Cornell University basketball player Chris Wroblewski still wonders what kind of basketball career Josh Bartelstein would have had if injuries didn't slow down the former Highland Park star. "I felt he was unlucky with dealing with those injuries," Wroblewski said. Now it's true Bartelstein did have a hamstring problem during his junior year at Highland Park High School (2006-07). And his sophomore season was lost to a broken ankle. "I had two screws in my ankle," Bartelstein said. "At the time it was awful. I wish I could have redshirted." You might think this player would have hung his head…

It's really every football player's dream.  You are sitting in a classroom when, all of the sudden, your football coach comes to class and asks the teacher to talk with you. Uh-oh, is some equipment missing? Not in this case. It was Highland Park High School football coach Kurt Weinberg passing the news to student Scott Smith that Bowling Green University wanted to offer him a scholarship to play football in Ohio. "I was wondering if he was kidding me," Smith recalled. "I had no idea I was that good in football. I really thought of myself as a basketball player." Sure, Smith was a good …

Former Deerfield quarterback John Lindquist went on to play full back at Michigan State in the 1960s. His son, Davy, took note. There is a big photo of Davy's dad in a football uniform in his boyhood home. "My mom told me about him," Davy Lindquist said about John. "It's a point of pride. And that's I all ever wanted to be." Read more: Vote for the Patch Athlete of the Week But then the word came from the family. No, Davy Lindquist wasn't to play football when he was young. His family thought he might get hurt (or, perhaps, that, because of his size and skill, he might seriously hurt others…

It's not like Mark Sider was born with a golf club in his hands. He didn't even pick up the game until he was a teenager. But from the early 1990s to 2009, golf was a huge part of his life.Then he got an idea while working on his golf game in Arizona. "I was doing a lot of yoga," Sider said. "I was eating healthy. I didn't drink Gatorade. I tried Coconut Water but I didn't like the taste." So he formulated a sport drink highlighting coconut water. Now back in Highland Park, Sider, and his brother Jon, are owners of the Greater>Than Company, which produces an all-natural drink that contains …

Chuck Schramm recently stepped back in time to chat about what may have been Highland Park's first notable girls athlete.  Put it this way: in 1983, Highland Park athlete Susie Brugioni was all-conference in volleyball, basketball and softball. "She turned it around," Schramm said. "Girls didn't play sports back then. She was an all-around athlete. She was good as the boys. She would have played football if they would have let her." Brugioni is a social worker in Lake Forest and since 1995 has been head softball coach at Lake Forest High School. Before that, she clearly left her mark as an …

As Caryn Alexander explains it, the Northern Illinois University basketball coaches spotted her 18 blocked shots in a Chicago newspaper but refused to believe it. No one gets 18 blocks in one game. Well, perhaps Alexander did when she played sports. When those gaudy numbers appeared again in the paper, the NIU coaches agreed to check out Alexander. Of course they believed those numbers at Highland Park High School. "She was a basketball coach's heaven,'' said Highland Park's former basketball coach Chuck Schramm. "She was 20 points, 20 rebounds and 20 blocked shots. She was just super." …