CHAMPAIGN —A hometown hero helped the University of Illinois men’s basketball team make it to the Final Four.
Before he became a point guard for the Illini, senior Kylan Boswell went to Edison Middle School in Champaign.
Marc Changnon was the eighth-grade basketball coach at Edison. He said Boswell stood out in sixth grade for his skills — and for how unselfish and caring he was.
“He was always looking to help other players, always looking to include other people,” Changnon said. “It was, ‘How can I make you look better? How can I make you better? How can I get the ball to you for a better basket?'”
Boswell could already dribble up and down the gym with either hand or while passing the basketball between his legs. Changnon said the fifty other students gaped when they saw it. The coaches wanted to recruit the sixth grader to the eighth-grade team immediately, but it wasn’t permitted.
Boswell was also a leader in the classroom. While Marc Changnon guided Boswell on the court, his wife, Janis Changnon, taught him sixth grade social studies.
“He was a quiet leader, a strong leader in a quiet way. Not boastful, not braggy. He was a good role model for the other kids his age,” Janis Changnon said.
She said she appreciated how respectful he was and noticed how much the other students liked him.
Boswell went to Urbana Middle School for seventh and eighth grade and then moved to California for high school. He was recruited back to Champaign-Urbana to play for U of I last year.
Janis Changnon said when Boswell came back to town to play for U of I, he got in touch with her and said he still remembers the classes she taught about Mesopotamia. She was touched that he remembered after so long.
The U of I men’s basketball team plays the University of Connecticut on Saturday in the Final Four March Madness tournament.