Two of a Kind - Tim Brasic and Shatone Powers

Riverside-Brookfield's Tim Brasic (left) and
Shatone Powers were two of the state's
top multi-sport stars.

Multi-sport Stars

By Frank Rusnak
Riverside-Brookfield housed perhaps the state's two best multi-sport athletes this past year in 6'2" guards Tim Brasic and Shatone Powers.

While Brasic was an all-state quarterback with a five wide-out set, he broke numerous IHSA passing records. His main target was Powers, who caught 106 passes for 1,250 yards breaking the state record.

On the hardwood, they were almost as effective, giving the basketball team life with its first regional title since 1974.

Brasic averaged 17 points, eight assists and seven rebounds his senior year and was only the second Suburban Prairie Conference four-year all-conference player in history (Pierre Pierce, currently at Iowa and originally from Westmont, was the other). While Brasic never played football until his freshman year, his first love was always basketball.

While with the Bulldogs, [Powers] suffered a broken wrist before his sophomore season, but continued to play the first three games...

Powers, as well, had always first had a deep love for basketball prior to football coming into his life. He transferred to R-B midway through his freshman year from Proviso East -- think of the backcourt with him Dee Brown, Charles Richardson and Shannon Brown. While with the Bulldogs, he suffered a broken wrist before his sophomore season, but continued to play the first three games of the season with a broken wrist then didn't play again until after Christmas. His senior season he averaged 21 points, five rebounds and four assists with a career-high 40 points versus Evergreen Park. It was Powers' buzzer beating shot that allowed the Bulldogs to advance past cross-town rival Lyons Township to garner them its regional title.

While both wanted to pursue their collegiate careers together at the same institution, it was not meant to be.

While Powers fell in love with Northern Illinois -- for football -- Brasic was right on his heels. Allegedly, Brasic signed half of the National Letter of Intent to NIU while his father, who signed half of Minnesota's Letter of Intent, refused to sign the opposing half to Northern -- where he went to school at. With Brasic's father hoping the Big Ten was in the future for his son, Brasic eventually decided to walk-on at Illinois, where a scholarship eventually opened up for him.

While they are both expected to concentrate on their football careers in college, they are definitely two cases that -- if they focused on hoops -- they could've went D1 for the roundball.

Three others that would've had a chance to obtain a D1 scholarship for basketball, but choose other paths are Rockford Boylan's 5'11" point guard Steve Harris who accepted a football scholarship to Illinois, Walther Lutheran's 6'2" combo guard Bo Flowers who accepted a baseball scholarship to Arizona State and New Trier's 6'4" shooting guard Ted Rosinski who will play baseball at UIC.