Just like the old TV western show, "Have Gun, Will Travel", with Richard Boone, it happened in the life of one, Mike Lutz. Mike's title could have read, "Have basketball, will travel."
It all started for the cage lover, Mr. Lutz at ICS school in Morris. His grade school basketball teams were very successful, but when it was time for high school round ball time, he traveled to Joliet Catholic High School with his hot-shooting hand. Mike's brothers — Larry, Dave and Steve — all played at Morris High school.
Steve had a short time at St.Bede Academy in Peru, but ended up at Morris and was a standout football running back for the Redskins. Maroon and white fans were all thankful Steve came home, because he turned out to be one of finest runningbacks in the school illustrious
history.
All the Lutz boys did well at Morris High school. Mike and his family decided JCA was the right choice for him and he ended up having an outstanding career at the school, eventually
playing at the University of St. Francis. Mike is in the administration at Joliet Township High School currently and enjoys his work at the school.
While playing at ICS in Morris, the team played in the CYO conference. Mike's outstanding play caught the eye of coaches in Joliet and that's when the decision was made to enroll at JCA.
While at Joliet Catholic, he played with Terry Gannon (North Carolina State fame) and is currently on network television) and also Mickey Penoski and had fun, but did not really like the daily drive to school. In his junior year at the school, JCA went to the sectional championship game before losing to Kankakee Eastridge.
During his senior season, the school captured the regional title, but was unable to advance down the tourney trail. When talking about Terry Gannon, Mike said in a joking manner, "Now he's announcing ice skating and everything, and whenever he mentions the triple Lutz, he's got to think of me."
Lutz played basketball for four years and baseball and even played quarterback for two years in his younger days at Joliet Catholic and also played four years of basketball at the University of St. Francis for coach Pat Sullivan, who is retiring after this current season. In his senior year at St. Francis, the team was 24-7, with a loss to Quincy costing the squad a chance to go
to the Nationals. Mike said one the of the big wins for the year was defeating
Northern Iowa on Northern's home floor.
Even though Mike did travel to Joliet for schooling, he and wife Molly (Mary Margaret) did decide to have the girls stay in Morris for their education. Both girls (Katie and Kristen) had great careers in basketball at Morris High. Katie had opportunties to play college ball, but
decided not to pursue basketball. Kristen attended Kankakee Community College, but has since transferred to Iowa Wesleyan and is on the cage team. Kristen is a sophomore and the Iowa team is highly ranked in its division.
After his college basketball days were over, Mike was an assistant coach at Joliet Township, when the school had some powerhouse teams. He started his coaching at Joliet West and then the two schools merged to form one big school.
"Joliet went to state three different times (1994,1995 and 1998), so it was a lot of fun," Lutz commented. The 1995 team finished in fourth place. Mike coached the boys for 11 years before he began coaching his daughters' team in fifth grade at ICS. The transformation of coaching his daughters was not that bad, because the girls had been around Mike and sports growing up, so they were used to Mike's style.
Mike added, "We had a lot of success at both ICS and Morris High School."
Lutz helped coach Dave Harper and later Luke Windy with girls basketball at MCHS and accumulated several years on the local hardwood. He left coaching in 2007.
In 2006, Mike started as a Joliet Township Academy coordinator. He is in charge of Arts and Communication and also Human Services. He is in his 23rd year at the school.
When at St.Francis, he met his wife, Molly, who played volleyball and softball at the school. Molly hails from Griffith, Ind. The Lutzs' will be married 24 years this summer.
Mike still enjoys a good game of basketball and has participated in the Gus Macker tournament experience in downtown Morris. He also plays in a league at ICS that is called ICS-EX.
"We have players in their 20s to older who played like Kevin Callahan, Tim Ortiz and Bob Zumbahlen still play," said Lutz.
Mike and I started to laugh when I reminded him it is not a good idea to call Kevin old as he is a member of the Grundy County Sheriff's Department and maybe some day he will get stopped by Kevin on a county highway. Mike smiling, said he was only referring to Kevin's experience in sports. Kevin was an outstanding baseball player at Morris high school.
While in high school and college, the three-point shot was not established, so Mike missed a lot of points, as he fired in long distances. He averaged about 12 points a game in a slow-down offense at the time and he also put in about 12 points per game at St.Francis. He did make the 1,000 point club at St.Francis during his career.
One game locally he remembers was the ICS-Saratoga rivalry when he scored 39 points and fouled out and his team lost. ICS played in the CYO league and did not schedule other local teams too often. While at JCA, the team defeated Chicago St.Mel, which had three D-1
players on its team and that was one of Lutz highlights in high school. The Northern Iowa win was a big thrill at St.Francis. Mike graduated from ICS in 1978 and high school in 1982 and from college in 1986.
Being from an athletic family, he learned a lot from his three brothers. Larry was a standout in basketball (played at North Central) who lives in Florida, Dave excelled in baseball (and still plays hardball in Florida) while Steve was in football and currently is head of maintenance at Morris High School. Steve is also an excellent basketball official.
His parents are Jackie and Laverne Lutz in Morris. Mike loves to golf today and still loves a good game of basketball. He is currently a member of the Grundy County Board. Now Mike's travels are only for his daughter's basketball games in Iowa and family trips.