05/13/2024
Dear Current and Future DGN Hoops Families,
This post is written on behalf of the greater DGN Hoops Boys and Girls communities, from the Wolfpack program through the high school coaches. We are here to address the importance of Wolfpack’s Winter season as DGN basketball’s feeder program.
We strongly believe that the Winter season is the time to come together as a team that will compete from 4th grade on up through high school. Outside of the Winter “team” season, there are ample opportunities during the Spring and Summer to improve your individual skills, whether they be through summer camps, AAU programs, or developmental companies.
In 2015, the Wolfpack program was adopted by both the boys and girls as DGN’s dedicated feeder program. 4th-8th grade Wolfpack teams compete each Winter. Since the adoption of Wolfpack, the programs have experienced the best decade of sustained success in the 100+ year history of the school. The success was built on a foundation of community involvement, from players to parents to coaches. The joy of all involved has infected the greater Downers Grove community, resulting in conference championships, sold out Friday night home games, painting the UIC Pavillion purple for a Super Sectional, and taking the whole town downstate for the first time in school history.
The players and families that have grown up together and lived through the aforementioned journeys will tell you that it all began with Wolfpack (see testimonial videos below). There is nothing more rewarding than sharing these successes with your friends, neighbors, and classmates. Unfortunately, the movement of players toward profit based programs robs players and families of this community experience. Nowadays, very few kids are fortunate enough to develop camaraderie and friendships through high level basketball in their hometown… But that’s because very few kids are fortunate enough to grow up in a village like Downers Grove.
Downers Grove is a special community. You chose DG for good reason, and the Wolfpack program is yet another benefit that elevates this town above others. We have the infrastructure and coaching experience to do something many communities simply are not capable of - provide a high level, community based Winter basketball experience for players beginning in 4th grade. This is all accomplished via a non-profit structure, keeping costs manageable. There are many towns that either cannot support such a program, or cannot properly develop players and teams at a high enough level, forcing families to turn to out-of-town alternatives during the Winter season. Our goal is to provide affordable and local, high level training to kids that will develop lifelong friendships with their teammates.
As a DGN community member, you have access to a Wolfpack program that is overseen by DGN coaches, most of whom have coached at the IHSA level (or higher) for around two decades. The staff has garnered 8 Coach of the Year awards. You have access to player development courtesy of “Three Level Developmental Basketball Training” & “Power Through Basketball”, run by the most decorated and experienced player development staff in the state, including multiple Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Famers, along with others who have over a decade of high school coaching experience.
Wolfpack players are friends, neighbors, and classmates. Wolfpack levels are 20-30 kids per grade, competing together and forging friendships that will last a lifetime. You are the future, and we are invested in you. We are in it for the long haul, all the way through high school and beyond. Your success is our success, and there is no monetary gain in it for us. We love this community and we find great joy in elevating it through basketball.
Wolfpack practices and home games are held in DGN’s gyms. Road games are localized against the top high school feeder programs in the state. The competition is elite. The list of collegiate and professional players both on the Wolfpack side and in the competition continues to grow, year after year.
We wholeheartedly believe that as a DGN community member, you are in a position envious to most because you effectively have the opportunity to join the DGN basketball program as early as 4th grade, via the Wolfpack. You have access to the coaches, the facilities, and the expertise now.
You have an elite level, home grown, non-profit youth basketball Winter program right in your own backyard. The Winter is the time to grow together as a team, in parallel with the high school season, with the goal of putting on that DGN uniform some day. In full transparency, we believe that the better experience we can provide you, the more success you will have, and that will lead to more success at the high school level and beyond. We want nothing more than to share in your successes throughout that journey. And all the while, we will continue to strengthen and lift up our community through the connections, friendships, and experiences we share… and maybe we’ll even celebrate a few more championships along the way!
GO PACK!
GO TROJANS!
