Much has been made of the decline of De La Salle, who used to be a solid program, even going so far as to defeat Mt. Carmel in 2017. However, I'm equally curious about their neighbor four blocks to thw south. In 2017, they opened the season with a shocking upset over Loyola, and they went on to dominate the remainder of their schedule on the way to the 5A championship. Since then, they haven't done much. Their last meaningful wins were in 2021, when they won a couple playoff games. This year, they're winless and have been outscored 359-24 against far below average competition. I haven't watched them play, but based on the numbers I'm seeing, this appears to be one of the worst teams in the state. What went wrong here?
What Happened to Phillips?
- Thread starter DirtySixThirty
- Start date
Coach left, funding disappeared from the Charter program they were apart of.
Interesting. During the general shift toward private schools in the past six years, were they hurt by their proximity to the south side Catholic schools?
Nothing to do with it. Solorio went from being competitive to an after thought to. They're was a very good youth league tied to their charter organization schools that funneled players to both schools. Phillips also figured out how to get the best kids at second tier CPS schools to transfer in and eventually started picking off kids from MC to. CPS took back over 5 years ago and downhill since.
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I was wondering about this the other day... Good Post!!! What became of their coach?
Am I remembering correctly that he's at Homewood-Flossmoor now?
Phillips got away with what Jackie Robinson West didn’t 
Troy McAllister was head coach. Figured out a way to take advantage (within the rules) of the schools enrollment policies and get the horses. Also managed to poach a few CCL kids in Phillips’ prime. He moved on to Sandburg and now HF with limited success.
Charter had different rules for admission. Charter had different compensation models for coaches. Charter had money for feeder programs for both Phillips and Solario. Charter was kicked out of CPS. Coaches left. Money dried up. Feeder programs died. Kids either graduated or changed schools. It's a super CPL thing, really. Find something that is successful, then screw it up. I know the argument is that the Charter wasn't a great organization, but a lot of those kids would've not been in school if it weren't for football. Obviously, McAllister was a good coach. Coaches matter everywhere, but so much more in the CPL.
Schools within CPS,enrollment rules vary from school to school which makes it harder to develop at those schools if you don't have the backing of the administration. Schools with good coaches and more lax enrollment rules easily pilfer the top players if you also have a decent academic reputation. At a school like where I'm at(Westinghouse), it's harder to get the better neighborhood athletes because we are much more stricter than say a Phillips or Simeon. We rarely even accept mid year transfers or incoming SRs.
You're correct about the funding and feeder programs, but AUSL managed Phillips and Solario; they were never charter schools. Instead of district network offices overseeing them like most CPS schools, AUSL managed them.
Hales was limping along with very low enrollment for years. Them closing with a couple dozen (maybe) freshmen, sophs and juniors to enroll elsewhere wasn't going to move the needle much even if they all chose the same school to transfer to. Besides, from a proximity perspective, the closest all boys Catholic high school to Hales was MC, not Leo.
Weber closed in 1999, 15 years before the former Gordon Tech rebranded and became DePaul Prep.
I know Gordon Tech was open when Weber closed but I meant if Weber were open today I wonder if that would cut into DePaul
Did he get in trouble at Sandburg for something too? Am I imagining that? Forgive me if I am wrong.
AUSL was great for the elementary athletes they had. They were the only CPS schools that had fully padded 11 man football in the city. I know when I was at Clark and Orr, we got a lot of kids from them
True story. Didn't want to get lost in the weeds about the 3000 different types of CPS schools.
Not much, if any. Different neighborhood. Different student body composition. Different vibe.
Lately, it's DePaul Prep that is doing the cutting in, drawing students from north and northwest side neighborhoods who otherwise would have gone to Loyola, Regina, Notre Dame, Pat's and Resurrection. Maybe Ignatius too.
With roughly 1,300 students attending DePaul Prep, that's 3.3 times larger than what Gordon Tech's enrollment was 15 years ago before beginning its academic partnership with DePaul University. Either DePaul Prep has grown the Catholic high school market, or they are cutting in on other Catholic schools. Probably some combination of both.
I still can’t get over the two back to back years Sterling made it to the semi finals finally beating some CCL schools to get there which almost never happens of course Phillips a CPL school was at their peak. It just had to be that particular time frame and it still chaps my *** to this day. lol
Also cutting into some of the Lane and local CPS enrollment too. If you look at some of the elementary schools listed on the rosters of their teams, you'll see plenty of CPS elementary kids
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