Loyola Academy’s Eddie Trapp gets ready to toss a bounce pass during earlier action this season. PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGE PFOERTNER
Marlene Ren, a teacher, wanted to flap a green poster of an exclamation point above her head more than she did at a Loyola Academy boys basketball game last weekend. The poster had been one of three designed for Ramblers senior guard Eddie Trapp on Teacher Appreciation Night. The other two green posters featured Chinese characters.
The general translation of the trio of posters, hoisted occasionally by a pair of LA students and Ren: “Go, Eddie!”
Ren teaches Chinese at the academy. Trapp, when healthy, nails three-pointers and shuts down offensive threats for the academy’s boys hoops team. Trapp is a student in one of Ren’s classes and chose to recognize one of his favorite teachers before the start of the Marmion Academy-Loyola Academy game on Feb. 5.
Trapp, alas, played for only a couple of minutes in LA’s 61-44 home victory because of shoulder and hip injuries. He rarely sat, though, typically popping off the bench to stand and clap for a Ramblers basket or a caused turnover or to greet a teammate coming out of the game.
“Smart guy, funny guy, always smiling,” Ren, wearing a maroon Loyola Academy boys practice jersey (No. 13, Trapp’s number), said from her seat in the bleachers during halftime. “Eddie asked me, in class [on Feb. 3], to attend this game. I was happy he did.”
Trapp guarded Evanston junior guard Nojel Eastern on Jan. 19. Eastern was not happy he did. Eastern, highly ranked in just about every Class of 2017 prep hoops national rankings list, is a 25-30-point threat each game. He scored seven points against Loyola Academy, only five when matched up against Trapp. Evanston won the game, 46-31. Trapp won the challenging one-on-one test, convincingly.
“Eddie is having a very good season for us,” Ramblers coach Tom Livatino said. “He’s doing a very good job guarding outstanding players. Our expectations of him this season were to be a lockdown defender and make open shots. Eddie had an OK summer and a very good fall. This winter he’s getting better and better and better, guarding his tail off, being a senior leader, doing it all. He is he best conditioned player we’ve had here in seven years.
“Eddie is doing what we need him to do.”
Need a trey? Call on Trapp, a native of Wilmette and a St. Joseph School graduate. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound guard had taken 62 three-pointers through Feb. 5. He had made 31 of them, a tidy success rate of 50 percent. Trapp had taken 10 shots from two-point terrain, connecting eight times. Steady. Tidy plus steady equals uber-dependable in basketball math. He is averaging a little more than six points per game for an 11-12 squad.
“I’m an energy guy,” Trapp said. “I try to bring as much energy as I can to each game, try to encourage my teammates every chance I get. If there’s a loose ball, I’m on the floor, looking to get it. Charges … I’ll take those; they can change the tone in a game. Name a play in basketball, any play. An energy play is as impactful as any play in basketball is.”
There’s a player named Liz Satter on Loyola Academy’s girls basketball team. She is 6-foot-2, University of Penn-bound, averaging 17 points per game, a two-time all-Girls Catholic Athletic Conference pick, capable of dominating inside and breaking the will of a team with her three-point shooting. Satter plus basketball-in-Satter’s-hands equals impact. Additional basketball math.
One of Satter’s cousins: Trapp.
“She’s killing it,” Trapp, bound for the University of Colorado-Boulder (to study business), said of the Glencoe resident. “She’s a really good shooter. I try to go to as many of her games as I can.”
One of Trapp’s major hoops influences in his early years was Justin Welke, now the men’s basketball coach at Harper College in Palatine. Welke coached grade-school basketball at St. Joseph School. Trapp was a part of his very first defensive trap at the school. Trapp trained extensively with Welke after his eighth-grade season, ran and shot and caused turnovers for travel teams and joined the New Trier feeder program. (The Loyola Academy feeder program had yet to be hatched).
Welke once helped Trapp find a summer job.
“We connected really well,” Trapp said. “A nice guy, one of the nicest guys. We constructed this website, one that helped junior college basketball players look for opportunities [at the Division I level]. Great guy, Coach Welke. And he’s a dentist. I’m thinking of going to him. I’m thinking of making an appointment with him.”
It makes sense.
Eddie Trapp had cut his basketball teeth under the guidance of Coach/Dr. Welke.
Notable: Loyola Academy senior guard Brandon Danowski poured in 22 points, 18 from three-point hardwood, in LA’s 61-44 defeat of visiting Marmion Academy on Feb. 5. Ramblers junior forward Ramar Evans hit for 18 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds. Danowski and Evans were named to the all-Chicago Catholic League Team on Feb. 7, Danowski earning the distinction for the second year in a row. Ramblers junior Julian DeGuzman finished with seven points and five boards in the win over the Cadets. Classmate Jack Martinus had a six-point, five-rebound game. LA trailed 19-12 after one quarter and led 31-25 at the half.