Recently in Waukegan High sports Category

Reading and writing about Grant High girls track star Bailey Wagner winning state titles in three different years was the talk of The Locker Room until we started talking about the only area athlete to win girls track state titles in FOUR different years.

Whatever happened to Shakedia Jones, who was a sprint star at UCLA, and tried to make the U.S. Olympic Team in 2000 and 2004, only to be victimized both times by legendary cheater Marian Jones?

Back in the day, word was that Shakedia was going to become a doctor, but she doesn't surface on google for anything after her loses to legendary cheater Marian Jones in the 2004 Olympic Trials.

Waukegan High athletic director Dave Perkins may be way, way, way too conservative for some tastes, and may be a stickler for the letter of the IHSA law in a community in which we're pretty used to following the spirit of the law.

But you've got to give the guy credit for focusing on the all-important job of making sure as many of our Bulldog athletes as possible get to put their athletic skills to use at the collegiate level.

One of the key things a high school athletic program can do is make sure a school's student-athletes get a chance to take their game and brain to the next level.

In just one year on the job, Perkins has made a special point of making sure that happens ... and Waukegan's student-athletes -- now and in future years -- will benefit from it by getting an all-important college education.

So while Perkins sadly continues to not lead the bandwagon to get lights and artificial turf for the school's football field, our Bulldog cap is tipped in his direction for putting the school's student-athletes in position to succeed at the next level.