Boys Basketball: Bob Krahulik takes coaching reins at Plainfield North

It was about 20 years ago when the Joliet-area basketball community became acquainted with Bob Krahulik, who recently was named boys basketball coach at Plainfield North.

He played a bang-up point guard for coach Pat Klinger at Joliet Junior College and was named the MVP of the national tournament when the Wolves won the 1994 NJCAA Division II title with an 85-80 victory over Owens Tech of Toledo, Ohio. Krahulik scored 18 points and had seven assists in the championship game.

A year earlier, he was a mainstay on the Joliet Junior College team that finished fourth. He went on to play for two years at the University of Toledo.

Krahulik coached on the staff at his alma mater, Nazareth, for five years and was working as a stock trader when he decided to change professions. He had been away from coaching for nine years when he became a teacher and joined Nick DiForti’s basketball staff at Plainfield North — first as a volunteer varsity assistant and then last season as the sophomore head coach.

DiForti, who played varsity ball at Nazareth when Krahulik coached there on the sophomore level, got an opportunity shortly before this school year began that he thought he could not pass up. He was hired as Joliet West’s coach, replacing Luke Yaklich.

“It caught me by surprise,” Krahulik said of DiForti’s move. “Once I heard he got that job, I went right to our AD (Ron Lear) and talked to him.”

Krahulik, a recent inductee to Nazareth’s Athletic Hall of Fame, was hired, and he is eager to get started. He also is North’s sophomore girls volleyball coach, so these are busy times.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said of the basketball gig. “Once I became a teacher, I knew I wanted to be a head coach somewhere.”

Krahulik guided the Tigers’ sophomores to a 20-5 record last season, when then-sophomores Trevor Stumpe and Jake Nowak were varsity mainstays. Stumpe, in fact, averaged 15.2 points. So that bodes well.

On the flip side, North will be young, with Isaiah Webster and Abdallah Mitchell the only seniors. Talented sophomores Kyle Speas, Kevin Krieger and Zack Jarosz were with the varsity in summer play.

“We should be good the next couple of years,” Krahulik said, adding the Tigers may look a bit different than they did under DiForti.

“I want to be more uptempo, pressure more,” he said. “I want to get out and run. We’re not going to run as many sets.

“On paper, we should do well. We have a few guys who have been on varsity for a while now. But we’ll be relying on a lot of new guys to the varsity level, so we’ll have to see how these guys all come together.”