Story posted Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Kipp Kicked-Off Coaching Career At Maine South
Many Maine West sports fans and community members probably don't know this, but girls basketball coach Derril Kipp is connected indirectly with another historic hoops moment in area history.
He was the freshman boys basketball coach at Maine South in the 1978-79 season, when the boys varsity team, coached by Quitman Sullins and George Verber, won the state championship.
Kipp taught one year at Plano High School downstate and then moved to the Chicago area and got a job teaching at the former Maine North. "I wanted to coach basketball then, but you could have only one coaching job at a time, and there were no coach openings in 1978, when I came there, so I just taught for a year," Kipp recalled Friday in the celebration of his 700th career coaching win.
"Then I was transferred to Maine South when Maine North closed, and I was able to coach the freshman team for a couple of years. The next year, 1981, Gene Zuccarini resigned as Maine West girls basketball coach to concentrate on coaching golf, and I got the girls basketball job." ---Dwight Esau
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