![]() “It’s crazy to know that so many of my peers (Michelle Russell, Juvon McGarry, Yonel Jourdain, Shannyn Gillespie, Janis Foster, Tyrone Bell, Franz Calixte) are in the Hall of Fame, too. I just tried to emulate the better players I saw. At Evanston there was a guy named Tom Adamson a couple of years ahead of me and he was a helluva setter who I mirrored. “I was a goalie for the soccer team and even played some goalie for the water polo and lacrosse teams, so I guess I had good hands,” Gooden said. His prowess as a 5-foot-7 inch senior setter sparked the Wildkits to a 31-1 record, including a victory over Downers Grove South in the finals of the season-ending tournament at Niles West that crowned the unofficial state champ.īoys volleyball became an Illinois High School Association sanctioned sport in 1992. Now the successful women’s volleyball head coach at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Gooden will be remembered by fellow classmates as the guy with the good hands. He was a pioneer in the sport of boys volleyball, leading the Wildkits to an unofficial state championship and earning Player of the Year recognition as a senior. Now Gooden is a part of the most successful graduating class in school athletic history, joining seven other 1989 graduates as a member of the Hall of Fame. Ray Gooden found his niche in the Evanston athletic program in a sport that was still growing in the late 1980s. ![]()
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