Standing on a makeshift stage, a Dyett High School banner over his head, Jamaal Gill briefly paused his speech Friday as he looked out at the hundreds of cheering students celebrating the basketball team’s state championship — the school’s first ever.
“It’s been a wonderful season for us, but we couldn’t have done it without you all — all the students, all the parents, teachers, staff,” said Gill, the team’s head coach, his voice cracking. “This is a collective effort, and I’m gonna cut this short because I’m a crybaby.”
“Let’s make it a two-peat,” a player called out over the cheers.
For the school and its surrounding neighborhoods of Washington Park and Bronzeville, though, victory has never been just about the trophy. Dyett’s journey to becoming 2A state champions has the makings of a classic Cinderella story after they defeated Belleville Althoff 52-41 at the University of Illinois’ State Farm Center in Champaign on March 15.
A decade ago, Chicago Public Schools had slated Dyett to close, when its last graduating class had only 13 seniors enrolled and gym classes were held online, years before the pandemic brought remote schooling into the zeitgeist.
But after 12 people underwent a 34-day hunger strike in 2015, the pinnacle of a yearslong protest by community leaders determined to keep a neighborhood school, the district reversed its decision. The following year, Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts opened its doors to about 150 freshmen.
With this background in mind, the team’s success has in some ways become a community celebration, and a testament to the school’s resilience.
“Their hard work kept us alive, gave us hope,” said Aramis Brown Jr., the team’s co-captain. “I look at us as state champions like complimenting them and saying, ‘Thank you for fighting, thank you for your fight,’ because now we’re making it worth your fight.”
34-day hunger strike to state championship
Parrish Brown Jr. was in the stands at State Farm Center, cheering on his beloved Eagles. Indeed, he’s had a front row seat to the school’s rise from the ashes this whole time.
Brown was Dyett’s 2014 class valedictorian. When he graduated, there were about 40 students left, compared with the 125 he started with as a freshman. At its lowest, Dyett had just 13 seniors in the building.
Now 28, Brown recalled his part in activism to keep the school open, including sit-ins at City Hall, holding news conferences and delivering an education plan to the U.S. Department of Education.
“It just shows how powerful we are,” he said. “To hear the young people just be excited to hear about the story, and it just really helps them talk about how they can fight the things that they want to see. Because there’s always things that we can do to improve our schools.”
Dyatt remembered the rumors about the school’s closure began when he first stepped into Dyett — his neighborhood school — as a freshman in 2010.
CPS officials announced a year later that they would phase out Dyett over three years due to declining enrollment and academic performance. After former Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011, the district closed dozens of neighborhood schools and opened more charter and themed schools, such as military academies.
During that phaseout period, Brown said the school stopped accepting freshmen students and pulled resources. For example, a program that paired seniors with freshmen to talk about career resources ended, and students took gym and art classes online, Brown said.
“It was really heavy,” Brown said.
Then came 2015, when a group of residents, which included now-Mayor Brandon Johnson, staged a 34-day hunger strike to pressure CPS to reopen Dyett. The following school year, Dyett reopened as an arts-focused neighborhood high school, with $14 million worth of renovations and new teachers specializing in dance, visual arts and digital media programs.
The arts focus is partly a tribute to the school’s namesake, Walter H. Dyett, a Chicago high school teacher and jazz musician who mentored famous musicians such as Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington.
Dyett’s facilities and offerings are “extremely different” now compared to when he was a student, Brown noted. He’s a restorative culture practitioner with Good Lookin Out, and works in three CPS schools, including Dyett. There’s a music studio, production room and better access to tutoring programs and advanced placement programs, he said.
As part of his job, he said he ran unity circles with the basketball team to help the players build stronger relationships with each other. He said he was inspired by the players’ teamwork.
“We were sitting in circle, and they were like, ‘We’re gonna win a state championship,’ That was in the fall of 2024 and spring 2025, that’s what they did,” Brown said.
“They talked about getting their grades up. They talked about coming to school, holding each other accountable,” Brown added. “They did those things so that they can be able to play and win the championship.”
Shannon Bennett is executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, the group that led the hunger strike and other activism alongside students, who he said approached the nonprofit for help. He also previously was an assistant coach for the basketball team. He used one word to describe this season — “magic.”
To Bennett, their success also gives “credence to the power of community” and the “community fight for self-determination.” Dyett was the last open-enrollment high school in the neighborhood, he said.
The hunger strikers didn’t know the future students who would attend the school, but were willing to go through with the protest anyway, Bennett said. He said he thinks back to the four seniors who had to travel to play basketball at a different school a decade ago when there weren’t enough players to fill a roster.
“We’re a little powerhouse,” Bennett said. “A little school like Dyett doesn’t have the resources and recognitions and sponsorships, but goddamn it we’re representing the city right now, the heart of Chicago. Nobody would have expected this.”
‘A heck of a game’
To prepare for the state final, players and coaches reviewed film and spent hours poring over their strengths and weaknesses, Gill said.
In the semifinal on March 13, Dyett defeated Peoria Manual 54-50. Gill said he knew his team had to come “well-prepared,” and worked out a plan to limit touches for Manual’s star player.
A write-up of the semifinal game in the Sun-Times noted Dyett’s “balanced” and “unselfish” approach. Gill said he doesn’t often draw plays for specific players, saying they’re a “read and react team” and everyone “has the ability to make something happen.” The most challenging part of the season, Gill said, was managing egos.
“I teach kids how to play, not a play,” he said.
During Saturday’s championship game, the team caught its “spark” after halftime, said Brown, the co-captain. Their opponent’s star player had to sit out for about 10 minutes with foul trouble, and the Eagles’ points climbed.
