boys were runner-up at nationals after falling to perennial favorite Oklahoma City Storm, a defeat Ellis blames on “shell shock” that set in as the local teens played in front of a crowd of 6,000.
Ellis was not even all that happy with the regional win a couple weeks ago against a good Northwest Indiana team that had the CRU trailing by 14 points at the end of the first quarter. Although the boys pulled out a victory, the coach is concerned “our shooting seems to abandon us in big games.”
Their record this year is 30-2, and includes victories against plenty of IHSA teams such as Rich South, Somonauk, Elgin’s Westminster Christian and a couple of Chicago Public Schools. The CRU also beat the fall league teams for St. Charles North, Waubonsie Valley, South Elgin and Plainfield East, according to the coaches.
“Whatever IHSA team wants to schedule us, we will do it,” Ellis said, warning that those who think it will be an easy win “are in for a surprise.”
It’s not like Crossroads has never before experienced national success in athletics. Thanks in large part to Annika Albrecht of North Aurora, who went on to help lead the University of Nebraska to its 2017 NCAA Championship in women’s volleyball, the then-Crusaders claimed three home school national titles in girls volleyball.
Playing on the team is a big commitment for students, coaches and families, since home school programs schedule quite a few more games than public schools and have to travel further. Even conference games, Ellis said, can take them to Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. And when they aren’t on the road, “the team is either practicing or playing every day of the week.”
“If you want to be good,” he said, “you have to be committed.”
And that’s what this coach demands from his team.
While some home-schooled students and families— this year the team has members as close as Aurora to as far away as Matteson — may think of Crossroads as a way to meet P.E. requirements, noted Pearson, for many athletes it not only gives them the experience of being part of a winning program, it can take them to that next level of play.
For a couple of Ellis’ players over 6 feet 6 inches tall, those offers are already starting to come in. And while sophomore Davis Walker, a point guard who played for Waubonsie Valley before joining this home school team, may not have quite that height, he’s convinced he’s got what it takes to play college ball.
“I really see this as more competitive,” he said. “And when you are home-schooled there are less distractions so you can focus more on school and basketball.”
Julian Holland was on Oswego East’s team last year, and although he misses playing in front of larger crowds, particularly those crosstown rivalries, he likes the fact his new team plays more games, which means more fun on road trips.
“I also like the fact everybody here is so positive,” he said. “Coach is tough but for good reason. It’s intense but we also laugh a lot.”
Ellis, by the way, takes no pay for his efforts with this nationally-ranked home school team. “But even if I received a million dollars for this,” he said, “the challenge is the same. This is a blessing … this is my ministry.”
