Suburban Life Athlete of the Week: Tyler Fawcett, Wheaton Warrenville South, basketball, senior

Name: Tyler Fawcett

School: Wheaton Warrenville South, senior

Sport: Basketball

Why he was selected: Fawcett scored 18 points in a 67-36 win over Batavia and 13 points in a 40-28 win over Lake Park, both game-highs, for the Tigers, who improved to 16-1 on the season. Fawcett was voted by readers as the Suburban Life Athlete of the Week. Here is his interview with Sports Editor Joshua Welge.

Welge: Beating Batavia and Lake Park, two of your closest competitors in the DuKane Conference, how big was that?

Fawcett: That was definitely huge. We were focused on each game one at a time. Once we beat Batavia by a good amount, we were riding some momentum. We were excited to play Lake Park. It came down to not taking anyone lightly and working and practicing and playing hard.

Welge: If somebody would have told you before the season your team would be 16-1 right now, what would you have thought?

Fawcett: Me personally, I don’t think I would have been surprised. I know the guys we have, the talent we have and more importantly the willingness to work our tails off and play with everything we got. I know we have a special group of guys. I get how other people might be surprised, but knowing what goes on in our program, I’m not surprised.

Welge: You were hurt before football season, right? When were you able to return?

Fawcett: In our scrimmage, I broke my collarbone, had to get surgery, I missed the entire football season, which was a bummer. The first thing I was really able to do once I got cleared to move my arm above my head was shoot a basketball. I knew I was done with football, so I paid more attention to basketball. I stayed after football practice to shoot. Something like that, you don’t realize how much you miss it. I was cleared two to three weeks before basketball season started, right after our football team lost the playoff game to Brother Rice.

Welge: What are your goals for the rest of the season?

Fawcett: Obviously winning conference is the first milestone. We are playing some good nonconference teams the rest of the season. We are playing Curie, we are playing Orr, we’re in the works to schedule a game with Leo. We will be hosting a regional, so hopefully we win a regional, get a plaque for that and then on to the sectional and play Glenbard West. I have the utmost respect for those guys. I’ve played basketball with those guys since I was little. Our goal is to get past that game and go down to state.