CHICAGO — A trio of Hyde Park middle schoolers thought it would be cool to take their love of playground basketball at recess and turn it into a real team at Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School.
So seventh-graders Gabe McGiver and Alex Noth and eighth-grader Ben Roitman earlier this school year approached principal Miriam Schiller with a grand plan: make a team, find a coach, create a mascot and a schedule and, hopefully, win some games.
All of that came true as the Stallions just finished their season 2-4 with a student-vs.-staff game set for Monday.
"It will be awesome to look back when I'm older and know that I was part of the first Akiba team in over 30 years," Noth said.
The team was coached by Justin Millner, a teacher at the school who has sports camp and coaching background. After the three students pitched their proposal — where they even designed the team's uniforms — to Schiller, they asked Millner to coach them.
They also fielded a roster of about a dozen students, many who hailed from as far north as West Ridge and Skokie, and found opponents in GEMS Academy, Chiaravalle, Ancona and Hillel Torah schools.
"It has been a great opportunity for me to see the kids in a different light since I am also a teacher for almost all of the players on the team during the school day and has helped build community throughout the entire school rallying around a cause that was started by the students themselves," Millner said.
The only other official sports team at Akiba is a fencing club. The hoops squad practiced once a week after school at Rodfei JCC and at recess breaks during the school day.
"We are like a real-life 'Hoosiers,'" McGiver said.
