Created: Friday, June 25, 2010 12:03 a.m. CST Updated: Friday, June 25, 2010 12:05 a.m. CST FONT SIZE:   Fiedorowicz leaves legendary legacy
Mike Dixon grew to appreciate those times when he was hanging out with friends and one of the group would excuse himself. It was the biggest one, the kid with the freakish athletic skills and the insatiable appetite. C.J. Fiedorowicz constantly felt the need for more training. “We’d be there and C.J. would say, ‘I have to go work out,’ ” said Dixon, Fiedorowicz’s lifelong friend and teammate. Even when Fiedorowicz would vacation at the Dixon family’s summer home near Minocqua, Wis., they had to go work out. “We found a weight room at Lakeland High School up there, so we’d always go lift in the morning,” Dixon said. “We were sophomores, and we were up there, getting away from it all, and he still wanted to go lift. That’s one of my best memories of him. He was always thinking about getting better.” That desire, along with Fiedorowicz’s immense physical attributes, made him difficult to contain, regardless of the season. Fiedorowicz, who is 6-foot-6, 250 pounds, was the Northwest Herald Football Player of the Year last fall and was an All-Area first-team selection in basketball. Fiedorowicz finished his illustrious high school career with 11 varsity letters in four sports and, fittingly, is the Northwest Herald 2010 Male Athlete of the Year. For the honor, Dr. Steven Rochell of Crystal Lake Orthopaedics will contribute $2,500 to Johnsburg’s athletic department. The Rochell Foundation began its donations to the Female and Male Athlete of the Year winners’ schools in 1993 and has since donated $90,000 to area schools. Fiedorowicz and his sister, Paige, the 2007 Female Athlete of the Year, are the third brother-sister duo to win awards. Harvard’s Tracy Leyden (1989) and Mike Leyden (1991) and Cary-Grove’s Kevin Kaplan (1999) and Amy Kaplan (2002) are the others to do it. “I have no regrets,” said C.J. Fiedorowicz, the first Johnsburg male to win the award. “Football was one of the most fun years, being captain and making a deep playoff run. Then we went far in basketball, too.” The Skyhawks were 8-4 in football and advanced farther than any other Johnsburg team, losing to Richmond-Burton in the Class 4A quarterfinals. In basketball, Fiedorowicz and Dixon, both four-year varsity starters, led the Skyhawks to a 27-3 record and to the IHSA Class 3A Vernon Hills Sectional championship game, where they lost to St. Viator. Fiedorowicz caught 44 passes for 889 yards and 15 touchdowns in football, and averaged 16 points and 8.1 rebounds a game in basketball. Skyhawks basketball coach Luke Ravlin, who resigned after the season, said one of the best things about Fiedorowicz was his selfless attitude. “It was never really about him,” Ravlin said. “He just wanted to have fun and win. He didn’t care who scored the points.” Fiedorowicz lettered his freshman and sophomore years in baseball as a spring sport, then went to state in track as a junior. He thought about track again as a senior, which would have given him 12 varsity letters, but opted to start his workouts for playing football at Iowa. He lifted and worked with his speed and agility trainer, Chris Leathers, from Davis Speed Center, this spring. On June 13, Fiedorowicz left Johnsburg for Iowa City to live in an apartment with juniors Trent Mossbrucker, Greg Castillo and James Vandenberg and work out with the Hawkeyes. “I’ve never sweated so much,” Fiedorowicz said. “They push me so much harder than I’ve ever been pushed. These guys are all as strong as me, so that makes me want to do better.” Fiedorowicz wants to step in and start as a true freshman, something Johnsburg football coach Barry Creviston believes is quite realistic. “He can do whatever he wants,” Creviston said. “They play a lot of two right ends and if he can grasp the offense, he’s going to figure in there somewhere.” Creviston and Fiedorowicz looked at the numbers some tight ends produced at the NFL Combine in bench, long jump, vertical jump and bench press, and Creviston said Fiedorowicz already compared with what they were doing. He cranked out 20 repetitions at 225 pounds on the bench press right after the combine. “He’s a workout junkie,” Creviston said. “It was a joy to coach a player of that caliber.” Fiedorowicz’s legend began to grow even before he reached high school. He was so much bigger and stronger than other children and hit mammoth home runs and struck out batters at will as a pitcher. In the seventh grade, Dixon remembers he and Fiedorowicz were playing with the varsity team in a summer league and C.J. threw down his first dunk in a game. The legacy Fiedorowicz leaves is enormous. If Fiedorowicz is not the best athlete ever to ever come out of McHenry County, he certainly is on the short list. But he would never say that himself. “I’m not like that, I don’t like showing off,” Fiedorowicz said. “It feels good to know I achieved a lot of stuff and helped out my teams.” VOTING RESULTS Here was the voting from the Northwest Herald sports staff for Male Athlete of the Year. |
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