Crim: Kreke’s influence on longstanding success of Liberty basketball program remains evident

LIBERTY, Ill. — The road to Liberty High School’s first appearance in a basketball state tournament championship game began in 1975, when Paul Kreke accepted the only job offer he had after graduating from Quincy College.

He became the head coach of a Liberty program that posted winning records only three times the previous 20 seasons, rarely reaching double digits in victories. The Eagles bottomed out at 1-24 three seasons before his arrival.

Just three seasons into his tenure, “Cinderella Liberty” stunned Quincy Notre Dame in the semifinals and top-seeded and once-beaten Payson Seymour in the championship game to capture the school’s first regional title in 1978.

Then, after a double-overtime loss to QND in the championship game of the 1980 regional played at Brown County, “Eaglemania” overtook eastern Adams County the following season.

Playing in the shadow of Quincy High School’s historic march to an undefeated Class AA state title, its first since 1934, Liberty reeled off seven consecutive improbable postseason victories to reach the semifinals of the 1981 Class A state tournament.

The Eagles came within a basket of playing for the state championship, eventually settling for fourth place, setting a then-school record for victories with 27.

It marked the first time a team from West-Central Illinois other than Quincy High or Quincy Catholic Boys/Notre Dame won a state basketball tournament trophy since Griggsville finished fourth in 1928.

And Liberty has never quit winning.

”When we started winning and getting to state, it gave a lot of young kids hope,” said Dion Neisen, a three-year starter and center on the 1981 team despite standing just 6-foot-2.

“I think what got the program rolling was winning the regional in 1978. Kids wanted to go out, they wanted to play basketball. Everybody loves a winning team. Still, who would have ever thought that we would make it to state?

“But we did, and people still talk about it today. I feel deep down it takes a team from a certain era to get things rolling. I think we had a lot to do with that.”

Until the Illinois High School Association expanded to the two-class system in basketball for the 1971-72 season, area schools rarely had a chance to get past powerful Quincy High in the regional, let alone dream of playing in the Assembly Hall — now the State Farm Center — in Champaign.

Even with two classes, Quincy Catholic Boys, later Notre Dame, often stood in the way of many smaller schools. The Raiders advanced to the state quarterfinals in 1972 and finished fourth in 1974 and were perennial favorites to contend for a berth in the Sweet 16.

Pittsfield reached the Class A state quarterfinals in 1980, then Liberty broke through the following season. It would be 10 more years before another area small school brought home a trophy, when Pittsfield won it all in 1991.

Todd Fox played on four Liberty teams that won 84 games during his career from 1983-86. He was in seventh grade in 1981 when everybody in Liberty got caught up in the underdog Eagles.

A fan of the Magic Johnson-led Los Angeles Lakers, Fox was gifted tickets by his mother to see is favorite team play the Kansas City Kings in Kansas City. The problem, as it turned out, was the NBA game was the same weekend Liberty was set to play in the state tournament.

Nobody had Champaign on their calendar.

“It wasn’t even a decision,” he said. “I went to Champaign. My mom couldn’t believe it. She asked if I was sure. I told her, ‘Yeah, the Eagles are going to state.’

“It meant everything. We looked up to those guys in high school. That’s what we wanted to be. The coolest thing, and it’s what I tell people is one of the things that makes Liberty so special, is those guys graduated and came back to watch us play in high school.”

Liberty won 21 or more games in six of Kreke’s final seven seasons at the school, winning 78 percent of its games, and 208 during his 11 years there. The no-longer-downtrodden Eagles played QND in the regional championship game for seven consecutive seasons, beginning in 1980, winning again in 1984.

“We all wanted to play Liberty basketball,” Fox said. “It didn’t matter what kind of team you had, that gym was going to be packed. That’s what you did. To this day, the reverence I have for Todd Neisen, Dion Neisen, Blaine Roe and those guys is incredible.

“When you see those guys today, there’s no question there is a bond. There was a certain expectation that you were going to be successful.”

Greg Altmix is the seventh coach for Liberty since Kreke left after the 1985-86 season to take a similar position at Hannibal (Mo.) High School. Only one, Dick Smith, who lasted one season as Kreke’s immediate successor, posted a losing record.

“The mark of a good program is how good that program carries on,” Kreke told me when he took the Hannibal job in April 1986. “I want this program (Liberty) to carry on.”

Liberty has carried on. There have been a host of 20-victory seasons and nine more regional championships.

The Eagles reached the Class A state tournament again in 2005, finishing fourth with a 30-4 record. After the IHSA expanded to four classes, they won 30 games and placed third in Class 1A in 2016. And then there was this season, another 30 victories and a second-place finish.

But like the first girl you ever fell in love with, there remains something special about the 1981 Liberty team. 

Fox, who went on to play four seasons at Culver-Stockton College, has been superintendent at Augusta Southeastern since 2008. He obviously was pulling for the Suns to beat Liberty in the super-sectional last Monday night in Jacksonville.

Once they lost, however, he again became a fan of his hometown Eagles.

“I was telling someone after that game, the Liberty basketball program is built on a foundation of rock because of Coach Kreke and those players (in 1981),” he said. “The players today may not know it, but they should. Coach Kreke didn’t coach one game in that new gym, but he built it.

“I always felt like Coach Kreke was ahead of his time. Not in terms of Xs and Os, but in relationships. He understood relationships and he understood kids. There’s an orange ball and you’re trying to put that orange ball through the basket, but he realized we were kids trying to grow up.

“He believed in me before I believed in me. I wouldn’t be where I am without him.”

And the Liberty basketball program wouldn’t be where it is today without Paul Kreke and the team 41 years ago that captured the imagination of a community and laid the foundation for future generations of success.