Senior Jayden McKinnon said when Dyett came out pretty slow, doubt crept up in his mind. He said he adopted the mindset that it’s either “win or go home,” leading the team with 17 points in their 52-41 win. He also was selected to the All-Tournament team.
“(He) played a heck of a game,” Gill noted.
McKinnon said Dyett didn’t necessarily play to its full potential, but their effort kept them in the game. Dyett was the only Chicago Public League team to make the state finals this season, a responsibility McKinnon didn’t take lightly.
“It felt amazing to represent CPS and just having all the attention and support behind us, it felt great going into our last couple of games,” he said. “I feel like it actually helped us, knowing that we got all the support … everybody got us, everybody wanted us to win.”
Throughout the season Gill said the players have joked that they basically feel like “small NBA players” because of the community’s overwhelming support. Gill said the games were sold out and they raised more money than ever this year for uniforms and other odds and ends.
“For those people to just sit out there without food or water to keep open a school means a lot,” Gill said, referencing the 2015 hunger strike. “And the kids are very thankful, and that’s why we haven’t had many issues in our attendance. Those kids want that Dyett experience.”
‘Beautiful moment’
For Dyett’s principal, Dori Butler, it’s serendipitous that the school year was branded “the year of the champion” — “champion students, champion mindset, being our best selves.” She called the win a “beautiful moment.”
Dyett is one of 20 “sustainable community schools,” a model operated in partnership by CPS and the CTU, in which community organizations provide wraparound academic, health and social support beyond the traditional school day. The mayor has indicated that the program should significantly expand.
Dyett, unlike most other schools in the program, has avoided steep enrollment declines that the pandemic accelerated across the city, as reported in Chalkbeat Chicago. The school has near capacity enrollment of around 500 students as of 2024, according to the Illinois Report Card.
School closures became a hot-button issue again recently amid the contentious negotiations for a new teachers union contract. The Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously last year to halt school closures until 2027.
In particular, Butler said she’s enjoyed watching the growth of the seniors on the team, and said she has a lot of pride watching them represent CPS at the state level. She added that many of the players are as much stars in the classroom as they are on the court, with high GPAs and involvement in other extracurricular activities.
“I’m just extremely happy for everyone and these young men, their dedication, their commitment, they deserve it all,” she said.
The team met with Johnson Thursday morning at City Hall, gathering around his desk in his wood-paneled ceremonial office. The mayor expressed how “proud” he was of the students, saying he’s “a little extra emotional today.”
“I believed in you then, before I knew you. And I certainly believe in you now,” he said. “You’re champions. We’ve always known that about us. But the rest of the world gets to see that when we invest in you all, the city reaps the benefit of it. You brought the city a championship, you put the city’s reputation on your shoulders.”
Martin Luther King Jr. once walked into this same office, Johnson told the team. He urged the players to apply for the city’s youth summer jobs program. Then he shared a proclamation — it was Walter H. Dyett High School Boys’ Basketball Day in the city. They looked at one another in stunned excitement. “That’s huge,” one player shouted.
Joining the hunger strike pushed him further into politics, Johnson said. At the time, he got arrested for blocking City Hall’s elevators. It was a “tremendous honor and joy” to host the champions from a school once left for dead, he said.
“And those elevators that I took an arrest for on you all’s behalf are now held for a Black man,” he said. “We don’t apologize for that, right. It ain’t many Black men that have elevators held for them. But today, it’s a whole bunch of Black boys that get to come up those elevators that are designed for the people of Chicago.”
Johnson later told the Tribune that Dyett’s achievements is “proof positive” that the sustainable community schools model works, and that a school can experience “tremendous success” when the community supports them.
“Clearly it is a much better program than school privatization, takeovers and turnarounds that have left an incredible amount of terror and anxiety in our city,” he said.
‘The challenge was proving it’
Gill has coached Dyett’s basketball team for nine years, while working as the school’s athletic director and head of security. Throughout his tenure, Dyett won four regional championships and five conference championships, among other accolades. However, this season has been unconventional in some ways, Gill said.
Many of the seniors on the team — there’s 10 — have played basketball since their freshman year, and while Gill said all the kids he’s coached are special, this “group was a little different.”
“We had a lot of different personalities,” Gill chuckled. “As a head coach that can become difficult at times, but for the most part these guys bonded in a special way, and things have just taken off from there.”
He also commended the seniors’ academic talent. Gill said they all take part in student government and community service, including handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and toys at Christmas through the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. He hopes these experiences help them understand the “importance of community and family” while in college.
At the beginning of the season, Gill said he recognized that he had a “strong team,” and decided to seek out tournaments outside of the city, including one in Kentucky and another in downstate Centralia. Playing games against larger, high-quality schools helped prepare Dyett for the state run, Gill said.
“We knew we could compete,” Gill said. “The challenge was proving it — not just to others, but to ourselves.”
Brown, a senior, remembers the practices the team spent running at Washington Park or lifting weights. Even if they couldn’t shoot hoops, because various sports at the school shared the gym, he said Gill always gave them some task to up their game. He said Gill pushed him on and off the court, from scoring more points to “handling situations like a man.”
“If it’s even like ‘hey coach I need a couple dollars,’ he’ll give it to you. He takes care of us,” Brown said. “We made it work.”
Senior Rickey Coleman said he felt like the team had potential the past four years to make a state tournament appearance, but this season was the perfect timing. He said they sometimes struggled holding onto leads in the second half of games, but figured out how to execute by the end of the season.
“When we first won, it didn’t feel real to me. It was unbelievable,” Coleman said Wednesday of their state final win. “It kind of just kicked in today, knowing that was my last year of high school basketball, and we went out with a state champ title.”
Chicago Tribune’s Jake Sheridan contributed.
